- The 1934 Pittsburgh Crawfords, including Josh Gibson, Satchel Paige, and Oscar Charleston. Were they the greatest team of all time?
Part of the romance of baseball is that there’s been so much room for tall tales to develop. Unlike pro basketball or football, which have always been carefully controlled and monitored by their leagues, pro baseball grew up in a time before film or even action photography, and before careful record-keeping, when the only proof that things actually happened was eyewitness accounts. And, as the Russian proverb says, nobody lies like an eyewitness.
- Chicago Review Press
Probably the best is the saga of the House of David, a religious cult based in Benton Harbor, Michigan, that sponsored a group of baseball teams that barnstormed across America, playing locals and major leaguers alike, all while sporting long beards. It turns out they weren’t as good as they were hyped to be, but they really did wear beards, and after the House of David cult itself became embroiled in a sex scandal (although members were supposed to be celibate, the leader took it upon himself to deflower every young girl in the compound), the baseball teams drew more fans than ever.
