[2] The book was published by Little, Brown & Co. in October 1973, two years after Roger Kahn's The Boys of Summer sparked nostalgia for 1950s baseball.
"[7] Brendan C. Boyd wrote another book, published in 1993, titled Blue Ruin: A Novel of the 1919 World Series.
Instead, the authors present a nostalgic look at the part of their youth that involved collecting, trading, and flipping baseball cards.
The second delves into the Topps trading card company and its pioneering executive Sy Berger circa 1973.
The bulk and the heart of the book is the section called "Profiles," containing the card images and player biographies.
[9] The last section of the book offers a short discourse on things to do with cards, from hoarding, trading, to finally collecting.
The ending foreshadows the adult hobby of collecting baseball cards that was about to explode, although it is unlikely the authors predicted this.
Each card and its accompanying commentary, with a few rare exceptions, stand alone and are not categorized, such as by team, league, era, position, etc.
Unlike most every other sports book, and specifically those covering baseball players of the 1950s and early 1960s, The Great American Baseball Card Flipping, Trading and Bubble Gum Book does not focus on the stars and legends of the game but rather on the lesser and forgotten players.
[9] Among the stars mentioned are Sandy Koufax (seen on his rookie card which is dubbed his “Bar Mitzvah picture” because he looks so young), Ernie Banks (remembered for having played on bad teams and being loved by everyone), Stan Musial (because of the unsolved mystery of why there was no card of him in 1950 and 1951) and Yogi Berra (because he's Yogi Berra).
Those who didn’t get mentioned include Hank Aaron, Warren Spahn, Harmon Killebrew, Frank Robinson, Whitey Ford, and Roger Maris.
It can be said that the book "is about players who have long since been forgotten by everybody but those who grew up collecting their cards and thinking them important simply because they were Major League ballplayers.
[3] The primary reason many of these players have been forgotten is because they weren’t very good, and that is how Boyd and Harris have remembered them: Some because they couldn’t field well, such as Dick Stuart and Marv Throneberry, quite a few, including Doug Camilli and Eddie Miksis, because they couldn’t hit, or Casey Wise, who really couldn't hit; and of course those who couldn’t pitch, like Dave DeBusschere and Eli Grba (of whom the authors report, "In addition to having the hardest name to pronounce in the big leagues he also had just about the worst stuff.")
Several players are recalled because they had confusing or unusual names: Wayne Terwilliger, Calvin Coolidge Julius Caesar Tuskahoma McLish, Coot Veal, "Cot" Deal, Whammy Douglas, and Foster Castleman.
The following two quotes from the book are representative of the style used in the "Profiles" section: Quick, name a major league baseball player who was born in San Remo, Italy, lived in Windsor, Ontario, Canada, and couldn't hit.
It says that his average last year was .162 and that, although he did not get to play in too many ballgames, he gained valuable information about American League hurlers that would help him in the future.
And the cards of Jackie Robinson and Roberto Clemente, in honor of their notable off-field heroics and recent deaths, are each posted on a black background with no comment at all.
The book consists of a series of reproductions of 1950s baseball cards and the authors' annotations—spirited riffs on matters ranging from Smoky Burgess's heft, to Don Mossi's ears, to Vern Stephens' pop flies.
"[10] Perhaps the book's most lasting legacy is the contribution it made, albeit unwittingly, to the adult hobby of card collecting.