|
|
|
|
| |
Catching Dreams: My Life in the Negro Baseball Leagues by Frazier Robinson with Paul Bauer. Foreword by John "Buck" O'Neil. Introduction by Gerald Early. Syracuse University Press, 1999.
|
| |
If you love baseball and jazz, you may be interested in the autobiography of Negro League catcher Frazier Robinson that I worked on.
|
| |
One afternoon Mr. Robinson's wife, Winnie, phoned the shop looking for a copy of Robert Peterson's classic Only the Ball was White. She mentioned that her husband had caught Satchel Paige and put him on the phone. His memory was so sharp and his story was so good, that I suggested we get him on tape. I spent a week at his home in North Carolina and recorded hours of conversation--mostly about baseball but also about jazz and life in the Jim Crow South. Several years of transcribing tape and editing followed. Sadly, Mr. Robinson did not live to see his autobiography in print.
|
| |
The Reviews:
|
| |
"Robinson's use of the language, at once poetic and unvarnished, is a joy.... By using his last years to immortalize these stories, he contributed as much to the game with a tape recorder as he ever did with a bat or glove."---Allen St. John, New York Times"
Of our many baseball Robinsons-Yank, Wilbert, Norman, Eddie, Brooks, Earl, Frank, Jeff-who'd have thought that the one with the best printed-word rating so far would turn out also to have saved some first-rate photos."---James Bready, The Baltimore Sun
"His memories and observations are quick and lively, capturing a homey slice of African-American history . . . Authentic Americana, with enough balls, strikes, players, and pennant chases to keep the hardcore fans happy."---Kirkus
"The racism that kept him from the major leagues and the bigots who scorned him couldn't diminish his appetite for life. This is an illuminating glimpse into a world limited by racism but defined by individual dignity."---Wes Lukowsky, Booklist (which selected Catching Dreams as one of the 10 best sports books of 1999.)
"One of the rarest if not the rarest of all Negro baseball books, and perhaps one of the rarest baseball books to come down the line in a number of seasons . . . It would not be a stretch to say that Robinson's manuscript might indeed be one of the best baseball books of the new year."---Peter Bjarkman, author of Baseball with a Latin Beat: A History of the Latin American Game and coauthor of Smoke: The Romance of Cuban Baseball
|
|
|