COMEBACK SEASON

“When I was growing up in Mobile, Alabama,” writes baseball great Hank Aaron in the foreword, “I taught myself how to hit by swinging at bottle caps with a broomstick.” Material conditions didn’t improve for him until he joined the Indianapolis Clowns and then the Atlanta Braves. Perron’s book is timely, inasmuch as Major League Baseball recently announced that it will include records from the Negro League in its overall statistics. The author, a young White man from the Boston suburbs, has built a formidable collection of artifacts from the time. That collecting instinct was honed over a youthful obsession with Nirvana, for which he learned how to code to build a fan website, as well as a love of old coins, antiques, and other sought-after items. His Negro League collection was built bit by bit, with travels all over the country to interview elderly athletes, interactions that “were personal, meaningful, and with players who had been overlooked by others.” Perron’s attention to players such as John “Mule” Miles, who “became legendary after he hit a home run in eleven straight games,” and Bill Bethea, who worked twice as hard as his teammates until an arm injury halted his pitching career, led to many friendships. Perhaps Perron’s greatest accomplishment, apart from building a collecting company and adding tremendously to the history of the Negro League, was to secure MLB pensions for veterans. “It surely sounded too good to be true, like winning the lottery with a ticket you hadn’t even purchased,” he writes after informing Joe Elliott, a star player from the 1950s, of the windfall. Perron delivers an enthusiastic and detailed account of the players’ work, and his, and it’s a pleasure to read.

Baseball fans of whatever stripe will enjoy Perron’s homage to an organization and players too long overlooked.