Separating the Men from the Boys: The First Half-Century of the Carolina League

Sporting News, The, August 1, 1994 by Steve Gietschier

There is a lot to be said for compiling a simple narrative of baseball's historical record. Hundreds of player biographies do this with varying degrees of success and literary merit. Chronicles of particular seasons and team histories make a contribution as well. And over the last few years, a series of minor league studies has enriched our knowledge of what has transpired in professional baseball below the major league level.

This book is Sumner's first foray into territory settled by the likes of Bin O'Neal (with five minor league books to his credit) and John Spalding. "Separating the Men from the Boys" is in the main a competent season-by-season review of the 50 years of the Carolina League, now Class A, with teams in North Carolina, Virginia, Maryland and Delaware.

The Carolina League was born of the contraction in minor league play caused by World War 11. The Bi-State League, the Coastal Plain League and the North Carolina State League shut down, and the Piedmont League continued to play only by pulling out of North Carolina. When Bi-State owners decided to resume operation in 1945, they raided several Piedmont League cities to set up an eight-team circuit and renamed the league.

Sumner divides his half-century into eight chunks. each of which he introduces with a short essay on league developments. But the bulk of these sections contains rather straightforward recapitulations of each season's pennant race with the league leaders and future stars highlighted. It is nice to recall that Dwight Gooden went 19-4 and struck out 300 for Lynchburg in 1983, but ultimately these season summaries get mighty repetitious.

The Carolina League has lived an interesting life, starting in the wake of World War 11, surviving the prolonged decline of the minors that lasted nearly three decades and rebounding over the last 10 years or so as minor league baseball has risen to unprecedented heights of prosperity. Sumner's sidebars, short features set off from his main text, teE this part of the story best.