Astute baseball fans know that several great players, including five members of the Hall of Fame, were born and raised in and around Mobile, Alabama. A Time for Reflection is an insightful dual biography of two of these stars, Willie McCovey and Billy Williams. Supported by incisive research and buttressed by interviews with family members, friends, and former teammates, Jason Cannon has written a book that stands as a fine example of what baseball biography can be as both art and scholarship.

Beautifully written and lovingly told, Jason Cannon's dual biography of Willie McCovey and Billy Williams reminds us that beyond the boxscores, it's the stories that matter most when it comes to baseball. A Time for Reflection is a narrative treasure.

Jason Cannon's decision to emphasize the importance of place--Mobile, Alabama--in his portrait of baseball legends Willie McCovey and Billy Williams is inspired. The shared experience of both McCovey and Williams--two aspiring ballplayers, both born in 1938, growing up in the same town in the Jim Crow south--is both intriguing and illuminating. Cannon traces their struggles as young black players to their development as great Hall of Famers and as ambassadors of the their sport. A great contribution to the discussion of baseball, history and culture.