Remember that scene in the movie "Twins" when Danny Devito finds out that he was born out of the excess cells used to create uber-man Arnold Schwarzenegger? "I'm genetic crap," Devito's pint-sized character laments.

Teammates: A Portrait of Friendship is not by any means crap. But, from almost start to finish, I was struck by the distinct impression that the bulk of the story was not, in fact, Halberstam's original research based on his interest in Dom DiMaggio and Johnny Pesky's car-trip to visit a dying Ted Williams. The story, the characters, and most obviously, the random selection of baseball history into which Halberstam goes into elaborate detail all seem very obviously like they were gems of information left over from Halberstam's Summer of 49. The excess research, the stories that didn't quite cut it in Summer of 49, seem to form the bulk of Teammates. Thats not necessarily a bad thing. But, during random and very detailed wanderings through the weeds of 1940s big league rosters, I often asked "Why is Mr. Halberstam taking me here?"

The answer, I believe, is that he had a TON of great anecdotes and baseball lore that he hadn't been able to squeeze into his previous works. So he used the excuse of the previously mentioned car trip to unload his leftovers upon us.

It wasn't an entirely misquided effort. But, it seemed clear that the book was more of an emptying of his data files than it was a well-argued thesis.