Book Review: The End of Baseball, by Peter Schilling Jr

History gives the writer rich fields to plant the seeds of inspiration in. Authors such as John Jakes and James Michener have built their names on books like "The North and South Trilogy," "Texas," and others.

There are others, like Harry Turtledove, who've staked their claim on what could've been in the field of alternative history. Peter Schilling, Jr. takes both fields and applies them to the grand old game of baseball in "The End of Baseball."

Bill Veeck, the maverick baseball owner who was always looking for the big show, the grand spectacle to bring people to the park, reportedly attempted to buy the Philadelphia Phillies in 1942 and stock the team with Negro League stars, breaking the color line, five years before Jackie Robinson. Commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis, ever the open-minded one, put the kibosh on that plan before it took off.

Schilling's book twists the story a little bit to lay the groundwork of his novel: What if, he posits, it was 1944, Veeck secures the backing to buy the Philadelphia Athletics, and he goes ahead with the Negro League plan...and it worked?

What if Veeck was able to bring together a roster that would include the ageless Satchel Paige, a man so enamored of his talents that he would often tell his fielders to sit down so he could strike out the side, and, more often than not, succeeded? As his battery mate, why not Josh Gibson, the man whom many said had power to match if not exceed Babe Ruth?

Why not Monte Irvin, the precursor to Willie Mays, with the ability to do it all on the diamond? Or future Hall of Famer Roy Campanella to back up Gibson? Or Cool Papa Bell, of whom it was said was so quick, he could turn off the lights and be in bed before it got dark?

In the book, Veeck figures this team can do no wrong, while the rest of the world does their level best to make sure it does. Throughout the 1944 season, other teams kick the A's radio team out of the booth, Landis sicced the city building inspectors on Shibe Park to find any and all violations (and make them up if necessary), heck, he even cancelled the All-Star Game to avoid having to give the black A's a national stage to show their goods, using wartime restrictions as a smokescreen. All of the above is just the short list.

And the pressures from within the team may have been worse. In addition to having the hopes of an entire race on them, the Communist Party tries to get them to help their cause at the behest of pitcher Dave Barnhill, members of the team are arrested, and, just to pile on, they have to deal with Paige's out-of-control ego and Gibson's addiction to heroin, again, just to name a few.

Schilling is painstakingly detailed, from manager Mickey Cochrane's mental issues over the death of his son in World War II, to Veeck's artificial leg (a gift from Guadalcanal), to how the Athletics would make St. Louis Browns star Vern Stephens pay for each beanball and spiked slide in a crucial series late in the book.

Because of a group of bigoted old men, baseball was possibly robbed of one of its greatest teams ever, right up there with the 1927 Yankees or 1929 Athletics. Peter Schilling, Jr. takes the time machine to bring us the next best thing, and in the process, writes a gripping novel that diehard fans and those in search of a great story alike will love.