---
title: 1954 (23 of 50)
description: Nathanael Yellis reviews 1954 and talks about baseball history.
---

[Nathanael Yellis's Blog: technology consulting, digital strategy, marketing, simplicity, and more. ](https://www.yell.is/blog)

# [1954 (23 of 50)](https://www.yell.is/blog/2014/08/14/1954-23-of-50)

 Written by [Nathanael Yellis](https://www.yell.is/blog/author/nathanael-yellis) | August, 14 2014

Baseball. Summer is about listening to, talking about, and sometimes watching our national [pastime](https://www.inathanael.com/2012/04/baseball-begins.html).

Reading baseball books works too. Sometimes it doesn't. This one is one of those times.

<https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/20138688-1954>[1954: The Year Willie Mays and the First Generation of Black Superstars Changed Major League Baseball Forever](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/20138688-1954) by [Bill Madden](https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/431684.Bill_Madden)  
My rating: [3 of 5 stars](https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/985307196)

I thought I'd like it. I'm a sucked for baseball books. But it was too much fact and not enough story. The book leaves the impression that the author is a baseball beat writer and his research for the book consisted of reading old baseball columns from the year and his writing of the book consisted of writing a super-long baseball column.

Notwithstanding that '54 was a hell of a year, this book didn't quite capture it for me.

[View all my reviews](https://www.goodreads.com/review/list/2136782-nathanael)

[View full post](https://www.yell.is/blog/2014/08/14/1954-23-of-50)

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