Book #42 - Branch Rickey

It's election season!  Somehow I never expected a book about a baseball manager to play into that.  Branch Rickey by Jimmy Breslin is a short non-fiction work about Branch Rickey, the Brooklyn Dodgers' manager who hired Jacky Robinson and integrated baseball.

While I think the subject is fascinating, I did not really enjoy Breslin's style or slant.  He writes his chapters like a series of magazine articles.  To someone with just a fleeting interest in baseball, I often felt lost.  It seemed a little convoluted as Breslin tried to pass on stories he thought the readers would find interesting or point out some slant about different characters' faiths or political identities.

I also struggle with the credit of Obama's presidency resting on Branch Rickey's shoulders.  Rickey did an awesome thing integrating baseball, but did that pave a golden road to Obama's election? Breslin seems to equate the election as the culmination of what Rickey was trying to achieve.  Maybe, maybe not. 

Perhaps I should stick to the non-fiction tomes that are dry but straight forward in the future.