The First All-Star Game: Babe Ruth, FDR, and America at the Crossroads (Randall Sullivan)

The First All-Star Game: Babe Ruth, FDR, and America at the Crossroads by Randall Sullivan recounts not just a pivotal moment in baseball history but much of the context that helped set the stage for July 1933’s “Game of the Century” in Chicago. While the book highlights many of the players and the details of the game, Sullivan spends about half of the narrative detailing baseball and American life in the 1920’s and early 1930’s.

To his credit, Sullivan avoids overwhelming the reader with statistics, instead focusing on character, motivation, and atmosphere. His descriptions of players, fans, and journalists create vivid scenes that invite readers into the era. You learn about some of the lesser-known (to today’s baseball fans) stars of the early 1930’s: guys like Lloyd and Paul Waner, Rick Farrell, and Pepper Martin. 

Some sections include extensive background information. About 200 pages dive into the backstory of baseball and America between 1919 and 1933, from the “Black Sox” scandal and appointment of Judge Kennsaw Landis as baseball’s first commissioner to the World’s Fair and America’s political environment. 

If you’re looking for a story on the All-Star game itself, this book may not be for you due to that extra context. However, as a history book that shows the connection between baseball, American life, and big city politics, The First All-Star Game is a detailed account of how the game came to take place and how a “one-time” event turned into a midsummer spectacle that has lasted nearly a century.

MY RATING: 3.5

Churchill, Roosevelt & Company (Lewis E. Lehrman)

Lewis E. Lehrman’s Churchill, Roosevelt & Company covers the stories of Winston Churchill and Franklin Roosevelt but also pulls their advisers and lower level government officials in to weave the narrative of the Americans and British during World War II.  While the Churchill-FDR relationship was unique in its flow and ebb through both men’s leadership of their respective nations, the management of that relationship and the Allied War effort by individuals such as John M. Keynes, Lord Halifax, Anthony Eden, Harry Hopkins, and Generals Marshall and Eisenhower played a more critical, substantive role in ensuring the two countries collaborated in their efforts to defeat the Axis Powers.

Lehrman compares the two leaders’ styles in managing and dealing with the Soviet Union during and especially after World War II, and shows how both countries were able to use each other (and each other’s strengths) to their advantage. The author skillfully moves between the British and Americans, weaving in tails of espionage and intrigue along the way to add extra spice to the historical narrative.

Above all, Churchill, Roosevelt & Company reinforces a most powerful lesson that all of us should remember: Relationships matter. The book shows many examples of how government policy and decision-making was influenced by interpersonal relationships by second and third level diplomats and lower level government advisers. While Churchill and FDR garnered the headlines, the dirty work in the trenches required that personal touch that Churchill and FDR were not always able to maintain during the balance of the war effort.

MY RATING - 4