Review of "Baseball’s Most Colorful Managers," by Ray Robinson

 Review of

Baseball’s Most Colorful Managers, by Ray Robinson

Four out of five stars

Unusual definition of the term colorful

 While the managers featured here were all very good at their jobs, the inclusion of two of them makes little sense. The six managers profiled in this book are Leo Durocher, Casey Stengel, Miller Huggins, Connie Mack, Wilbert Robinson and John J. McGraw. The two that are outliers are Connie Mack and Miller Huggins.

 All followers of baseball history are familiar with the images of Connie Mack in the dugout dressed in what is almost formal attire. He did not wear a baseball uniform and he was the very definition of being strait laced. His personal life was devoid of anything approaching what is normally defined as colorful within the sports world context.

 The same can be said of Miller Huggins. He lived and breathed baseball and at only five feet six inches tall, he was forced to physically stand up to Babe Ruth. Huggins was a graduate of law school  and could have practiced law, yet he chose his love of baseball over what likely would have been a successful practice. Huggins’ personal life was beyond the dull, the only woman in his life was his sister.

 The other four are of course managers of long duration that made themselves into media characters. Robinson and Stengel often bordered on the buffoonish, yet were generally successful, even though they both experienced years of failure.

 The profiles are fairly thorough, and the writing is targeted at the young adult. They are good stories of some of the men that made baseball into more than just a sport, it was truly a pastime.