Mustache Gang – Ron Bergman, 1973 ★★★

Heroes and Villains

Baseball was different not that long ago. Consider the 1972 Oakland A’s.

Blue Moon Odom, a solid veteran pitcher for the team, spent his off-season working at a store, where he was shot twice trying to stop a burglary. He recovered and went 15-6 that year.

Meanwhile, another pitcher on that same team, Vida Blue, a winner of 1971’s Cy Young and Most Valuable Player awards, patiently listened as A’s owner Charlie Finley told him: “You have as much chance of getting $115,000 from me as I do of jumping out of my office window.” The amazing part: Finley was right.

A Hard Day's Write – Steve Turner, 1999 ★★½

Words of Love

Behind every Beatles song is a story. In his cleverly-titled A Hard Day’s Write, Steve Turner runs through the complete Fab Four songbook in a manner that may not always satisfy but will certainly engage Beatles fans, and may interest more casual readers, too.

During a 14-year period that saw them go from callow teens to jaded pop stars, the Beatles crafted over 200 original songs. Simply listing all of them is no small feat. Explaining how each came to be proves more challenging.

The Two Gentlemen Of Verona – William Shakespeare, c. 1589-93 ★★

The One with the Rape

Shakespeare plays, like so much else in life, thrive or fade on how they get summed up in one line. This helps explain why The Two Gentlemen Of Verona is so forgotten today: It’s the one with the rape.

Not an actual rape, but a threatened one that is stopped and forgiven, which may make it worse. The best that can be said in the play’s favor is that when you summon the emotional investment of a marshmallow, lapses in taste and morality are more easily forgiven. Two Gentlemen Of Verona’s overall lightness is its best defense.

Cop Hater – Ed McBain, 1956 ★★★

City on the Edge of Forever

Police detectives had been crime-fiction heroes for decades, but in 1955 young writer Evan Hunter got an idea: Instead of one guy, build a story around an entire squadroom of detectives. Thus began a 49-year series of books, the 87^th Precinct novels. Cop Hater came first.

Being first can make something harder to judge on its own merits. As a seasoned 87^th reader, I can’t help but register the comfortable click of a familiar formula, a tone, and characters. But how does Cop Hater stand up as a book?

The Presidential Transcripts – The Washington Post, et. al., 1974 ★★½

Watergate in Real Time

The Watergate scandal reshaped American politics, destroyed one of the 20^th century’s most dynamic leaders, and defined an era of cynicism and paranoia. What was it like going down?

Unlike most scandals, people can hear and read this one for themselves, thanks to President Richard Nixon’s hidden tape machines. After a Senate investigating committee subpoenaed the tapes, The Washington Post, which had been covering Watergate since it was just a third-rate burglary, wasted no time printing a 693-page paperback that contained key Nixon meetings when Watergate was under discussion.