Book Review: Field of Schemes

by Paul Semendinger

June 11, 2025

***

Field of Schemes by J.B. Manheim is a winner!

Field of Schemes is the sixth book in J.B. Manhaim's Deadball Files series of baseball books. With this book, Manhaim has gone a perfect six-for-six.

Each of these wonderful books are unique in their own way, but they also each share some common features, including some of the main characters. The common features in the texts are great writing, terrific mysteries, and, through fiction (and fact), a terrific history of baseball.

The story behind Field of Schemes revolves around corruption that centered on the first ever Congressional baseball game. A great deal of early baseball and U.S. history is discussed in those pages. As always J.B. Manheim expertly weaves the history of the time into the story as he writes convincingly of the characters in that period as well as his modern day characters who are tasked with researching that game for an exhibit at the Hall of Fame in Cooperstown.

But Manheim's books are more than just one story.

In this text, there is also a second very intriguing tale - one that revolves around a fictional Commissioner of Baseball and the game's new relationship with big time gambling. (There are lessons that can be learned, even through fiction, for the future of the legitimacy of the game today.)

Intrigue follows suspesnse that follows history in a tale told expertly by a terrific writer. This is a page turner. Since the overall text is slightly less than 200 pages, the action is fast and continual. The reader gets through the book too quickly, in a way, because each page compells him to read another.

It is said that Field of Schemes is the final book in the Deadball Files series. It just might be, if so, it is a terrific conclusion to a wonderful collection of books. (I proudly own each. I also hope that another tale is to come...)

Of note, J.B. Manheim tells the stories in each of his books so well that each volume stands alone. One need not read these books in any order, to enjoy any single volume. That being said, I have read these each as they've been published and the overall story in the original order. That is the way I recommend reading all the books. They are fun and they make the reader think, "I know this was fiction, but... what if?"

Do yourself a favor and read Field of Schemes and the entire Deadball Files series.