When Jackie and Hank Met
While the moment when Jackie Robinson and Hank Greenberg met (crashing together at first base in a 1947 game) isn’t among the lauded moments in baseball history, Fishman makes a case that there’s more to the encounter than meets the eye. This dual biography parallels the racism the two athletes encountered on their paths to greatness, and is reinforced by Elliott’s somewhat static paintings that show mirroring scenes from the two men’s lives on facing pages. While Robinson had to break the color barrier, that doesn’t mean the vitriol Greenberg faced as one of the few Jewish ballplayers was any less daunting. Fishman structures the narrative around swelling and shrinking distances, with the two being born 1,000 miles apart, growing up 2,000 miles apart, and finally squaring off 90 feet apart on the field before their collision closed the gap and “nothing separated Jackie and Hank.” This emphasis neatly reinforces the men’s similarities in both character and life experience. An unusual and welcome new slant on a well-covered era in American sports history.— Ian Chipman, Booklist March 2012