Considering I don't give a fig about sports, this book had me hooked. You can flip through it and just look at the illustrations - but take a good look. Notice the way you're mostly looking up at the players from ground-level - like you're a kid at one of the games, and the sun is shining and the sky is beyond blue, and these guys start looking like giants. There are some fantastic action shots, with a great sense of movement and muscle, and then there are all these portrait illustrations that are almost more impressive. The format of the book does justice to these pictures - it's big and square, and most of the illustrations are full page, no white space, maximizing the size and color. The narrative is almost equally impressive, although not so breath-taking. The style is colloquial, told in the second person, and full of anecdotes. Let me repeat - I don't care about baseball, but these stories were entertaining. And since it focuses in one this one piece of history - Negro League baseball - as a sort of microcosm for American history and racism, it would be a fantastic book for younger readers who are learning about segregation. Probably for upper elementary on up - even through high school, and definitely for anyone interested in baseball history, no matter what age.