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Featured
Book Review
Take Me Out to the Ballpark
by Josh Leventhal
 Josh Leventhal's ambitious book really does make the attempt to present a lot of information about ballparks in a creative way -- but, frankly, other books accomplish the task in a more professional and complete manner.
The first thing that you will notice about "Take Me Out To The Ballpark" is the shape of the book itself. The cover and the pages are indeed shaped like a baseball park, where the spine and bottom edge are straight (like the foul lines of a field) and the other edges are rounded (like the outfield wall of a symmetrical stadium). I give the author and publisher credit for a creative effort, but sometimes the rounded edges of the pages cause important portions of photographs to be cut off. It also tends to make the layout of some of the pages cluttered.
While the text is enlightening, and some attempt (although not enough for my taste) is made to provide the information in a format that is consistent from park to park, it is troubling to me to see some mistakes and questionable decision making on which photos to include. For instance, an aerial shot of old Braves Field on page 20 is printed upside down (the airplane carrying the photographer was obviously beyond centerfield looking back toward home plate -- but the photo is printed on the page with home plate at the bottom of the shot). Even worse, a beautiful color shot of Camden Yards is printed backwards (i.e., the negative was turned the wrong way, making the mirror image of the scene appear in print) on page 15.
Regarding the decision making on which photos to include, I offer the two-page spread on "Minor League Ballparks of the Midwest" as an example. First, I don't understand the criteria employed to select exactly which parks are included in such sections. Second, one of the four parks highlighted in this section is the fairly unremarkable Midway Stadium in St. Paul -- yet two photos of it are shown here, plus it is the stadium that adorns the front (and back) cover of the book itself. There are also two shots of Victory Field in Indianapolis, yet both shots show similar orientations of the scenery. And worst of all, there are no shots of John O'Donnell Stadium in Davenport, even though it is one of the four parks highlighted in this section. O'Donnell, which sits right on the banks of the Mississippi River, provides one of the best views in all of baseball (hence it
once being included in BASEBALLPARKS.COM's "Ten Must-See Parks" list), yet there are no photos at all of this
park in "Take Me Out To The Ballpark."
To be fair, there is a lot of enjoyable information in this book. The parks of the Majors are well covered, and features on upcoming parks are also included. However, there are several other books I would recommend more highly than this one. For instance, "The Ballpark Book" by Ron Smith and published by The Sporting News, is more complete, better organized and more graphically pleasing -- and it's every bit as up-to-date. And on the
topic of ballpark history, "Diamonds -- The Evolution of the Ballpark" by Michael Gershman and "Lost Ballparks" by Lawrence Ritter are more enlightening. And perhaps the best book ever written on baseball parks is "Green Cathedrals" by Philip Lowry, although this book, sadly, is now out of print.
So while "Take Me Out To The Ballpark" has a great deal of interesting information and quite a few excellent photos of new and old parks, there are better books out there on
ballparks.
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