Oscar Charleston: The Life and Legend of Baseball's Greatest Forgotten Player

by Jeremy Beer

2020 SABR Seymour Medal 
2019 CASEY Award for Best Baseball Book of the Year

Buck O’Neil once described him as “Ty Cobb, Babe Ruth, and Tris Speaker rolled into one.” Among experts he is regarded as the best player in Negro Leagues history. During his prime he became a legend in Cuba and one of Black America’s most popular figures. Yet even among serious sports fans, Oscar Charleston is virtually unknown today.

In a long career spanning from 1915 to 1954, Charleston played against, managed, befriended, and occasionally fought men such as Lou Gehrig, Jimmie Foxx, Lefty Grove, Satchel Paige, Josh Gibson, Jesse Owens, Roy Campanella, and Branch Rickey. He displayed tremendous power, speed, and defensive instincts along with a fierce intelligence and commitment to his craft. Charleston’s competitive fire sometimes brought him trouble, but more often it led to victories, championships, and profound respect.

While Charleston never played in the Major Leagues, he was a trailblazer who became the first Black man to work as a scout for a Major League team when Branch Rickey hired him to evaluate players for the Dodgers in the 1940s. From the mid‑1920s on, he was a player‑manager for several clubs. In 1932 he joined the Pittsburgh Crawfords and would manage the club many consider the finest Negro League team of all time, featuring five future Hall of Famers, including himself, Cool Papa Bell, Josh Gibson, Judy Johnson, and Satchel Paige.

Charleston’s combined record as a player, manager, and scout makes him the most accomplished figure in Black baseball history. His mastery of the quintessentially American sport under the conditions of segregation revealed what was possible for Black achievement, bringing hope to millions. Oscar Charleston  introduces readers to one of America’s greatest and most fascinating athletes. 

 

Genres: Baseball, Sports, Biography, Nonfiction, History, Race, American History

456 pages, Hardcover

First published November 1, 2019

About the author

I am a principal partner at American Philanthropic, a consulting firm, and chairman of the board at the American Ideas Institute, publisher of The American Conservative magazine and website. I am an Indiana native who like so many other Hoosiers lives in Arizona. My biography of Negro Leagues legend Oscar Charleston was published on November 1, 2019, by the University of Nebraska Press.

My next project will be a biography of the Southwestern explorer, missionary, and martyr Francisco Garces. I am also in the early stages of a book on minor league baseball and a biography of Booth Tarkington. If I finish all of these in the next 10-15 years I will be a happy (or happier) man.

Reviews

[Lance · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ask most baseball fans or historians to name the best players in the history of the Negro Leagues and the immediate answers are usually Josh Gibson, Satchel Paige and Cool Papa Bell. However, if one takes a closer look at both the statistics available and the excellence of his play for a long period of time, the answer must be Oscar Charleston. Charleston's life and legacy are told in this excellent book by Jeremy Beer.

Whether one is researching Charleston's early life, his lengthy baseball career that took him to several teams' rosters or his personal life, it can be difficult to find official records and documents for him. Beer did painstaking research to paint a complex picture of a man who was not only an excellent baseball player but also held other jobs within baseball with mostly successful results. He was a player-manager for a significant portion of his playing career and his rise in this profession makes for great reading, especially the 1932 season when he was the manager of the Pittsburgh Crawfords, considered to be the best team in the history of the Negro Leagues. Of note, he also was a scout for Branch Rickey and the Dodgers in the 1940's, becoming the first black man to be hired for such a position.

Reading the book gives the reader not only a good picture of Charleston the baseball player and employee, but also of Charleston the man. He was portrayed by peers often as someone who was a trouble maker, especially with his penchant to never walk away from a fight. Beer puts that reputation to the test with other testimony to show the respect he earned from competitors, including major league stars against whom he played in barnstorming or exhibition games.

Interwoven with modern statistics calculated from the available box scores and other sources of information, one cannot help to wonder how Charleston would have fared in the major leagues had he been allowed to play. Even so, Beer paints a picture of a man who should be considered one of the greatest players ever to pick up a bat and glove. Readers who want to get an informed introduction to Oscar Charleston should pick up this book.

I wish to thank University of Nebraska Press for providing a copy of the book in exchange for an honest review.

https://sportsbookguy.blogspot.com/20...

[Rob Neyer · Rating 4 out of 5]

Utterly essential for anyone who cares about the history of Negro Leagues baseball (which is to say, anyone who cares about the history of baseball, period). Beer's research is phenomenal.

