Campy

The first clue that this is not the usual account of a baseball great is the cover photo depicting a forlorn if not troubled soul. Indeed, as the subtitle makes plain, there were two Roy Campanellas: the public one, best known for his multiple MVP career with the Brooklyn Dodgers, after years in segregated baseball, whose life was marked by a courageous battle after a paralyzing 1958 car accident, and the private one who confronted teammate Jackie Robinson and lived a long life after the car crash, an event that Lanctot (Negro League Baseball) describes from a fresh perspective. Richly documented and meticulously compiled, this definitive biography bares the soul of a boy of summer who symbolizes a distant period but who lived through an epochal transformation of the game and the country. Compelling reading for all baseball and biography fans.—G.R.