The National Baseball Hall of Fame Collection: Celebrating the Game's Greatest Players by James Buckley Jr. (review)

If you've been to Cooperstown, you know the feeling of time travel. When you open up the doors, walk in and make your way to the plaques and other artifacts, your mind jumps from decade to decade. Your personal memories and stories of games you watched, autographs you collected, and stadiums you visited all come rushing back as you turn down each hallway. If you've never been to Cooperstown, James Buckley's celebration of the game's greatest players is a good alternative. The National Baseball Hall of Fame Collection is filled with so many pictures of players, souvenirs and documents that it actually contains things you wouldn't see on a regular walking tour of the museum.

In the foreward, readers revisit September 6, 1995, and Cal Ripken's 2,131st consecutive game. Written by Ripken, it includes personal memories and recognizes artifacts from that evening that currently reside in Cooperstown. Buckley breaks the book down by defensive position for easy browsing: you start on the mound and then work your way around the infield until you get to the outfield. In the infield and outfield chapters, individual positions are broken down by defensive number. For example, in the infield, it goes three through six (First, Second, Third, and Shortstop).

There is no in-depth plot here. You can forget any deep and revealing mysteries that have a climax at the end. This book is pure appreciation of players, both known and unknown, from beginning to end. Ripken's foreword is absolutely spot-on. The Hall of Fame, in person and in Buckley's book, tells so many stories of how baseball's rich history is "woven into the fabric of our country" (6).

Buckley's book lets you take your time to review special stories and specific sections that were meant to be highlighted: Why was Mordecai Brown named "Three-Finger"? Why are pitchers not nick-named "Righty?" And a guy named "Big Dan" who was Babe Ruth before we had ever heard of Babe Ruth.

Buckley keeps in line with names that belong in the plaque room in Cooperstown, including the 2020 inductees who haven't had their official induction yet due to the COVID-19 global pandemic. Towards the end of the book, he also includes a chapter dedicated to Hall of Fame managers like Sparky Anderson and Tony LaRussa who managed two different teams in each league to a World Series championship. It honors Ned Hanlon who took over the National League's Baltimore Orioles in 1892 and led them to three straight championships beginning in 1894. One of Hanlon's players, John McGraw (also known as Little Napoleon) is pictured during a game in a three-piece suit with his leg perched at the top of a dugout. The pictures are so clear that another picture of Hanlon in a section called "They Also Played" is almost high-definition quality as Buckley honors Hanlon, McGraw, Rube Foster, Miller Huggins and Casey Stengel.

The final chapter is devoted to "The Pioneers, Umpires and Executives." In what could easily be the leftovers of the book, this section honors those people who made baseball what it is today and had an extraordinary impact on the game's success and lore. John "Jocko" Conlan was a National League umpire for twenty-four years who traded shin kicks with Leo Durocher, forgetting that Conlan had his home plate shin guards under his pants. Alexander Cartwright, secretary of the Knickerbocker Base Ball Club, wrote the first set of rules and was present at the first "match" under those rules. Cal Hubbard is the only person enshrined in the National Baseball and Football Hall of Fame after a nine-year career in the National Football League, winning four titles. Would there be an American League without Bancroft Johnson? The sportswriter had become president of the Western League in 1894...