[Vincent T. Ciaramella · Rating 4 out of 5]

What a cool book! I will admit that I knew almost nothing about Oscar Charleston beyond his name before reading this book. So when the author makes the claim that he is baseball’s greatest forgotten player he is dead on.

I won’t go though a play-by-play of his life in my review but I will touch upon some of my favorites parts of the book.

1. The Hotel Leagues. I had never heard of them and just their existence makes me want to research more.

2. All the history surrounding my home town of Pittsburgh. Any Grays or Crawford’s history is right up my alley.

3. His longevity in the game.

4. The portions about barnstorming.

The reason it gets four not five stars is that when writing about Charleston’s time with the ABC’s at the beginning of the book, it started to drag. The latter part of the book was much, much better.


Overall, this was pure historical awesomeness. If you want to learn about the Negro Leagues or just baseball history, this is a great book to start with.

[Jeremy · Rating 3 out of 5]

I loved learning about Charleston and the earlier parts of the Negro Leagues in particular, as there a re a lot of gaps in knowledge that the author fills in. I wish more of the book were about Charleston's larger impact and less on box scores, but the author is candid about the lack of primary source documentation that exists. In any case, this was very illuminating.

[Gabriel Ramos · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the few baseball books i couldnt put down. I didnt know much about this baseball star, but knew Bill James had him ranked in the top 10 players ever. Great book. Must read for sports fans

[Fred · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is a resurrection. Jeremy Beer has done what seemed impossible only a few years ago. He has brought Oscar Charleston back to life, a man he correctly calls "baseball's greatest forgotten player." It is easy to see why Charleston has been forgotten. He started playing in the years before World war 1, in the Dead Ball Era, that cutthroat world of base stealing and slap singles, where games got called because of darkness, player assaulted umpires for bad calls and umpires carried guns to ward off the crowds. In this long ago world even great major league players like Ty Cobb and Tris Speaker are forgotten. But Charleston played in the Negro Leagues with little documentation and no film. He had some of his most outstanding moments playing winter ball in Cuba or barnstorming in small towns in the midwest. Still, Beers has brought Charleston back into view in part because of the work of Baseball historians finding the stats of those leagues. Along the way Beers has recreated not only the hard fought baseball in the decades before World War 2, but the Negro Leagues themselves. We can see the flannel uniforms and the asymmetrical ballparks. We travel by bus and watch players jump from team to team and league to league. Above all we see the baseball, real major league baseball played at the highest and lowest levels at the same time. Beers allows us to see Oscar Charleston, serious, deeply competitive and ambitious with 5-tool talent. By the end of the book we feel like we know this man as a ballplayer, manager, scout and legend. It is a remarkable act of historical journalism and very enjoyable.

[Jon Seals · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars

These days, most believe Oscar Charleston was probably the greatest player in Negro Leagues history. He was Willie Mays before Willie Mays – a premier power, speed, and defensive player in centerfield.

If that's true, why was he the seventh Negro Leagues player inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame?

The easy answer is timing. By the time Ted Williams mentioned Negro Leaguers during his induction speech in 1966, they talked about the *latest* Negro League stars (Satchel Paige, Josh Gibson, Cool Papa Bell). Oscar Charleston had been dead 12 years. His star had faded.

Charleston wasn't a self-promoter. He didn't have children. Two wives filed for divorce. Sports writers weren't clamoring to reminisce about his career.

Sadly, that makes this a somewhat hollow book. Lots of recounting box scores. The other stories about Charleston are the same we've read in other books about Negro Leaguers – riding busses from town to town, never knowing where they'll eat or sleep, cheap owners, and racism at every turn.

Charleston wasn't as colorful as Paige. His story isn't as heart-breaking as Gibson. He's basically Mike Trout. Great player, just not exciting for marketing purposes.

[Augusto Rojas · Rating 5 out of 5]

Exceptionally researched and well written!

What an exceptionally well researched and well written book about a player I had never heard of and now can’t find enough about him. If you are willing to dedicate some time and commit to going back in time the author will share with you the story of Oscar Charleston’s life…as he was able to cobble together from bits and pieces of articles, interviews and box scores. What a difficult task but so well done!

I think the author does a tremendous job of also putting perspective on Oscar’s life and what was going on with the various Negro Baseball Leagues across the country. The goal for so many players was to make it to the major leagues, what they didn’t realize at the time was that once that barrier was broken, their fans would no longer accept the league as it would mean accepting segregation. This is clearly illustrated in the demise of the leagues as a whole. The pain is knowing players like Oscar were never given that opportunity and their leagues collapsed around them.

