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.
Long before strip malls, television and huge retail chains homogenized American culture, minor league baseball clubs represented individual, local ideals.
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.
This book presents the rich history of the old amusement parks and beach resorts frequented by Baltimoreans beginning in the 1870s and stretching into the late 20th century.
The first organized, sanctioned American stock car race took place in 1908 on a road course around Briarcliff, New York--staged by one of America's early speed mavens, William K.
These new essays and memories cover the history and evolution of the former home of the Chicago White Sox, as well as its importance to its surrounding neighborhoods, and to the city of Chicago.
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.
The Olympic Games, revived in 1896, are the most well known international multisport gathering--but since 1896, hundreds of other competitions based on the Olympic Games model have been established whose histories have not been well documented.
This book provides an in-depth look at the great motor races that took place in Savannah, Georgia, in the golden era of early road racing: the Grand Prize of the Automobile Club of America and the Vanderbilt Cup.
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.
Almost unknown when in 1945 he purchased the Indianapolis Motor Speedway and its famous race, Tony Hulman soon became a household name in auto racing circles.
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).
From novelty tricks in swim classes, through the Aquacades and movies, to the highly complex Olympic competitions--this history of synchronized swimming tells how the sport grew, examines the role the United States has played in its worldwide development, and describes the status of synchronized swimming in world sporting events today.
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 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.