Never judge a Book by its cover, but I should try opening the covers once in a while

[baseballart]

Two recent book perusals leads me to think I should look inside my books more often.

First, I had long ago bought a signed copy of Effa Manley's book Negro Baseball Before Integration. I was disappointed when the book arrived and a number of pages were missing, along with tape stains. I kept the book however, as I got it at a reasonable price for the signature alone. A few years later, I bought a fine condition copy of the book, described as unsigned. When the book arrived, I never looked at it, and stuck it on the shelf. I opened it for the first time last week (a couple of years later) and to my surprise, the second book was signed as well.

And today, my upgrade of the Harris's Playing the Game (stokes edition) arrived:



I then went to get my old dust jacketed copy to put in the doubles pile. It had a tired but presentable jacket.



I don't recall looking in the book when I got it at least five years ago. Lightning, however, struck twice, as again to my surprise, I found Stanley Harris's signature.

[jerseygary]

As a going away present a good friend of mine gave me a copy of Nelson Algren's "Chicago: City on the Make". I thanked him profusely as Algren is one of my favorite writers. It took me 3 times reading through and 2 years to realize that he gave me a SIGNED first edition of the book! I called him up and he laughed his ass off because he had been wondering when the heck I was going to notice!

Recently I picked up a 1958 copy of Bready's "The Home Team: 100 Years of Baseball In Baltimore" in a used bookstore here in Long Beach (what it was doing here I have no idea) and when I got home discovered it was signed and inscribed by the author.

[mighty bombjack]

You have TWO Effa Manley signed books?!?

What are you gonna do with the first one?

[ChiefBenderForever]

In the early 90's a friend of mine bought a Classic Rock n Roll book on Bands of the 1960s and inbetween the back pages were four sheets of acid with 100 hits per page.

[slidekellyslide]

This is not nearly on the same level as Max's great discovery, but a few years back at the annual library book sale I picked up a Harmon Killebrew book..all hardbacks are a dollar so I usually end up with 50-100 baseball books every year from this sale. When I got home I noticed that the Killebrew book had no library markings, and when I opened it up it was signed on the inside. A nice surprise.

[barrysloate]

Johnny, is that a true story?