In baseball, there are the rare combinations of prodigious talent and magnetic personality that are destined to be remembered forever: Ruth, Mantle, Mays, Dimaggio. Then there are those who toil in relative obscurity, quietly refining an irreproachable level of craftsmanship with workman-like determination, unnoticed by reporters chasing their more celebrated teammates. "Prince" Hal Schumacher, an unassuming righty pitcher, was born in 1910, the youngest of nine children, in upstate New York. Trying to following the fallen star of his older brother, a baseball player of early promise who was killed in World War I, Hal became a statistically outstanding player. But though he was well known and admired in his time, he lacked the outgoing flamboyance of many of his contemporaries and would never make the Baseball Hall of Fame, possibly because, as the author opines, he saw himself as “just another man who had done the best he could.”

Author Roger Glen Melin has rescued the memory of one of the era's excellent performers from the dustbin of baseball history. Tracing the subject's life from humble beginnings to his post-retirement contributions to the game through Little League Baseball and the Adirondack Bat Company, he moves year-by-year and game-by-game through Schumacher's baseball career, highlighting his integral contributions to the Giants World Series teams in 1933, '36 and '37. With fastidious detail, Melin paints a picture of a man equally proud of his contributions to successful enterprise and grateful for his opportunity to contribute in the first place. The author has brought to life a man who could have been forgotten, who made positive contribution to baseball history, and in doing so, has produced a rewarding read for avid fans of the game.

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