Baseball As Background Yet Overall Enjoyable Enough. This is one of those books that has several flaws – some easily fixed, others not so easily fixed – such that none of them individually are really *that* big of a problem, but in any combination amount to enough of a problem to give many readers at least some pause. Thus, while there isn’t a single issue to hang any particular star deduction on, each of these issues are significant enough to me to be something like a 0.6 star deduction individually… which adds up to 1.8 star deduction across all three, necessitating the rounding up to a 2 star deduction.
First, the one that gets so many nonfiction books: The bibliography clocks in at just 14%, which is *just* shy of the 15% I normally expect (itself a loosened form of my former 20% expectation). Still, I think I’ve allowed even 12-13% to skate by before… except that in this case (and this next bit may well be corrected in the final published version rather than the Advance Review Copy version I’ve had for roughly 4.5 months prior to publication), Baird gets a rather well known fact – a fact so well known it is literally enshrined in the Major League Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York – *completely wrong* in claiming that Hall of Fame *third* baseman Chipper Jones of the Atlanta Braves was a “first” baseman. Maybe that was a slip. Maybe it was an editor that missed the slip. Maybe it was in fact shoddy scholarship – Jones had retired before Baird says in this text that she became a fan of baseball, though he was elected as a first ballot Hall of Famer during the era Baird claims to have been following the sport. Still, the *just* short bibliography combined with this slip… like I said up front, not necessarily a reason to deduct a star in and of itself, but then we get to…
The perception that Baird may have allowed her own world view to impact her objectivity in reporting basic facts. In this case, I point specifically to the section of the text where Baird is discussing different religious beliefs on the origins of humanity and calling even religions practiced today by literally billions of people (particularly when combined) “myths”. But not only this, but Baird also specifically names Hindu and various Native American religions, among others… while classifying the Abramic religions (Judaism, Christianity, Islam) creation story as “one popular, basic creation myth” before citing the opening lines of the text the Christians call the Book of Genesis. Again, not necessarily something that on its own would have warranted a full star deduction (simply a discussion in the review, as here), but in combination with the bibliography and biography issues above… there’s at least one star gone, with a little extra “oomph”.
Thirdly, we finally get to the title of this review. The way this book ultimately reads, at least to me – and please read the book yourself and leave a review wherever you see this one, and feel free to claim I’m a moron here if you feel the need – is that Baird wanted to write a book about superstitions, rituals, and curses… but needed some kind of narrative structure to enable that discussion in a cohesive and approachable manner. Given that baseball really is filled with all of the above, it makes sense that this sport would be a very conducive narrative structure for such a discussion. But don’t then market this book as a *baseball* book when baseball really is the secondary feature of the book. This is not *really* a book *about* baseball – it is a book *about* Baird’s views on superstitions, rituals, and curses… that uses baseball as a way to explain them.
Still, ultimately, for what it is and indeed for how it is written, this is in fact an engaging and interesting read. It simply isn’t the read that readers would be led to expect they’re getting from the cover and description the weekend before the book’s publication (though these can also be updated at some later time, even, perhaps, before publication even now).
Read this book though. Truly. It really is full of all kinds of fun stories, even if your team isn’t the New York teams Baird prefers herself. You, like me, are probably going to hear stories here that you had never previously known, even if baseball is your complete life. And make sure, again, to leave a review wherever you see this one. My thoughts here could very well be unique to me, and I could in fact be more wrong that right in all that I’ve said here. But this review is true to my own experience with this text, and I will stand by it for that reason alone, even if literally every other reviewer disagrees with me.
Recommended.
This review of The Magical Game by Addy Baird was originally written on May 30, 2026.
