The National Baseball Hall of Fame Collection by James Buckley is an absolutely fun book for any baseball fan from the most rabid to the most casual.

My intention was to take my time going through the book. The design, short entries and plenty of pictures, lends itself to jumping in and out of the book when convenient. But I found myself looking forward to which players might be covered next that I went through it (the first time, there will be more) quicker than I expected.

I have been a baseball fan for as long as I can remember, at least as far back as 1963. I spent a year as a batboy for the Senators when Ted Williams was manager. My interest in the game has waxed and waned since that time but I never fell out of love with the game. Now you have an idea of the type of fan I am, mostly casual now but with the knowledge of a more serious fan (since I have been one on several occasions).

The entries are short, really just to let the reader know why the player was inducted and where he fits in the larger scheme of things. A few entries are larger, sometimes for a special player, sometimes more topically driven but still including key names. This is not an in depth book, there are plenty of those out there. This is like walking briskly through the Hall of Fame itself, highlights and memories.

I think a casual fan who has never been into the game very much will appreciate the short entries and key contextualizing elements of each. A fan for whom these are all familiar names will have a great time remembering names they had forgotten and reliving old times. As an Oriole fan who had family in Los Angeles, I was able, at 8 years of age, to attend all four games of the '66 World Series. The thrill then was sweeping the Dodgers, the thrill later was knowing I watched Koufax pitch his last game. Those memories came back when I saw entries on some of the players involved. Every fan will have similar memories that will come back when they read this book.

I highly recommend this to anyone even remotely interested in the game.

Reviewed from a copy made available by the publisher via NetGalley. ( )