I highly recommend this book, especially for the true lover of baseball.

“History is an unjust judge” - Jeremy Beer

[Steven · Rating 3 out of 5]

This biography was lovingly and extensively researched, but an overly detailed approach proved to be a problem for me as a reader. That was because there were too many instances of statistics of games, and too little said about some of the larger-than-life characters of the Negro leagues, such as Josh Gibson, Cool Papa Bell, Pete Hill and John Henry Lloyd, who were stars in the first half of the 20th century. There were too many sentences that said that Charleston went 3 for 4 and his team won 3-1, etc. This is not to say that the author's use of statistics was always problematic to me as a reader. For example, Beer noted that at age 18 Oscar was 25 percent better than the average batter (since his OPS+ was 125).

I did like the information about Oscar's army life (he enlisted at 15!) and his role in integrating the major leagues with Branch Rickey later on. Also of interest was Charleston managing two good female players and information about his training all players.

I did get a sense of Charleston's greatness as a ball player, with the comparisons with Ruth, Cobb, Speaker, Griffey Jr. and Mays. And Oscar also pitched on occasion. He might have been the fourth greatest player of all time, as Bill James stated.

The photos at the end of the book were illuminating. Don't miss them!

[Joe · Rating 4 out of 5]

“When the legend becomes fact, print the legend.” – Maxwell Scott, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valence

When it comes to Oscar Charleston, one of the greatest baseball players you probably haven’t heard of, there is as much legend as fact. Jeremy Beer does a very good job of getting to both in Oscar Charleston: The Life and Legend of Baseball’s Greatest Forgotten Player. Random thoughts:

Provenance: My string of library books continues.

Expectations: Pretty high. I’m a huge baseball fan, and knew a bit about Charleston going in, so I was excited to learn more.

The Story Oscar Charleston was one of the greatest baseball players ever – probably top ten all-time – but hardly anyone knows about him because he played in the 1920’s and 1930’s in the Negro Leagues. Beer sets out to correct this with this book detailing Charleston’s life and career.

What is remarkable, especially if you are a modern baseball fan, is the lack of statistics and records from that time. Baseball is a sport that measures everything. It is the reason why we can argue about whether Babe Ruth or Mike Trout was the better player, and have statistics to back up our argument.

Unfortunately, the Negro Leagues were not so good with keeping records. Part of that was the nature of the leagues, which were rarely well-organized. Teams played each other and some games counted toward the league standings and some games didn’t – generally at the discretion of the league organizers and what benefited their team in particular. You will read standings where teams played different numbers of games – sometimes off by a dozen or more.

It is into this milieu that Beer wades, trying to get to the facts about Charleston’s play while also recounting some of the legends that sprung up around him – he allegedly hit the longest home run in four different Negro League parks; he was so strong that he might have lifted players in the air with one hand or thrown a professional wrestler off a train. But Beer, with the help of reporters who have been scouring newspaper archives to compile Negro League statistics, also shows that Charleston was an offensive force and defensive wizard. The stories might be legend, the talent was real.

What it's really about: One of the things I took from this book was the idea of unintended consequences. While the segregation that forced the very existence of the Negro Leagues is shameful, the Leagues provided a lot of jobs and livings for the black communities which fielded teams (and also for many towns that teams would barnstorm through).

Beer makes a salient point that the integration of baseball, while absolutely the right thing to do and too long in coming, brought about the death of the Negro Leagues. And since not everyone who played or worked or coached in the Negro Leagues moved to major league baseball, this demise meant that there were actually fewer jobs in baseball for African-Americans.

Neither Beer nor I are arguing that integration was a bad thing. But I was struck by the consequences to black communities because of the changes.

Of note: Had baseball been integrated earlier, Charleston would be a much more well-known name. Not only did he dominate the Negro Leagues, finishing several seasons with a batting average over .400, but he often excelled in barnstorming games against white major leaguers that would take place in the off-season.

Baseball legends like manager John McGraw and star Tris Speaker noted that Charleston was the greatest player that they ever saw.

One legend is that Charleston was instrumental in the Dodgers’ signing Jackie Robinson, but Beer shows that this is probably untrue. However, Charleston scouted Roy Campanella extensively for the Dodgers and did influence his signing.

Picking Nits: The only nit I have to pick has nothing to do with Beer’s research or writing. It is only that accounts that would definitively describe and account for Charleston’s (and others, like Cool Papa Bell or Martin Dihigo) just don’t exist. Beer does yeoman’s work with what is out there, but there is not enough out there, and this is a shame for true fans of baseball. We don’t have the context to understand exactly how great some of the greatest players the game has seen actually were. Our history suffers for that, in my opinion.

