The Tour to End All Tours


Book Description

During the winter of 1913 and the spring of 1914 the New York Giants and the Chicago White Sox took a trip around the world. Organized by crusty John McGraw of the Giants and the White Sox's Charles Comiskey, it was a trip of epic proportions-a tour to end all tours recreated here in all its monumental sweep and comical detail. This book follows the two teams, whose members include Christy Mathewson, Jim Thorpe, and half a dozen other future Hall-of-Famers, as they barnstorm across the United States and sail the seas to Asia, the Middle East, and Europe, finishing with a game before twenty thousand fans and King George V. Along the way, baseball's envoys meet such dignitaries as Pope Pius X, tea magnate Thomas Lipton, and the last khedive of Egypt. They play the tables of Monaco, survive a near-shipwreck, and cram a lifetime's worth of adventures into six months. Their story, told here for the first time, gives readers a glimpse into baseball history and the innocence and spirit of a long-gone era. James E. Elfers is a library analyst at the University of Delaware.




Ray Schalk


Book Description

This is the first book-length biography of Hall of Fame catcher Ray Schalk, once described as the yardstick against which all other catchers were measured. For years the top defender at his position, Schalk was also a fiery leader on the field, and he guided two teams to the World Series. (One of those teams, however, was the 1919 Black Sox, whose conspiracy to throw the Series left Schalk with a deep and abiding sense of betrayal.) After he retired as a player, the Illinois native spent decades as a manager or coach on the collegiate, minor league, and major league levels. Schalk entered the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 1955.




The Harlem Hellfighters


Book Description

From bestselling author Max Brooks, the riveting story of the highly decorated, barrier-breaking, historic black regiment—the Harlem Hellfighters In 1919, the 369th infantry regiment marched home triumphantly from World War I. They had spent more time in combat than any other American unit, never losing a foot of ground to the enemy, or a man to capture, and winning countless decorations. Though they returned as heroes, this African American unit faced tremendous discrimination, even from their own government. The Harlem Hellfighters, as the Germans called them, fought courageously on—and off—the battlefield to make Europe, and America, safe for democracy. In THE HARLEM HELLFIGHTERS, bestselling author Max Brooks and acclaimed illustrator Caanan White bring this history to life. From the enlistment lines in Harlem to the training camp at Spartanburg, South Carolina, to the trenches in France, they tell the heroic story of the 369th in an action-packed and powerful tale of honor and heart.




The Irish and the Making of American Sport, 1835-1920


Book Description

Jerrold Casway coined the phrase "The Emerald Age of Baseball" to describe the 1890s, when so many Irish names dominated teams' rosters. But one can easily agree--and expand--that the period from the mid-1830s well into the first decade of the 20th century and assign the term to American sports in general. This book covers the Irish sportsman from the arrival of James "Deaf" Burke in 1836 through to Jack B. Kelly's rejection by Henley regatta and his subsequent gold medal at the 1920 Olympics. It avoids recounting the various victories and defeats of the Irish sportsman, seeking instead to deal with the complex interaction that he had with alcohol, gambling and Sunday leisure: pleasures that were banned in most of America at some time or other between 1836 and 1920. This book also covers the Irish sportsman's close relations with politicians, his role in labor relations, his violent lifestyle--and by contrast--his participation in bringing respectability to sport. It also deals with native Irish sports in America, the part played by the Irish in "Team USA's" initial international sporting ventures, and in the making and breaking of amateurism within sport.




John Tortes "Chief" Meyers


Book Description

One of major league baseball's first Native American stars, John Tortes "Chief" Meyers (1880-1971) was the hard-hitting, award-winning catcher for John McGraw's New York Giants from 1908 to 1915 and later for the Brooklyn Dodgers. He appeared in four World Series and remains heralded for his role as the trusted battery mate of legendary pitcher Christy Mathewson. Unlike other Native American players who eschewed their tribal identities to escape prejudice, Meyers--a member of the Santa Rosa Band of the Cahuilla Tribe of California--remained proud of his heritage and became a tribal leader after his major league career. This first full biography explores John Tortes Meyers's Cahuilla roots and early life, his year at Dartmouth College, his outstanding baseball career, his life after baseball, and his remarkable legacy.




