This book profiles forty major league ballplayers who engineered remarkable comebacks to salvage fading careers. Details of each comeback is provided along with a summary of the player's career. The comeback players range from Hall of Famers like Ted Williams and Stan Musial; to near-greats like Tommy John and Luis Tiant; to journeyman performers like George McQuinn and Tony Cuccinello. In the absence of statistical standards to evaluate or even define comebacks, the selection of the top comeback players was based on the following criteria: historical significance, uniqueness, dramatic content, degree of difficulty, and the player's overall reputation and standing.
A look at the real stories behind baseball's most infamous scandals discusses the 1919 Chicago White Sox, Babe Ruth's huge sexual appetite, Joe DiMaggio's jealousy, and others
This book is a record of the men and events, team by team, during Major League Baseball's integration. It focuses especially on the owners, executives and managers who were the heroes, villains or spectators of integration, and it sheds new light on the unheralded champions of integration and on those whose culpability has so far been overlooked. Individual chapters cover each of baseball's integration-era teams, and a final chapter covers expansion teams of the 1960s. Each team's responsible individuals are examined, its acquisition, deployment and treatment of black players documented, and the effect of its integration actions on team performance analyzed. Appendices provide populations of integration-era Major League cities, first black players by team, first black players in various minor leagues, rosters of black players by team, a timeline of black player milestones, and a list of black All-Star selections through 1969.
On September 10, 1934, grizzled reliever Burleigh Grimes helped the Pittsburgh Pirates to an inconsequential 9-7 win over the New York Giants in the Polo Grounds. For Grimes, the September contest marked his 270th and final win. For baseball, it marked the last time a legal spitballer would win a major league contest. Though the pitch had been banned in 1920, the American and National leagues both agreed to grant two exemptions per team to spitballers who were already in the majors. In 1921, both leagues agreed to extend grandfather provisions to cover the veteran spitball pitchers for the remainder of their careers. Under the extended rule, 17 pitchers were granted exemptions for their careers. This work looks at the lives and careers of these 17: Red Faber, Burleigh Grimes, Jack Quinn, Urban Shocker, Stan Coveleskie, Bill Doak, Ray Caldwell, Clarence Mitchell, Dutch Leonard, Ray Fisher, Dick Rudolph, Allen Sothoron, Phil Douglas, Allan Russell, Doc Ayers, Dana Fillingim and Marvin Goodwin.
While baseball is traditionally perceived as a game to be played, enjoyed, and reported from a masculine perspective, it has long been beloved among women—more so than any other spectator sport. Breaking into Baseball: Women and the National Pastime upends baseball’s accepted history to at last reveal just how involved women are, and have always been, in the American game. Through provocative interviews and deft research, Jean Hastings Ardell devotes a detailed chapter to each of the seven ways women participate in the game—from the stands as fans, on the field as professionals or as amateur players, behind the plate as umpires, in the front office as executives, in the press box as sportswriters and reporters, or in the shadows as Baseball Annies. From these revelatory vantage points, Ardell invites overdue appreciation for the affinity and talent women bring to baseball at all levels and shows us our national game anew. From its ancient origins in spring fertility rituals through contemporary marketing efforts geared toward an ever-increasing female fan base, baseball has always had a feminine side, and generations of women have sought—and been sought after—to participate in the sport, even when doing so meant challenging the cultural mores of their era. In that regard, women have been breaking into baseball from the very beginning. But recent decades have witnessed great strides in legitimizing women’s roles on the diamond as players and umpires as well as in vital management and media roles. In her thoughtfully organized and engagingly written survey, Ardell offers a chance for sports enthusiasts and historians of both genders to better appreciate the storied and complex relationship women have so long shared with the game and to glimpse the future of women in baseball. Breaking into Baseball is augmented by twenty-four illustrations and a foreword from Ila Borders, the first woman to play more than three seasons of men’s professional baseball.
Sharing its name with a notorious ancient city, Babylon village has been the home harbor of Long Island baymen, a post-World War II suburban boomtown, and the birthplace of the nation's first professional black baseball team. The modern village is well known for its picturesque Argyle Park and flourishing downtown, but it was once revered as a vacation resort destination for those near and far. The community has evolved from decades of residents, visitors, and experiences that have contributed to and created the history of Babylon village, one of the oldest established communities on the South Shore of Long Island.
Many histories of the New York Yankees only skim the early years in their rush to pick up with the 1919 season when Babe Ruth joined the team and go on to celebrate the careers of Lou Gehrig, Joe DiMaggio, Mickey Mantle, and Whitey Ford, and the team's World Series titles. But what about the Yankees before these big names? The early Yankees, who spent their first 12 years known as the Highlanders and were occasionally known as the Americans and the Invaders, get the attention they deserve in this work. It tells the story up until the sale of the Yankees in December 1914, beginning with 1903 when the team was formed from the remnants of the Baltimore Orioles. Led by future Hall of Famers "Wee" Willie Keeler, Jack Chesbro, and Clark Griffith, they were the most expensive major league team ever assembled--but they are remembered primarily for their terrible failures, which included losing a club-low 103 games in 1908 and finishing 55 games out of first place in 1912. Yes, the Yankees.
Professional baseball has always consisted of a variety of characters, from likeable youngsters to notorious rebels. From 1871 to the present, the sport has witnessed the likes of Germany Schaeffer, an infielder with a penchant for “stealing” first base; Joe Medwick, the only player ever removed from a game for his own safety; and first baseman Hal Chase, noted for being one of the most corrupt players in baseball history. The Cooperstown Chronicles takes an entertaining look at the unusual lives, strange demises, and downright rowdy habits of some of the most colorful personalities in the history of baseball. Chapters profile the game’s well-known tough-guys, the hard-drinking revelers, head-hunting pitchers, players who took their own lives, and those who died far too young from accidents or diseases. Frank Russo goes beyond the stats and delves into each player’s personality, his life outside of baseball, and even his final resting place. The stories of little-known players like Terry Enyart, who pitched just one and two-thirds innings in the major leagues, are told next to those of superstars such as Mike Flanagan, who played professional ball for 18 years. However brief or long a career he may have had, every major league player has a story to tell. The Cooperstown Chronicles gives a voice to many of those players who are no longer able to tell their stories themselves. Compelling, fun, and often surprising, this book will entertain baseball fans and historians alike.