Recommendation: Baseball fans, especially those interested in the Negro Leagues will love this book.

[Zach Koenig · Rating 5 out of 5]

Not long ago, Major League Baseball made Negro League statistics an official part of the record books. As such, I wanted to do some reading on that era and topic. This tome was about as highly rated as they come, and I now understand why. It is a supremely crafted bio of both a man--Oscar Charleston--and an era--that of the 1910s-1940s Negro Leagues.

Like any good bio this book does a solid job of covering its primary target, starting with Oscar's childhood/upbringing and concluding with his sudden (and tragic) accidental death. A lot of words are given to Oscar's prime years, in which a strong case is made that he was every bit the ballplayer that contemporaries like Ruth, Cobb, & Speaker were. He was particularly known for his remarkable outfield prowess (making acrobatic and amazing catches on a routine basis) and his aggressive nature on the basepaths. Though the leagues he played in may have lacked the overall stability of the majors at that time, volumes of new research have shown that they featured enough talent to be legitimate organizations and thus give a very clear picture of Oscar's tremendous talent.

The book then transitions into Charleston's later years, in which (while still playing some) he became known as one of the greatest Negro League managers and evaluator sof talent. He drilled his teams hard, expected fundamentally sound play, and usually got it--along with the respect of nearly all his charges.

Author Jeremy Beer also does a fine job of describing Charleston as an individual--a complex soul who was parts well-read & articulate and parts extremely temper-challenged or hot-headed. Scrapbooks and interviews paint a picture of a man who was in touch with the challenges of his times, yet also rarely complained about them.

Particularly interesting to me was the recurring theme of the Negro Leagues' overall perception. Though from a modern, integrated viewpoint it is easy to look upon them with shame or pity, the men who played for those teams/leagues didn't feel the same. They more considered themselves fortunate in those inhospitable times to be able to play baseball for a living.

There may have been a few occasions where Beer went a little deep research-wise for my tastes, but those were few and far between. Overall, he does a nearly-perfect job of capturing the essence of Charleston's existence. After reading this book, it won't just be Josh Gibson, Satchel Paige, or Cool Papa Bell that come to mind when I think about Negro League superstars. Oscar very well may have eclipsed them all.

[Ellis Knox · Rating 2 out of 5]

Exactly what the title says. Oscar Charleston may not be quite entirely forgotten, but he's certainly largely unknown to white baseball fans. And he's certainly one of the greatest men ever to have played the game.

The author has done massive research and is careful in making his case. He has to be, because the records are so spotty (Charleston played most of his career between the two world wars). I enjoyed learning about how ad hoc were the games played by black players in this era. A team would form. Maybe it would be in a league, maybe not, but the team would play a great many non-league games. It was really more like a band playing gigs wherever they could find some. Because it all meant getting paid and staying afloat just a little longer. Sometimes it wasn't even clear whether a game played between two league teams would be counted as a league game.

Charleston was an interesting figure and Beer did a good job catching my interest, but maybe I'm not the right audience here. A goodly part of many chapters is spent just sort of relating games played. Beer hits the highlights, but read enough of those sort of chapters and it all sort of ran together.

In addition, a number of baseball biographies follow a similar formula. We hear about the main character. Then we are introduced to key figures in his life: parents, wife, managers, team-mates. At each introduction, for the important ones anyway, the narrative promptly rolls back and gives us an abbreviated biography of them. For me, this detracts from the focus and from the pacing. I found myself just sort of powering my way through the later chapters.

Anyway, for a baseball enthusiast, you really ought to read this. Charleston was one of the greatest hitters and fielders of all time. Contemporaries compared him to Cobb and Gherig, and Jeremy Beer certainly agrees.

[Frank Murtaugh · Rating 5 out of 5]

Marvelous book about an extraordinary man (and exceptional baseball player, to say the least). Charleston is among the few baseball legends (very close to the only baseball legend) with whom I was not familiar before reading Beer's Biography. It's a thorough telling of his life, without the added glow or hype an "unknown legend" often attracts from a writer or analyst. And Beer weaves modern statistics into the story, utilizing modern metrics like OPS+ to contextualize Charleston's brilliance on a baseball field. This "unknown" Hall of Famer would have been a superstar for the St. Louis Cardinals, Detroit Tigers, Pittsburgh Pirates, Boston Red Sox, or any other big-league team . . . had he been given the chance.

