cover image When the Cheering Stops: Ex-Major Leaguers Talk about Their Game and Their Lives

When the Cheering Stops: Ex-Major Leaguers Talk about Their Game and Their Lives

Lee Heiman. MacMillan Publishing Company, $18.95 (308pp) ISBN 978-0-02-550765-4

The 22 baseball players whose autobiographical sketches make up this unimpressive volume played in the big leagues before the era of the superstars. Names such as Clem Labine, Dale Long, Elroy Face will be recognizable to fans of the game from the late '40s through the '60s. The title's implication that the players concentrate here on their post-baseball adjustments to life is misleading: most discuss their playing careers at length and append only a few paragraphs abut what they did after the cheering stopped. The majority had made few plans about what they would do and found the transition difficult, but managed to survive and, in some cases, to achieve success in other fields, ranging from college coaching to carpentry. These firsthand reports of baseball as played when the rules of the game were the same but the ``structure of the sport'' was very different are likely to generate interest but little enthusiasm. Photos not seen by PW. (Mar.)