Book excerpt: The decades of the 1940s and ‘50s are considered by many fans to be baseball's Golden Age. This volume features stories and anecdotes by dozens of players from those decades. We hear in the words of such players as Leo "the Lip" and Charlie "Banjo" Grimm, Casey "Purple Pants" Stengel, Charlie "I" Dressen, Danny Gardella, "Sugar" Cain, Eddie Gaedel, Billy Hunter, Bill Veeck, Bobo Newsome, Danny Litwhiler, Ace Adams, and Red Murff what baseball was like before expansion and contraction, before domed stadiums, airplane travel, agents, and the DH. Players share personal moments as well as the famous baseball moments in which they participated. They speak of the fun they had playing baseball. B&W photos.