Editorial Review
Former Major League Baseball commissioner Fay Vincent brings together a stellar roster of ballplayers from the 1950s and 1960s in this wonderful new history of the game. These were the decades when baseball expanded across the country and truly became the national pastime. The era opened, though, with the domination of the New York teams: the Yankees, Dodgers, or Giants were in every World Series of the 1950s -- but by the end of the decade the two National League teams had moved to California.
Representing those great teams in this volume are Whitey Ford, Ralph Branca, Carl Erskine, Duke Snider, and Bill Rigney. They recall the great 1951 Dodgers-Giants playoff that ended with Bobby Thomson's famous home run (served up by Branca). They remember the mighty Yankees, defeated at last in 1955 by the Dodgers, only to recover the World Series crown from their Brooklyn rivals a year later. They talk about their most feared opponents and most valued teammates, from Joe DiMaggio and Mickey Mantle to Jackie Robinson and Roy Campanella to Willie Mays.
But there were great teams and great ballplayers elsewhere in the 1950s and 1960s. Hall of Fame pitcher Robin Roberts recalls the famous Whiz Kids Phillies of 1950 and his epic duels with Don Newcombe and other leading National League pitchers. Lew Burdette remembers his years as one-half of the dominating pitching duo (with Warren Spahn) that propelled the Braves to the World Series in 1957 and 1958.
Harmon Killebrew recalls belting home runs for the hapless Washington Senators, then discovering a new world of enthusiastic fans in Minnesota when the Senators joined the westward migration and became the Twins. Brooks Robinson, on the other hand, played his entire twenty-three-year career for the Baltimore Orioles, never moving anywhere except all around third base, where he earned a record sixteen consecutive Gold Gloves. When Frank Robinson left Cincinnati to join Brooks on the Orioles in 1966, that team became a powerhouse. Frank Robinson won the MVP award that year, the first player to do so in each league. He remembers taking the momentous step to become the first African-American manager in the big leagues, the final step that Jackie Robinson had wanted to take. Like Frank Robinson, Billy Williams was one of the first African-American stars not to come out of the old Negro Leagues. He spent his greatest years with the Chicago Cubs, playing alongside Mr. Cub, Ernie Banks, and later Ron Santo, but here he recalls how he nearly gave up on the game in the minor leagues.
We Would Have Played for Nothing is full of fascinating stories about how these great ballplayers broke into baseball, about the inevitable frustrations of trying to negotiate a contract with owners who always had the upper hand, and about great games and great stars-teammates and opponents-whose influence shaped these ballplayers' lives forever.
Illustrated throughout, this book is a wonderful reminiscence of two great decades in the history of baseball.
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Customer Reviews
Good slice of a period but very lacking in hard issues 
2008-07-20
I found this an interesting book overall by former Commissioner Vincent but it is a mile wide and an inch deep. There are no revelations here that have not all ready been told. Also missing are any stories that deal with all of the changes that went through the game. The impacts of relocation of franchises is missing and so is any real examination of how black and Latino players became a force in baseball. There are no real colorful personalities to tell their stories, nor are there any stories from marginal players, about 80 percent of these players are Hall of Famers and those that aren't are near or maybe one day.
All in all it's a rather dull read but if you grew up with these players, you may find it interesting.
Great gift for the baseball fan 
2008-07-03
I bought this book for my father's 80th birthday and he loved it. He said it brought back so many great baseball memories. He's a die hard baseball fan. I would highly recommend it. It brought a smile to his face and great enjoyment.
we would have played for nothing 
2008-06-26
What a fantastic trip down memory lane! I could
almost see my old baseball card collection in
front of my eyes. If you are 50 - 65 years old,
and love baseball the way it used to be, get this
book now!! It was great to read about Robin Roberts,
Richie Ashburn (the "Best" centerfielder in baseball
in the '50s!) Can you tell I was raised in Philly?
Perfect Book for the Baseball Fan! 2008-05-07
"Life doesn't get better than this. Grown men getting to play a game and getting paid for it - getting paid lots! The story of Mantle, Berra, Campanella, Mays, and DiMaggio is vivid and powerful in their love for a game that the nation loves. The perfect book for the baseball fan."
Not much new 
2008-05-07
If you are a fan of baseball in the 1950s and 1960s, it's doubtful you'll learn much new from Fay Vincent's "We Would Have Played the Game for Nothing." Vincent rounds up many of the usual suspects from this era to interview for his oral history series.
The players include three Brooklyn Dodgers--Carl Erskine, Ralph Branca and Duke Snider--plus Robin Roberts, Frank Robinson, Brooks Robinson, Harmon Killebrew, Billy Williams, Whitey Ford, Lew Burdette and Bill Rigney. The presence of three Dodgers is two too many since they tend to recount the same events. Most of the players interviewed by Vincent, with the exception of Rigney, have received plenty of previous exposure.
