To provide a new outlook on an event over 50 years since it happened is no small task — and when it’s finished, it had better be pretty darn good. Almost perfect, some might say.

Lew Paper takes on the task of Don Larsen’s perfect game in the 1956 World Series, what many consider to be one of the greatest performances ever to grace a baseball field, and approaches it by profiling the 19 men who took the field that day.

Using a chapter format that reminded me of Charles Euchner’s The Last Nine Innings, Paper profiles a player in each chapter (with one exception, where he profiles two players), followed by a brief recap of what happened that inning.

The book is tremendous, as it gives a remarkable picture of the players involved in that October 8, 1956 game that would forever imprint itself on the minds of baseball fans not just of the day, but for years to come. The game featured seven players that would be inducted into the Hall of Fame -Mickey Mantle, Enos Slaughter, Pee Wee Reese, Jackie Robinson, Yogi Berra, Duke Snider and Roy Campanella – and one, Gil Hodges, whom many believe should be there as well. Fifteen of the nineteen players made the All-Star Game at some point in their career. It was played in one of the games grandest cathedrals, Yankee Stadium, in front of 64,519 people – a crowd that no Major League ballpark could hold today.

Paper’s approach of looking at each of the players on the field that day works very well, and serves as a ready reminder of the numerous personalities and backgrounds that shape the game of baseball. The game had just marked its first decade of being integrated, as Jackie Robinson, who debuted 10 years prior in 1947, would end up retiring at the end of the season rather than report to the New York Giants after the Dodgers sold it to them. Many of the players in that game were nearing the end of their playing careers, and Paper provides a concise look into their lives before, during, and after Don Larsen struck out Dale Mitchell for the final out.

You may be wondering – how does Paper do this, given that many of the players are long dead, yet there are so many quotes? I wondered this too – so I decided to flip through the book a bit.

It turns out that Paper’s approach is similar to the one Mark Stewart and Mike Kennedy used in their 2006 work Hammering Hank: How the Media Made Henry Aaron. Paper compiled his quotes from dozens, possibly into the hundreds of sources over the past 50 years. He readily admits this, on page 365 though, which initially left a bad impression with me. Rather than burden the pages by dozens of footnotes, the references that Paper used are consolidated into a 35-page chapter of endnotes.

Lew Paper

Now it would seem that Paper isn’t trying to pull a fast one on the reader, nor is he someone who just combed the records for quotes and pieced them together. Perfect is his fifth work, following up on four previous books – John F. Kennedy: The Promise and the Performance, Brandeis: An Intimate Biography, Empire: William S. Paley and the Making of CBS, and a novel, Deadly Risks. He certainly has an academic background, as he is a graduate of the University of Michigan and Harvard Law School, as well as Georgetown University, where he obtained a masters in law degree. He has written for The New York Times, The Washington Post, The New Republic, and The American Scholar. He is also a practicing lawyer in Washington, DC.

The idea for the book, Paper writes, came largely from two visits to a baseball camp in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, called the Mickey Mantle Memorial Week of Dreams, which later evolved into Heroes in Pinstripes, a camp offering the chance to play with and learn from Yankee legends. It was there that he got to speak with with several of the players from the game, including Larsen, Hank Bauer and Enos Slaughter. But needing much more to make a book of this scope work, he turned to the Hall of Fame and their records, as well as to Peter Golenbock, who has written a number of baseball books, including many on the Dodgers and Yankees.

Which is what brings me to how I find myself challenged to look at this book. On one hand, I am thoroughly impressed by the product that resulted after Paper’s years of research and compiling of quotes and information. It is a resource that breaks down a momentous event in baseball history incredibly well and will likely be turned to by many interested in the subject for years to come. As I ask myself after I read every book – am I a better and more knowledgeable fan after reading this book? Undoubtedly.

On the other hand, I feel like there should be so many other people’s names on the cover of the book – or at least given more credit at its start and throughout the pages. To paraphrase Sir Isaac Newton, Paper is able to see so far with this work because he stands on the shoulders of giants. While Paper provides them credit in the endnotes, the sheer quantity of resources relied on seems to warrant a different, and better, kind of treatment.

Loving, and therefore recommending Perfect requires a bit of trust on both my part and your part. As Paper readily admits in the endnotes, he relied on the work and writings of numerous other people. As time goes on, memories change, stories become embellished, and things don’t get documented as accurately as they should. Depending on your existing knowledge of the game and the players, some things might conflict with what you already have learned. Paper acknowledges this and provides his thought process for resolving conflicts in stories, and while some might nitpick, many will find this an apt and capable recap and breakdown of the game and those involved in it. However, given how long ago Larsen authored his masterpiece, there is certainly plenty of time for discrepancies to creep into the story.

I feel compelled to mention that the editor’s eye in me did catch a couple of editorial bobbles – a misspelling of home plate umpire Babe Pinelli’s name, what looked like an errant footnote towards the end – but things that are ultimately forgivable and nothing worth quibbling over.

Overall though, a worthwhile read on a topic that will live on in baseball lore for many years to come.