The Gashouse Gang by John Heidenry review by Tanner B.

Have you ever read a really good book? Maybe you liked it because it was funny. Maybe you love a good romance like Romeo and Juliet by Shakespeare. I personally like books about sports that have some humor in them. The Gashouse Gang was just that. It had an interesting setting. The main characters could not have been found anywhere else. The plot though the book was funny was very riveting.

The setting of The Gashouse Gang was the MLB baseball park in St. Louis Missouri. Though the team traveled a lot most of the altercations between the main players took place at their ball club. This book takes place in the middle of the Great Depression, 1930-1935. The stadium can’t seem to get near as many attendants as the other ball clubs because it was right after the dreaded dust bowl accured.

Dizzy Dean is a character like non other. He is a loud out spoken dominant pitcher who doesn’t drink. He was born to work in the cotton fields but whenever he got the chance he would play ball against the other kids. He didn’t go to a lot of school. The only day he went was on Friday. When oddly enough though not by coincidence Friday is when the boys at school would play baseball. When Dizzy grew up he joined the army. While in the army he played for their baseball team. The young pitcher was then offered to play for a minor league team in Texas. While playing in Texas the young stud was so good that the coach didn’t want to give Dizzy up to a major league even though it was his job. When the owner of the Cardinals made an offer the owner of the Texas team he couldn’t refuse it was off to the majors for Dizzy where he would not only get himself in trouble with the mangers of the Cardinals he would get his younger brother Paul (who was also a pitcher) into some trouble too.

The plot of this story is about the Cardinals a down on their luck team under new management try to win the pennant. Though they did just two years earlier in1932 things had gotten a lot worse. The Great Depression had gotten even worse without showing a sign of things getting better. Since the Depression was worse so was the flow of money for teams that need to get make big payments to big players. The Depression also affected the amount of fans that came to ball games. The season was not looking good.

I highly recommend this book if you are a sports fan and want some good laughs. It is a heart-warming story because so many of the players came from nothing. If you want to find out if the Cardinals win the pennant even though luck is a far cry from their side you should go and read this book.