Baseball's Best: The Hall of Fame Gallery.

Baseball's Best: The Hall of Fame Gallery (1977) is the debut book of Martin E. Appel, the Brooklyn-born public relations director of the New York Yankees from 1973 to 1977 and one of the most prolific and respected baseball historians of his generation, produced in collaboration with Burt Goldblatt, the celebrated American graphic designer, art director, and pictorial historian whose earlier credits included The Marx Brothers at the Movies (1968), Cinema of the Fantastic (1972), and The Stanley Cup: A Complete Pictorial History (1975). The large-format oversize volume presents biographical profiles and black-and-white photographs of every member of baseball's Hall of Fame through 1977, including non-playing inductees such as managers, umpires, and executives, constituting the most comprehensive illustrated survey of the Cooperstown membership produced to that date. Appel brought to the project an unparalleled insider's knowledge of the game's history, having joined the Yankees organization at the age of nineteen and worked directly under Bob Fishel before succeeding him as public relations director at twenty-five. The book marked the beginning of a prolific authorial career that would encompass more than twenty books including the Casey Award-winning biographies of King Kelly and Casey Stengel and the celebrated Pinstripe Empire: The New York Yankees from Before the Babe to After the Boss, establishing Appel as one of the foremost chroniclers of the national pastime.