Mike Donlin


Book Description

Mike Donlin was a brash, colorful, and complicated personality. He was the most popular athlete in New York and was a star on the powerful New York Giants teams of 1905 and 1908. Though haunted by tragedy, including the deaths of both of his parents as a boy, Donlin was a charming, engaging, and kind-hearted man who also had successful careers on the stage and in film. One of the early “bad boys” among professional athletes, Donlin’s temper and combativeness—compounded by alcoholism—led to battles with umpires and fans, numerous suspensions from the game, and even jail time. In 1906, when Donlin married vaudeville actress Mabel Hite, his life changed for the better, and their love story captivated the nation. Donlin left baseball after his sensational comeback for the dramatic 1908 season and joined Mabel on the stage, likely losing a Hall of Fame career. Then in 1912, at the age of twenty-nine, Mabel died of intestinal cancer. After making a final comeback as a player in 1914, Donlin starred in baseball’s first feature film. He became a drinking buddy of actors John Barrymore and Buster Keaton and married actress Rita Ross. The couple moved to Hollywood, where Donlin became a beloved figure and appeared in roughly one hundred movies, mostly in minor roles. Despite his Hollywood career, Donlin stayed connected to the game he loved and was seeking a coaching job with the Giants when he died of a heart attack in 1933. At the dawn of the celebrity era of sports, Donlin was one of the nation’s first athletes to capture the public’s attention. This biography by Steve Steinberg and Lyle Spatz shows why.




Transpacific Field of Dreams


Book Description

Baseball has joined America and Japan, even in times of strife, for over 150 years. After the "opening" of Japan by Commodore Perry, Sayuri Guthrie-Shimizu explains, baseball was introduced there by American employees of the Japanese government tasked wit




The Empire Strikes Out


Book Description

Is the face of American baseball throughout the world that of goodwill ambassador or ugly American? Has baseball crafted its own image or instead been at the mercy of broader forces shaping our society and the globe? The Empire Strikes Out gives us the sweeping story of how baseball and America are intertwined in the export of “the American way.” From the Civil War to George W. Bush and the Iraq War, we see baseball's role in developing the American empire, first at home and then beyond our shores. And from Albert Spalding and baseball's first World Tour to Bud Selig and the World Baseball Classic, we witness the globalization of America's national pastime and baseball's role in spreading the American dream. Besides describing baseball's frequent and often surprising connections to America's presence around the world, Elias assesses the effects of this relationship both on our foreign policies and on the sport itself and asks whether baseball can play a positive role or rather only reinforce America's dominance around the globe. Like Franklin Foer in How Soccer Explains the World, Elias is driven by compelling stories, unusual events, and unique individuals. His seamless integration of original research and compelling analysis makes this a baseball book that's about more than just sports.




The Athletic Crusade


Book Description

The Athletic Crusade is the first book to systematically analyze the role of sports in the expansion of U.S. empire from the 1890s through World War II. Gerald R. Gems details how white, Anglo-Saxon Protestant males set the standard for inclusion within American society, transferred that standard to foreign territories, and subtly used American sports to instill allegedly desirable racial, moral, and commercial virtues in colonial subjects. In the realm of such expansion, sports provided a less harsh, less militaristic means of instilling belief in a dominant system?s values and principles than more overt methods such as war. The process of change, however, had unexpected consequences as subordinate groups adapted or even rejected American overtures. Sport became a means for nonwhites to challenge whiteness, Social Darwinism, and cultural hegemony by establishing their own physical prowess, claiming a measure of esteem, and creating a greater sense of national identity. Gems shows the direct influence of sports in Hawaii, the Philippines, Puerto Rico, Cuba, and the Dominican Republic and explores their comparatively minimal influence in countries such as China and Japan. Amid increasing globalization, The Athletic Crusade offers a welcome perspective on how the United States has attempted to spread its influence in the past and the implications for the future of indigenous and other societies.




Ted Sullivan, Barnacle of Baseball


Book Description

In his day, perhaps no one in baseball was better known than Irish-born Timothy Paul "Ted" Sullivan. For 50 years, America's sportswriters sang his praises, genuflected to his genius and bought his blarney by the barrel. Damon Runyon dubbed him "The Celebrated Carpetbagger of Baseball." Cunning, fast-talking, witty and sober, Sullivan was the game's first player agent, a groundbreaking scout who pulled future Hall of Famers from the bushes, an author, a playwright and a baseball evangelist who promoted the game across five continents. He coined the term "fan" and was among the first to suggest the designated hitter--because pitchers were "a lot of whippoorwill swingers." But he was also a convert to the Jim Crow attitudes of his day--black ballplayers were unimaginable to him. Unearthing thousands of contemporaneous newspaper accounts, this first exhaustive biography of "Hustlin'" Ted Sullivan recounts the life and career of one of the greatest hucksters in the history of the game.




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