Thanks to the University of Nebraska Press and NetGalley for this free ARC in return for my honest opinion,

It's just a few days before the start of the 2024 baseball season, and if you are like me, you enjoy reading a book about the National Pastime. Unfortunately, so many of these books deal with five or six teams, You know who they are: Yankees, Mets, Dodgers, Giants, and Red Sox. They predominate the bookstores and media reviews. So when this book crossed my desk, I was intrigued. A story about baseball, and World War I, a story about members of the Baseball Hall of Fame, who served in Europe, and not just in Europe, or part of the chemical warfare service. This is a something you don't usually read about. It's a good story. And it details the history of seven baseball players or executives who served in the AEF. Granted there many other people who served in the war in that branch of the army, but Jim Leek is a baseball historian. A member of the beloved baseball research group known as SABR he specializes in digging deep into many aspects of the game and its players that have gone either unnoticed or forgotten. And he hit upon a winning formula here as we learn about these players, but also about chemical warfare and history. If you're looking for scintillating prose, you're not going to get it in this book, but instead, you're going to get very good information about people such as Eppa Rixey, who was a chemistry major in college before he began his professional career, and who eventually became part of the chemical warfare service. You read about the attempts to get Christy Mathewson to represent the YMCA in France to lift the spirits of the troops, Instead, he eventually goes over to France and is a member of this chemical warfare service, as a matter fact, is one of the people who trained our troops to how to survive chemical warfare. Also, there is Thai Cobb, who is happy to be drafted and wanted to go to Europe to fight. Baseball executive Branch Rickey is also part of the contingent, as is former baseball manager and broadcaster Gabby Street. It's an interesting book filled with facts about the war, information on the chemical warfare service that I had no idea about until I read this book, and some fascinating insights as to these ballplayers and others, The book may not be about those well publicized, baseball teams that saturate the market, but instead, you read about real human beings, who lived in a different time, and when the time came to serve their country, they were there on the front lines in Europe, in one of the most dangerous jobs you could undertake. 3.5***

When Germany started using poisonous gas as a weapon during World War I, the United States formed its own Chemical Warfare Service to not only counter this type of attack, but also to go on the offensive for this strategy. When the call was made for men to join this special unit, several well-known baseball players heeded the call. This book by Jim Leake is a very good work on both the military and baseball parts of this story.

There is certainly more written about the Chemical Warfare Service (CWS) than about baseball in the book. However, this doesn’t mean the game is ignored. There is good material on several well-known ballplayers who were part of the CWS - including two very famous Hall of Fame players, Christy Mathewson and Ty Cobb. Leake, through excellent research, finds quotes about how the players felt about serving their country with the “work or fight” orders of that war. There was some controversy about Mathewson’s willingness to fight, and Leake’s research shows that wasn’t the case. Cobb’s feelings about the possibility that he would not return to baseball after military service was also interesting.

However, the best work was about the CWS itself. Every aspect of the program was covered, from its inception to the recruiting of men with knowledge of chemistry and gasses to the training. One notable item was something that is hard to fathom today and that the soldiers were shipped overseas without any training in the program - that would be received while on the field. Interestingly, one soldier who would fell under this category was Cobb, but the Armistice Day treaty was signed before Cobb saw any combat. He was getting training but the war ended earlier than expected.

As all know, Cobb went on to more great seasons after returning home. However, as author Leake noted, this wasn’t the case for all. He does write about the tragic death of Mathewson soon after coming home, which was attributed to his exposure to gas during the war. Leake’s work on lesser known players like Eppa Ripley is just as good throughout the book as well. Readers who enjoy military literature or baseball books will want a copy of this book.

I wish to University of Nebraska Press for proving a copy of the book in exchange for an honest review.

The Gas and Flame Men is a story about the Chemical Warfare Service. This branch of the army was formed to create defensive and offensive chemical warfare weapons and strategy against the Germans, who had first started using poisonous gas as well as flamethrower as offensive war strategy.

Leeke looks at the baseball players who were in this unit: Gabby Street, Ty Cobb, Christy Mathewson, Eppa Rixey, George Sisler, and former player turned manager and executive, Branch Rickey, and their experiences in the Great War.

The author uses a mix of personal correspondence from these men as well as other enlisted soldiers, officers, and newspaper reports to give the reader a vivid account of what conditions were like for the members of the Chemical Warfare Service during the war. The author also helps the reader get to know these players on a more intimate level by talking about their respective careers up to enlistment and what recuperating from injuries/illness and life was like post-war.

I found this book to be an excellent, highly researched book that I would recommend to baseball fans and World War I buffs.

My thanks to The University of Nebraska Press, Potomac Books, author Jim Leeke, and NetGalley for gifting me a digital copy of this book. My opinions are my own.