And that's a sad undertone to the entire story. The knowledge that Charleston and his contemporaries SHOULD have been playing at baseball's highest level, long before Jackie Robinson debuted with the Dodgers in 1947. Racism is a horrid legacy with which our country continues to wrestle. At the very least, books like this one allow us to posthumously salute and honor a man for his extraordinary talents . . . and imagine what might have been.

[James · Rating 4 out of 5]

Oscar Charleston was perhaps the greatest player to ever play the game of baseball: he hit for power and distance, he excelled in centre field, he managed championship-winning teams, and he was a stand-up guy. Yet because of the cruelties of segregated play, he never had a chance to play in the major leagues.

He, along with the other greats of the Negro Leagues, Josh Gibson, Bullet Joe Rogan, Turkey Stearnes, and so many others, were denied the chance to play only because they were black.

This is the definitive biography of Charleston and makes the convincing argument that he is the greatest baseball player ever. Despite the paucity of records for many years of Negro League play, this is a well researched and very readable biography, with Charleston’s stats researched and, if necessary, recreated to demonstrate how much of a player he was. Although Charleston is already in the Hall of Fame, it is still disappointing how little he is celebrated as one of the greatest players, black or white, of all time this book goes a long way in rectifying that.

[Dave · Rating 4 out of 5]

Oscar Charleston may have been the greatest all-around baseball player of all time, and few fans have ever heard of him. Jeremy Beer goes to great lengths to correct the historical record by digging deep into history to produce a wealth of anecdotes, statistics, history, and photographs that shine a bright light on Charleston.

Charleston was both a heroic and tragic figure--he dominated the Negro Leagues and Cuban baseball for decades as a player and manager, but he was born 20 years too soon to be considered as a player in the (all-white) major leagues. He had a propensity for getting into fights with umpires and other players, but the same spirit animated his ability to stand up for what he thought was right.

The book is so thorough and dense with detail that I had to skim the last 80-100 pages.

[Joe Vasile · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is nothing short of tremendous. Given the resources available, this book is the most thorough accounting of the life of Oscar Charleston that we could hope for. This was clearly a massive undertaking and Jeremy Beer hit a home run with it. I really appreciated how the scope of the book dealt with not only Charleston's baseball career, but the evolution of the Negro Leagues in the 20th century.

Charleston is without a doubt one of the 10 greatest ballplayers of all-time, and hopefully this book restores his legacy in the game. I cannot recommend this book highly enough to anyone who enjoys the game of baseball. Because of its scope and the difficulty in putting this together, truly one of the best baseball biographies I've read in a long time.

[Jeff · Rating 2 out of 5]

I really tried to like this book. I made myself stick with it longer than I probably should have. I'm a big baseball fan, and was looking forward to reading about one of the greatest to ever play the game, and one who doesn't receive the recognition he deserves.

Early on, the author explains that very little information was recorded about Charleston's upbringing or private life. I was curious as to how this would be handled in the book; that maybe the author would invent some stories to fill in the holes. But, instead, the book is full of statements like "It's possible that Charleston had a ham sandwich, because many people liked ham at that time". I grew so tired of reading about possibilities and wild guesses. After it went from laughable to maddening, I stopped reading.

[Brent Lloyd · Rating 5 out of 5]

A criminally underrated figure in the history of baseball, but a titan in the history of the Negro Leagues, not to mention perhaps the best all around player in Negro Leagues history, it is gratifying to see Charleston making such a comeback in the consciousness of baseball historians and lovers. In his thoroughly researched biography, Jeremy Beer provides an inside look at a man who held up black baseball at a time when discrimination and hatred still reigned through most of the country. Charleston also impresses in his personal life, standing as an icon that lived up to most of his own professed moral standards. Beer admits the failings known about Charleston, but he also gives the man credit for what he did not just for the Negro Leagues, but for baseball as a while, a truly fantastic achievement that deserves the attention given other tip flight baseball biographies.
Charleston was not an uncomplicated man, as any person is, but he held up standards and traditions that echo in the major leagues today, and he fully deserves the place he has taken in the Hall at Cooperstown. For anyone interested in the early history of the game the Negro Leagues, this book is indispensable.

[Dick Hamilton · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good biography of, as the title indicates, one of the great forgotten baseball players of all times. The author has to deal with the handicap of the limited information on Charleston but works through this using the information available, including access to family members and related documents. In addition, Charleston passed away over sixty years ago so the ability to interview individuals who actually saw Charleston play in his prime is limited. If nothing else, this book reminds us of the greatness of this player and the sad fact that Charleston could not display his tools to a broader audience.

