Monday, November 28, 2011

Michaelson, Richard. Lipman Pike, America’s First Home Run King.


Michaelson, Richard.     Lipman Pike, America’s First Home Run King.      
Sleeping Bear Press(Cengage)     2011  unp   16.95 978-1-58536-465-1 
elem              VG-BNe   

     Son of Dutch immigrants who arrived in New York in the mid-1800s, Lipman Pike was both the
first Jewish and the first professional (paid) baseball player in the newly
formed National Association of Base Ball Players.  Like all children of
immigrants, Lip wanted to belong to his new country and found his way through
baseball.  Beginning as a teenager, he quickly developed into a major figure in
the sport as both a slugger and a second baseman.  Michaelson’s biography offers
a view of his life through “conversations” between the characters opening a
window into an historic period of baseball that is largely overlooked.  The book
is greatly enhanced by the wonderful illustrations that carry out the themes of
Pike’s life.   It ends with an author’s note discussing the place of baseball in
American life during that time.           Ogintz, Susan

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