Book Q&A: John Rosengren on Hank Greenberg
John Rosengren is the author most recently of a biography, Hank Greenberg: The Hero of Heroes. His other books include Hammerin' Hank, George Almighty and the Say Hey Kid: The Year that Changed Baseball Forever, Alone in the Trenches: My Life as a Gay Player in the NFL (written with Esera Tuaolo), and Bladesof Glory: The True Story of a Young Team Bred to Win. He lives in Minneapolis.
Q: Why did you decide to write a biography of Hank Greenberg?
A: Because he was one of the most significant figures in American history. As a Hall of Fame baseball player, he had this stage—the game in the 1930s and ‘40s was the national pastime—at a time when there was strong ethnic identity, much stronger than today.
In the first two decades of the 20th century, people grew up in neighborhoods surrounded by people from their ...