Whispers of the Gods: Tales from Baseball’s Golden Age, Told by the Men Who Played It by Peter Golenbock

Abstract

Reviewed by: Whispers of the Gods: Tales from Baseball’s Golden Age, Told by the Men Who Played It by Peter Golenbock R. Zachary Sanzone Peter Golenbock. Whispers of the Gods: Tales from Baseball’s Golden Age, Told by the Men Who Played It. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2022. 216 pp. $24.95. Whispers of the Gods details hundreds of hours of interviews Golenbock conducted with former major leaguers such as Roy Campanella, Roger Maris, Ted [End Page 139] Williams, Monte Irving, and Rex Barney. These interviews, which Golenbock collected over the course of a few decades, give baseball fans new insight into the lives and opinions of their heroes. Golenbock’s new book closely resembles the style of writing and research seen in Lawrence Ritter’s classic The Glory of Their Times: The Story of the Early Days of Baseball Told by the Men Who Played It, which has emerged as a classic baseball book since its publication. Golenbock acknowledges just as much in the preface where he writes, “To this day I think of The Glory of Their Times as the bible of baseball” (xi). While it’s clear that Ritter’s book had a strong influence, Golenbock, a master of the oral tradition, manages to give baseball fans new information about their heroes without repeating what other writers and scholars have already written. Golenbock, the author of several dozen baseball books, including Bums and The Bronx Zoo (coauthored with Sparky Lyle), recounts discussions with famous players like Ted Williams, who boisterously expresses his support for Shoeless Joe Jackson’s induction into the Baseball Hall of Fame. What I appreciate about this chapter is that Golenbock doesn’t really take a side in the debate. He includes details Williams recounted that both support and reject the call for Jackson’s induction. Williams recognizes that while Jackson did have the highest batting average of the 1919 World Series, he also took the gamblers’ money. While I personally don’t have a vested interest in the debate— I could take or leave Jackson— it’s worth pointing out that Golenbock doesn’t allow any bias of his own to sway readers one way or the other. This is particularly important in this day and age where current events have driven people to develop stronger than normal opinions about almost everything. Perhaps more importantly though, the consideration regarding whether Shoeless Joe Jackson belongs in the Hall of Fame or not is one of the most contentious and hotly debated discussions in baseball today. Despite the combative debate, Golenbock manages to keep any personal views of his own in check— not an easy thing to do when Shoeless Joe is the topic of discussion—and allows his subjects to speak for themselves, a sign of true, objective reporting. While Golenbock includes Hall of Famers like Ted Williams, Stan Musial, and Roy Campanella, he also includes lesser-known players like Rex Barney, who pitched for the Brooklyn Dodgers from 1943 to 1950. Despite a better- than- average major league career— he won fifteen games in 1948, including a no- hitter against the New York Giants— control issues led to an early departure from baseball. Despite a somewhat premature end to his pitching career, Barney enjoyed a second career as PA announcer for the Baltimore Orioles from 1969 until his death in 1997. Barney’s name isn’t often mentioned in the debates over who the best pitcher was of the 1940s, but that doesn’t mean he [End Page 140] didn’t play a significant role in baseball history— Barney witnessed Jackie Robinson break Major League Baseball’s color barrier in 1947. Baseball writers should appreciate these little snippets of history told by those who are all but forgotten. While figures like Red Barber, Branch Rickey, Pee Wee Reese, and Roy Campanella have discussed Robinson in great detail through their own autobiographies, in my opinion, many of those stories grow repetitive, often recounting the same details about Robinson’s integration (though that’s not to say they aren’t important). Barney was on hand to see Robinson not only integrate the game but give firsthand details about Robinson’s experiences in the minors...