A book review of Singles and Smiles: How Artie Wilson Broke Baseball's Color Barrier.
Artie Wilson came from a single-parent home; he met his father exactly once. He lost the tip of a thumb as a teenager to a machine in the factory where he was working. In spite of those things he became a baseball player, and a pretty good one, breaking into the Negro Leagues for his hometown Birmingham Black Barons in 1944 since his thumb meant he was not eligible for the war draft. So, Artie was playing for the Black Barons in 1948 when Willie Mays also played there. In 1949 Artie went into "white baseball" in the Pacific Coast League, at a time when there was speculation the PCL would become a third major league. Artie got a chance at the major leagues in 1951 when he started the season with the New York Giants, but was sent to the minors in April when Mays was called up. He eventually ended up back in the Coast League.
Artie was a slick infielder and a slap-hitting singles hitter who hit for high averages and stole bases. He was a valuable player, even though he rarely walked and hit for little power, because he kept slapping out hits and played solid defense. As a major leaguer, he could have been at worst a good bench player and at worst a decent middle infield starter, probably at second base because the thumb made throwing more difficult though he had excellent range. As a dark-skinned man when integration was new, he never really got that chance. He did become so popular in Portland, Oregon that he made his home there the rest of his life, selling used cars and talking baseball with people at the dealership. He got to play baseball, and briefly in the white majors, and lived a good life. People who knew him liked him as he had a friendly manner and a ready smile.
These things are easily discerned from a reading of the text and make the book enjoyable. Artie Wilson is a winning personality. The book itself, unlike its subject, is not a work of art. The prose is choppy and often repetitive. Author Gaylon White writes like the newspaper scribe he used to be and feels ill-used at book length. The book is roughly chronological but suffers from a lack of flow because the same ground is covered repeatedly. There are many side trips off the main track. Part of writing a story is deciding what to put in and what to leave out, and White seems to want to put a lot of things in. It doesn't all fit well.
The book is a positive because of the appeal of the subject. I cannot recommend it based on the writing. I will because it's a fascinating window into an important time in America's past. posted by Shawn Weaver at 8:07 AM
