Furman Bisher (1918–2012)

Disclaimer: I am not much of a baseball fan, or even a sports fan, and no doubt would have enjoyed more of this book if I was. But, since my kids go to school in Granite Falls, NC, and I live just five miles from the field where The Rocks played... I had to read it.
As the subtitle makes clear, "The Rocks" is the story of the losingest team in professional baseball history. The Granite Falls Rocks played in the lower minor leagues in 1951; and that's it. They lost 96 games, and won only 14. Most of this short book details that story.
But the team actually has another, more positive claim to fame as well. In the last few weeks of the season, they were short five players, and the team owners hired five black men to play on the team. Jackie Robinson had already broken the color barrier, but no black players had been hired to any team in the South. The best part of the story is that nobody paid it much attention. The other players were glad to have them on the team, the owners wanted them, the fans (the few that were still coming to games after such a dismal season) didn't care, and the opposing teams never cared.
When Browning is telling a story, it's not bad, but there were way too many pages that got bogged down in baseball statistics for me to really enjoy the book.… (altro)