Tips for Tuesday: Books: It's All About the Players & Broadway in Black & White

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Books: It's All About the Players & Broadway in Black & White

Today, we recommend It's All About the Players: What I've Learned From Baseball's Best by Peter Gammons. If you're a big fan of sports, especially baseball, you will love this book in which Gammons, a sportswriter, author, and baseball analyst, shares stories about some of the baseball players he's encountered throughout his illustrious career, which has already lasted over five decades. Ted Williams, Derek Jeter,  Bryce Harper, and Mookie Betts, as well as lesser-known players like Jeff Allison, are just a tiny sample of the athletes it covers. 

While it is fascinating to learn about the backgrounds of some of these athletes as well as interesting facts about them, what stands out more is learning about the kind of people they are. They are hardworking, dedicated, and devoted to their sports or their team or to appreciating the life they've been given.  

Although some of the more negative aspects of the game are mentioned, including the Pine Tar game and Pete Rose's gambling, for the most part the book focuses on the positive.  If you're sick of always hearing about the negative side of sports and professional athletes who are rude, spoiled, selfish, or otherwise unlikable, this book is the antidote. Read it if you want to be inspired and uplifted. 

Today, we recommend Broadway in Black and White: The Untold Story of the American Musical by John Mauceri and John H. McWhorter. This book covers the history of musical theater, with an emphasis on the intersection, or lack thereof, between black and white artists. It traces musicals from their earliest days, when white musicals performed for white audiences were deeply influenced by and appropriated black musical styles, through the days when shows gradually became more integrated, up to the days when shows eventually became not only integrated but more collaborative. It is extremely detailed, perhaps too much so at times. It delves quite deeply into numerous shows, including Porgy and Bess, Showboat, Ragtime, and more. It contains numerous plot spoilers, and although it may be true that some of these shows are rarely, if ever, seen nowadays, others always seem to come back around. Accordingly, if you have not seen these shows and you are hoping or planning to, you might want to skip certain chapters when reading the book. 

And that's our view. It's All About the Players was published on September 22.  Broadway in Black and White will be published next Tuesday, November 17. 

Tune in tomorrow for Where-To-Go Wednesday.

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