Southern League: A True Story of Baseball, Civil Rights, and the Deep South's Most Compelling Pennant Race
This could be the perfect storm of a baseball book. Colton, author of Counting Coup (2000), is a former professional pitcher who debuted in 1966 with the Birmingham Barons of the Southern League, this book’s subject. Two years earlier, another pitcher, eventual major-league star John “Blue Moon” Odom, received the largest bonus ever paid a black athlete when he was signed to the Barons by legendary Oakland owner Charles Finley. The 1964 Barons and, later, the young and naive Colton were caught up in the racial turmoil of the South, regional baseball only very recently integrated, and the notorious “Bombingham” of the 1960s, whose history, including the tragic church bombing that killed four children in September 1963, is chillingly summarized. He focuses on four prospects—two white, two black, including Odom—as well as the manager and the team’s owner, capably recounting their life stories and ambitions. Though his prose can be flat, and the book’s subtitle is a stretch, his story is so good it overwhelms the book’s shortcomings. One wonders why he waited so long, but Colton has now delivered the book he seemed destined to write. --Mark Levine