A biography of baseball hall-of-fame player and manager Frank Frisch, the "pilot light" who ignited the St. Louis Cardinals "Gas House Gang" in the 1930s. Frisch, while a colorful character in his own right, was often outshone in that department by his contemporaries, and this book covers the players, managers and umps he crossed paths with as much as it does Frisch, some of the more prominent being John J. McGraw, Branch Rickey, Pepper Martin, Leo Durocher, Rogers Hornsby, Dizzy and Paul Dean, Johnny Mize and Casey Stengel. Frisch had a lifetime batting mark of .316 (brought down by his last few declining years), played in 50 World Series games, managed the Cardinals from 1933 to 1938 and won the 1934 Series. Broeg tells his story with some flair, although sometimes I found myself losing the track of a story and having to go back to figure out what was happening and who was doing it. ( )