Deuce Book Review: Cooperstown Confidential

Cooperstown Confidential: Heroes, Rogues, and the Inside Story of the Baseball Hall of Fame

By Zev Chafets

Its not often that we review books here on the Deuce, mostly because we barely have enough time to run this site without having to read novels, but this one in particular caught our eye, especially in light of Major League Baseball's Hall of Fame induction weekend coming this weekend.

Any book that can humanize the revered and legendary talents in the baseball hall of fame is a welcome one, especially in light of the recent allegations for our generation's stars (you should read just to see Zev Chafets' opinions of steroids!). If you ever wanted to know the flaws of some of baseball's biggest stars in the hall of fame, this book is for you. However in finding out these flaws, you also get a healthy dose of commentary from the author about who should and shouldn't be in the hall. In addition, you also get a few other personal opinions that are great for fostering discussion in a bar, but not necessarily the facts you would want in a book about the "inside story of hall of fame". At times you wish the author would work with less opinions and more anecdotes and facts, but if he did so he might lose the entertaining and light tone that he's set throughout the book.

This book is sure to provoke many a discussion amongst baseball fans about the hall of fame and its members. Shoot, it could even cause a fight or two for its opinions on several other tangents related to baseball (there are some "interesting" discussions on race in the book that have to be read to be believed), but it is an very good, quick, read and one you should pick up if you want to instigate a few arguments and/or brawls this Hall of Fame weekend.