[Mike Curtis · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wonderfully written and meticulously researched, this book kept me entranced from beginning to end. Every baseball fan knows the names and legends of many of Charleston’s white contemporaries, or even those of the Negro League players of the next generation, but somehow Oscar Charleston’s story - even the embellished legends like those that I’ve heard about Satchel Paige, Josh Gibson, or Cool Papa Bell over the years - have slipped through the cracks. What a shame - and what a blessing Jeremy Beer’s book is, bringing to light such an important figure in the sport that has otherwise been nearly forgotten. A truly fantastic book.

[Chickens McShitterson · Rating 3 out of 5]

A good book, to be clear, but I think there's so little that is actually known about Oscar (outside of his scrapbooks) that this book felt like it was too long and relied on tediously recounting seasons and game re-caps.
Charleston is a somewhat misunderstood, mysterious figure, and to that end this book does him a great deal of justice- there's no overt excuse for his temperament, so there isn't a glossing over in an attempt to make the man out to be more heroic. I appreciate the flaws, warts-and-all, of heroes. Charleston was, in all likelihood, one of the greatest to ever play the game, and I am enamored that this book goes to great lengths to prove that thesis.

[DT · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's frustrating that on one hand, this is probably the most comprehensive effort someone could undertake to research a subject thought to be one of the greatest baseball players ever. The author was able to obtain Charleston's own scrapbook from a family member. On the other hand, it's really dry reading because everyone who saw Charleston play is long dead. On many occasions, it's a recitation of box scores. This, of course, isn't the author's fault. The blame lies conspicuously elsewhere.

[Robin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Charleston's story is reflective of the negro league itself, how much of it today is still not recognized or appreciated. I like books about dead ball era players as they are a nice glimpse into how different the game was (I got a good laugh at every mention that fighting umpires was just a thing that happened).

Charleston himself is compelling story, having success and a knack for every role he played.

I didn't find too much here to set it apart from other baseball biographies or historia but still enjoyable.

[Steve · Rating 5 out of 5]

I don't remember the first time I heard of Oscar Charleston. Probably in the Bill James Historical Abstract as that seems to be when he got more widely recognized as one of the all-time greats (by the white press that is). I've read books on some of the other Negro League greats and this one really stands out to me as there wasn't much out there on him so the research had to be time consuming. But Jeremy did an outstanding job putting it all together in a very readable format.

[Joe · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm embarrassed by how much I didn't know about Oscar Charleston, who is probably the best baseball player I knew very little to nothing about. I suspect many others could say the same, and if so, Beer's precise and thoughtful biography is the antidote. The book does slow down now and again, but because this is so much unexplored territory, as a reader, I certainly cut Beer a little extra slack. He's done a yeoman's work here, and I finished the book with a ton of knowledge I lacked going in.

[Mike · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a fantastic book! I admit that prior to reading it I knew very little about Charleston beyond the stories of his contemporaries ranking him with Ruth, Cobb, and Speaker. Now I know that Charleston was one of the most important contributors to the game for 40 years. The author’s research was through and impeccably done. This book is a must-read for all baseball fans.

[Jeff · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well researched dive into the career of a forgotten legend. I'm a huge baseball fan and I have to admit that I barely remember ever hearing about Oscar Charleston. After reconstructing stats from boxscores we get to see just how dominating Charleston was on the field. He more than earned his reputation as the greatest in the game.

[RJ Koch · Rating 2 out of 5]

Was disappointed. I'm a huge baseball fan and had never heard of Oscar Charleston. I started reading it and then skimmed it looking for parts where he played against major leaguers who barnstormed during his lifetime. Found very little. Better than Willie Mays? Where's the proof? Couldn't find it. Maybe it was in there but was lost in the many pages. Can't recommend it.

[Ben Haager · Rating 5 out of 5]

Detailed and excellently woven together biography of an unjustly overlooked great. Really makes you appreciate his greatness as a player, manager, and scout; not to mention also an understanding of who he was off the field. Also a comprehensive history of black baseball's from the 1910s to 50s since Oscar loomed large for that long. Must read for any baseball fan.

[Stephen Dittmore · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this book. It is well researched with anecdotes triangulated as best as can be done when writing about an individual who has passed away more than 50 years ago. The narrative is compelling and explores aspect of Negro League baseball beyond just what Oscar Charleston contributed. Easy to see why this won the SABR Award. Highly recommend this book.