Vincent doesn't seem to have done much homework for the interviews. It seems as if he asked very general questions like "What were your most memorable moments?" "Who were the toughest players you played against?" Many of the anecdotes have appeared before. Vincent doesn't dig beyond the surface.
Interestingly, Jackie Robinson has a strong presence in the book. Just about every player mentioned him in one context or another. It's clear he commanded respect and admiration from who played with him, against him, or those influenced by him.
The title for Vincent's book is somewhat overstated. Sure, the players loved the game, but they wouldn't have played for nothing. They knew they were underpaid and the owners were taking advantage of them.
A wonderful oral history book 2008-04-27
Former Major League Baseball commissioner Fay Vincent brings together a stellar roster of ballplayers from the 1950s and 1960s in this wonderful new history of the game. These were the decades when baseball expanded across the country and truly became the national pastime. The era opened, though, with the domination of the New York teams: the Yankees, Dodgers, or Giants were in every World Series of the 1950s -- but by the end of the decade the two National League teams had moved to California.
Representing those great teams in this volume are Whitey Ford, Ralph Branca, Carl Erskine, Duke Snider, and Bill Rigney. They recall the great 1951 Dodgers-Giants playoff that ended with Bobby Thomson's famous home run (served up by Branca). They remember the mighty Yankees, defeated at last in 1955 by the Dodgers, only to recover the World Series crown from their Brooklyn rivals a year later. They talk about their most feared opponents and most valued teammates, from Joe DiMaggio and Mickey Mantle to Jackie Robinson and Roy Campanella to Willie Mays.
But there were great teams and great ballplayers elsewhere in the 1950s and 1960s. Hall of Fame pitcher Robin Roberts recalls the famous Whiz Kids Phillies of 1950 and his epic duels with Don Newcombe and other leading National League pitchers. Lew Burdette remembers his years as one-half of the dominating pitching duo (with Warren Spahn) that propelled the Braves to the World Series in 1957 and 1958.
Harmon Killebrew recalls belting home runs for the hapless Washington Senators, then discovering a new world of enthusiastic fans in Minnesota when the Senators joined the westward migration and became the Twins. Brooks Robinson, on the other hand, played his entire twenty-three-year career for the Baltimore Orioles, never moving anywhere except all around third base, where he earned a record sixteen consecutive Gold Gloves. When Frank Robinson left Cincinnati to join Brooks on the Orioles in 1966, that team became a powerhouse. Frank Robinson won the MVP award that year, the first player to do so in each league. He remembers taking the momentous step to become the first African-American manager in the big leagues, the final step that Jackie Robinson had wanted to take. Like Frank Robinson, Billy Williams was one of the first African-American stars not to come out of the old Negro Leagues. He spent his greatest years with the Chicago Cubs, playing alongside Mr. Cub, Ernie Banks, and later Ron Santo, but here he recalls how he nearly gave up on the game in the minor leagues.
We Would Have Played for Nothing is full of fascinating stories about how these great ballplayers broke into baseball, about the inevitable frustrations of trying to negotiate a contract with owners who always had the upper hand, and about great games and great stars-teammates and opponents-whose influence shaped these ballplayers' lives forever.
Illustrated throughout, this book is a wonderful reminiscence of two great decades in the history of baseball.
Solid reading for baseball fans. 2008-04-25
This is another solid effort by the former baseball commissioner, Fay Vincent, who gave us "The Only Game in Town" and "The Last Commissioner" and who continues to love the great game of baseball.
Baseball fans, especially long-timers, will enjoy reading the first-hand commentary (on their experiences and on the state of baseball today)of such big-name stars as Robin Roberts, Harmon Killebrew, Frank and Brooks Robinson, and Billy Williams, among others. Also included is Bill Rigney, a lesser light as a player but an acknowledged "star" as manager. This volume is an easier read than its predecessor as the interviewer has polished his subjects' actual words just a bit. I'm hoping another volume--especially one that offers the insights/feelings/reactions of some of the less-heralded players of previous generations--is forthcoming.
