Major Library Book Review Magazines Censoring 'Architect of Baseball Segregation' Cap Anson While Touting Relatively Insignificant Hall of Famer Tris Speaker

The two most broad-based magazines that U.S. libraries rely on to screen new books summarily decided to censor a straightforward, definitive 2006 biography of Cap Anson, the Hall of Fame baseball player most often blamed for baseball's color line.

Arlington, VA (PRWEB) March 7, 2006 -- Booklist and Library Journal, the most broad-based magazines that U.S. libraries rely on to screen new books, summarily decided to censor a straightforward, definitive 2006 biography of Cap Anson, the Hall of Fame baseball player most often blamed for baseball's color line, the book's author, Howard W. Rosenberg, has learned.

Both publications otherwise routinely give the light of day to books significantly related to the color line that Jackie Robinson broke in 1947. For example, in the foreword of Lawrence B. Hogan's new survey book of black baseball, Shades of Glory, acclaimed Robinson biographer Jules Tygiel says Anson is "often portrayed as the architect of baseball segregation."

While that and other racism-related books routinely reviewed by both publications invoke Anson as a significant figure, only in a 560-page 2006 biography of Anson, Cap Anson 4, can readers find on the order of two dozen pages of exhaustive analysis of Anson's prejudice and its allegedly profound impacts.

Censorship is subjective, but Rosenberg spoke with officials at both Booklist and Library Journal in the past few weeks, including the social sciences editor of Library Journal, Margaret Heilbrun. He learned from both that his advance review copies submitted in late 2005 were summarily dismissed, with Library Journal unable to come up with a substantive reason for doing so. Instead, Heilbrun raised incidental concerns like his having put sequential numbers in the title of the series' books. A Booklist editorial staffer also raised a problem related to the sequential nature of the books, that because Booklist did not review the prior books in the series, it would be inappropriate to review this one. A typical Booklist or Library Journal review is around 200 words, but it was not immediately clear to Rosenberg why Booklist could not review Cap Anson 4 with a disclaimer about having not reviewed the author's prior books. In any event, Rosenberg was not previously aware that a U.S. book review publication would in good conscience summarily dismiss a book in a series, on a person of obvious significance, purely on the grounds that it did not review all of the author's prior books. For one thing, in general, authors probably write much better fourth books than first ones.

Plus, Rosenberg did a search in the database Factiva for "series of books" and "Booklist." In the search result, the most recent book that shows up, of at least 200 pages, is Anthea Paul’s 2004 book Girlosophy: The Breakup Survival Kit (224 pages). The Booklist review starts as follows: "Paul’s Girlosophy: A Soul Survival Kit (2000) began a series of books designed to empower girls. . ." But according to the database, which goes back to 2000, Booklist never reviewed Anthea Paul's earlier book.

By the way, the strict standard apparently arbitrarily used against the Cap Anson series does not appear in Booklist's Selection Policy at the following link: http://www.ala.org/ala/booklist/insidebooklist/booklistpolicy/booklistselection.htm. Rosenberg also submitted his second and third books for consideration, in 2004 and 2005, and was not informed of any such standard. Booklist is a publication of the American Library Association, the largest national library association in the world and a well-known extreme advocate for what it calls "free access to all expressions of ideas."

However, Rosenberg observes: "In the case of Cap Anson 4, Booklist and Library Journal seem to be saying: 'Here's a chance for us to run roughshod over the author, especially since no major U.S. news outlet really cares that much about honest free expression to blow the whistle on us when we constrict our fairness to mediating among books from our friends in the book industry establishment.'"

On another front, while censoring Cap Anson 4, both publications recently reviewed a relatively large publisher's 2006 biography of a far more minor Hall of Famer, Tris Speaker, by first-time author Timothy M. Gay. Not only that, Booklist's review of the Speaker book delved into Speaker's racism, demonstrating that racism in baseball history is a recurring theme of interest to Booklist: See how the Booklist review is touted at http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0803222068/103-7385016-6260642?v=glance&n=283155.

Meanwhile, several newspapers, most notably the New York Times and Washington Post, have policies that automatically block books from certain authors for review (the definitive Anson biography is one). But yet those same publications love to cast books that they review as significant, and often review them on the order of 500 to 1,000 words. However, such newspapers seem to lack a mechanism for informing their readers of which competing (and arguably more) significant new books of a similar or related type in the same genre they chose to summarily dismiss. Besides Anson's color line notoriety in Shades of Glory, Cap Anson 4, starting with its release around April 1, will offer a strong counterweight to a yet-to-be-released 2006 title, Leigh Montville's Big Bam: The Life and Times of Babe Ruth. Cap Anson 4 has as its subtitle "Bigger Than Babe Ruth: Captain Anson of Chicago," and especially delves into which of the two icons received wittier coverage in print.

Meanwhile, Booklist Editor and Publisher Bill Ott, who oversees its sports book coverage, pens Booklist's annual top ten sports nonfiction list. If Booklist in fact censored Cap Anson 4, then any list for 2006 should contain a disclaimer to that effect, especially, if on its face, Cap Anson 4 is a strong candidate to have top ten content. After all, Rosenberg's research came close to exhausting the surviving newspaper record related to Anson: 50 years in the public eye (1871 to 1922).

For an earlier news release concerning Cap Anson 4's significance, see http://www.prweb.com/releases/2006/2/prweb336773.htm. That release also names newspapers that will not consider Cap Anson 4 for book review, simply because it is independently published. Others that have informed Rosenberg since then are the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, the San Diego Union-Tribune and the Washington Times.

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