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.