The Real Old School 2008-04-17
I am very excited to discover this book of living oral history about a great era in the evolution of baseball, a time when there was exceptional talent on the field, and still a level of craftsmanship and relative purity to the sport. I just wanted to comment on the review that compares this book to The Boys of Summer as a classic benchmark of baseball writing. I would not dispute that comparison, but I think it is a little more to the point to compare this book (and its companion volume on the 30s and 40s) to the one that really pioneered the technique of compiling oral history from the older players--and that is The Glory of Their Times by Lawrence Ritter. This book, which I believe was published in about 1966, was the first I know of to use this technique and with wondrous results. Ritter hit the road with a tape recorder, and found some two dozen or so players from the turn of the century through the 30s and got them jawing about the game. These were players like Goose Goslin, Sam Crawford, Paul Waner, Lefty O'Doul, Rube Marquard, and Chief Meyers (perhaps the man who originally broke the color line in baseball) among others. There were amazing stories and pictures of these speakers, and all the greats from that era--Cobb, Ruth, Gehrig, McGraw, Wagner, Mathewson, Johnson, et. al. I still have my original first edition, and while I read Boys of Summer when it came out, I read through Glory of Their Times over and over and over again. It was that good. As a boy, I wrote to Ritter about how much I loved the book, and he took the time to send me a lengthy and warm handwritten reply about his joyful experience of putting the book together. Now that is class!! Ritter later put out an extended edition with several additional interviews, but it was hard to improve perfection. So, while we are lauding great baseball books, I just wanted to make mention of the one that started it all as far as the baseball oral history thing, and encourage others to discover this marvelous book, Glory of Their Times, to which I would give about 10 stars. I am hoping that the Fay Vincent books will be even half as good, hence the 5 stars here.
RICK "SHAQ" GOLDSTEIN SAYS: "A MUST READ FOR "OLD-SCHOOL" BASEBALL PURISTS!" 2008-04-12
This is a marvelously "put-together" baseball book containing the inner thoughts, dreams and actual accomplishments of eleven former Major League players from the (19)50's and 60's. The reason I say "put-together" rather than written is because this book was created by transcribing videotaped interviews into a manuscript. The author "tried to faithfully record the comments of the interviewees, correcting minor grammatical mistakes and occasional errors caused by the inevitable lapses of memory after several decades." The end result is a "STUNNING" recreation of when "BASEBALL WAS STILL A GAME!" Due to the fact that actual interviews have been transcribed, the reader benefits from this unique protocol and feels as if each player is sharing his personal stories directly with you.
The eleven players highlighted in this book include Hall Of Famers Duke Snider, Robin Roberts, Whitey Ford, Harmon Killebrew, Brooks Robinson, Frank Robinson, Billy Williams, 1957 World Series MVP Lou Burdette, two time World Champion and thrower of two no-hitters, Carl Erskine, twenty game winner and an eternal historical figure for throwing the pitch that resulted in "The Shot Heard Round The World", Ralph Branca, and "baseball lifer" Bill Rigney. Every one of these elite storytellers takes you back to where their dreams began and how honored they were to achieve their boyhood goals of playing in the Big Leagues. It's hard not to notice the modesty and unpretentious attitudes that these humble stars reveal, which is in sharp contrast to the attitudes and behavior of today's players.
There are so many "delicious" intimate details shared with the reader from the clubhouse and the playing field from the glorious years gone by, when baseball truly was "THE NATIONAL PASTIME". It is apparent to the reader that these "yesterday's hero's" are reliving the same joy, sadness, competitiveness, and aching of their days gone by as emotionally as the reader, who is reliving their cherished childhood moments through their hero's. It's refreshing as almost every star points out with dignity teachers, coaches or parents who made a difference in their life even over half a century later. It is also invigorating to see the same fierce blood start to boil as old rivalries or "bad" calls are rehashed. I found one exceptionally telling historical subject that was discussed reverently by ten of the eleven players, and that was Jackie Robinson. The enormous respect that Jackie "EARNED" from all these players on and off the field had not diminished one iota! In fact to me the most powerful emotionally piercing moment in this book, was not about any of the monumental accomplishments of these players, but of the sad regret of one:
BILL RIGNEY SAID: "I thought one of the worst things I did or one of the things I didn't do--and I regretted it all my life--is that opening day in the Polo Grounds on the eighteenth of April in '47 when Jackie Robinson hit his first home run. I didn't walk over to him and say, "Hey, I'm Bill Rigney, I just want to shake your hand and wish you the best of luck because it's not going to be easy for you, but I wish you the best," and leave it at that. And I regretted it all my life that I didn't do it, because I knew I was too late, you know, after I got to know him. You know just reading about it, you knew how tough it was going to be for him. Why I didn't do that, I don't know, because he was standing right there. All I had to do was walk over and say, "I'm Bill Rigney. I'm the shortstop for the Giants; I just want to wish you good luck." Big deal. But I regret that."
The highest praise I can give this book is to compare it to the seminal book written in 1972 "THE BOYS OF SUMMER" by Roger Kahn looking back on the Brooklyn Dodgers of the `50's. This book is a "BOYS OF SUMMER" with eleven players some of whom were Dodgers. I couldn't recommend this book any higher for a true "OLD-SCHOOL" baseball fan!
