Book Review: The Original Curse by Sean Deveney

[PolarBear]

Finished it this weekend, so here goes.


The book tries to make the case that the 1918 World Series could have been thrown and gives an outline of the participants.

The strong point of the book is that it seems to be well researched, such as providing details from newspaper accounts about specific plays and player reactions. I think that should be expected though since Sean Deveney is a reporter for Sporting News.

Now to what I didn't like.

I think the fact that he is a reporter handicaps his effort at writing an enjoyable book.

The narrative doesn't flow well. His use of short sentences and minimal imagery make it seem more like he's filing a dispatch than trying to tell a story.

The book ends up being more like a series of newspaper articles with each chapter being a vignette of one of the people involved. I felt like I was reading a newspaper serial instead of a book.

Consequently, the story isn't weaved together very well and in fact, you could just read the last three chapters to get the point of the book. And his point isn't made well either.

He fails to make any sort of convincing case that the series was thrown and in fact admits the first three games were on the level. The best case he makes is that Max Flack may have been on the take and threw game four.

Game five may have been thrown also, not for gambling reasons, but because the players were trying to extend the series to get a bigger take due to diminished wartime attendance.

On those two points, he makes a good case, but that's a far cry from the World Series being thrown.

The best part of the book was how WWI, the draft, and how government and public perception shaped baseball in 1918. I think he would have had a far more interesting book if it focused on that subject.

Overall, I'll give it a C-, and only because the WWI stuff brings the readability of the book up from dismal.