History of sport

Forgotten today, Sam Thompson (1860-1922) was one of the most dominant five skills players of his era.

The 1960 Pittsburgh Pirates were a special team--team being the operative word.

The small and midsized cities of western Pennsylvania, Ohio and West Virginia reached their peaks of population and prosperity in the second quarter of the 20th century.

Arguably the greatest ball club in National League history, the 1953 Brooklyn Dodgers recorded some staggering statistics.

This is the story of the L.

Honus Wagner's spectacular baseball career spanned 21 seasons from 1897 through 1917.

This is the previously untold story of the London Tecumsehs, an 1870s baseball team that rose to the top ranks of pro ball.

In 1947, as the integration of Major League Baseball began, the once-daring American League had grown reactionary, unwilling to confront postwar challenges--population shifts, labor issues and, above all, racial integration.

Born in Austin, Texas, in 1899, Bibb August Falk was the classic stereotype of a Texan, standing six feet.

Long before strip malls, television and huge retail chains homogenized American culture, minor league baseball clubs represented individual, local ideals.

Though baseball would eventually come to embody the American spirit, in the nineteenth century onlookers regarded the game with some ambivalence.

The Negro Southern League was a baseball minor league that operated off and on from 1920 to 1951.

This the story of the seven baseball-playing Boyer brothers from western Missouri who signed professional contracts in the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s.

When Babe Ruth was sold by the Boston Red Sox to the New York Yankees at the beginning of the Roaring Twenties, the stage was set for one of baseball's greatest dynasties.

The Giants' accomplishments took place against an historical backdrop of a change in the African-American experience.

Over their first four decades in the American League, the Cleveland Indians were known more for great players than consistently great play.

Frank Robinson was one of the greatest baseball players of the 20th century.

This is a history of the New York Yankees over a decade which saw them at the top of the American League and at the bottom.

The 1970s were both successful and tragic for the Pittsburgh Pirates.

One of the oldest and most celebrated franchises in baseball history, the Cincinnati Reds have left an indelible mark on the national pastime.

This book chronicles the history of the Philadelphia Athletics, the first real dynasty in Major League Baseball.

By the mid-1870s, gambling in baseball threatened the public's confidence in the sport and its very existence as a professional enterprise.

Chronicling the 1902-1960 rivalry between the Minneapolis Millers and St.

This provocative book makes the case for the complete removal of national symbolism in the Olympic Games.

Most baseball fans know Tom Candiotti as a knuckleballer but he began his career as a conventional pitcher in 1983--after becoming just the second player to appear in the major leagues following Tommy John surgery, at a time when only Tommy John himself had ever come back from the operation.

The exemplar of the major league slugging shortstop before either Honus Wagner or Lou Boudreau, Ed McKean spent a dozen seasons as a high-profile contributor to the Cleveland Spiders, leading his team to three playoff berths and the 1895 Temple Cup championship.

This account of the four baseball seasons of 1900 through 1903 seeks to capture the flavor of the period by providing yearly overviews from the standpoint of each team and by focusing more deeply on 30 or more players of the era--not only such legendary stars as Cy Young and Willie Keeler, but also relative unknowns such as Bill Keister and Kip Selbach.

Baseball has had many outstanding Latin American pitchers since the early 20th century.

"e;A gentleman when the game was hard-bitten, played by rough-and-ready lads out to win whatever the cost.

For more than a century Johnny Evers has been conjoined with Chicago Cubs teammates Frank Chance and Joe Tinker, thanks to eight lines of verse by a New York columnist.

After many years of being an also-ran in the National league, the Pittsburgh Pirates' fortunes changed dramatically following the 1899 season after a monumental deal with the Louisville Colonels.

This book profiles forty major league ballplayers who engineered remarkable comebacks to salvage fading careers.

The first owner of the Santurce Crabbers, Pedrin Zorrilla, was a visionary, with many Negro League and big league contacts (he signed up Josh Gibson, Satchel Paige, Roy Campanella, Ray Dandridge and Leon Day in the first decade).

Gib Bodet's 70-year love affair with baseball dates from his childhood in Fair Lawn, New Jersey, and it has carried him through parts of six decades as a scout with the Red Sox, Tigers, Expos, Angels, Royals, and Dodgers.

This is a straightforward history of the Athletics franchise, from its Connie Mack years in Philadelphia with teams featuring Eddie Collins, Chief Bender, Jimmy Foxx, Mickey Cochrane and Lefty Grove, through its 13 years in Kansas City, under Arnold Johnson and Charles O.

This is the story of one of the all-time great teams of major league baseball, the 1957 Milwaukee Braves.

This is a book about baseball players who performed in the major leagues before the age of 21.

This work is a game-by-game account of the Philadelphia Athletics' pitiful 1916 season, in which they won just 36 of 154 games.

The Giant-Dodger rivalry was considered the best in baseball by 1890 and remains the game's oldest and most storied rivalry today.

This work, which picks up where the author's previous book, The Brooklyn Dodgers in the 1940s (McFarland, 2005), left off, covers the Dodgers' final eight years in Brooklyn.

Cap Anson's plaque at the Baseball Hall of Fame sums up his career with admirable simplicity: "e;The greatest hitter and greatest National League player-manager of the 19th century.

This is a followup volume to the acclaimed Voices from the Negro Leagues, (McFarland, 1998; softcover 2005) which features interviews with 52 former Negro League players from the 1920s to 1960s.

The Indianapolis ABCs were formed around the turn of the century, playing company teams from around the city; they soon played other teams in Indiana, including some white teams.

August Garry Herrmann entered the murky waters of 19th century machine politics in Cincinnati, serving as a trusted lieutenant to one of the most powerful political bosses in the country, George B.

In 1916, over 500 men played in a major league game.

Described as "e;the Greatest Batsman in the Country"e; by sportswriters of his era, Dennis "e;Big Dan"e; Brouthers compiled a .

This book is the day by day story of the 1954 Indians, whose .

For major league baseball, the decade following Jackie Robinson's 1947 debut was one of slow yet persistent change.

Earl Weaver put his best defensive players on the field early in the game rather than make late-inning defensive replacements, and he didn't like to bunt, figuring if you played for only one run that's all you'd get.

In 1908 baseball was the only game that mattered in the South.