One of the most popular players in Cincinnati Reds history, Ernie "Schnozz" Lombardi played 1931-1947 as an eight-time All-Star catcher. A big man with huge hands, a cannon for an arm and a namesake nose, he held two National League batting titles and a career average of .306. Yet he was so famously slow a runner that the infielders took to the outfield, where they could still throw him out. Fastballs not thrown hard enough were caught barehanded and fired back to the mound. One unfortunate play in the 1939 World Series dogged Lombardi for the rest of his life and kept him from the Hall of Fame until long after his death. This first full-length biography gives a complete account of this outstanding, underrated player.

Napoleon Lajoie was the sixth player, and the first second baseman, to be elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame. During his career, which lasted from 1896 to 1916, he was regularly called the ""King of Ballplayers"" and was widely regarded as the greatest baseball player of all time before Ty Cobb and Babe Ruth came along. Colourful, competitive, and often unpredictable, Lajoie was so popular that the Cleveland team was called the Naps in his honor while he played for them. He was a multiple batting champion, the American League's first Triple Crown winner, and the third member of the 3,000 hits club. This book is the first ever full-length biography of this long ago superstar.

During the 1890s, Cleveland's National League team, called the Blues and later the Spiders, built a reputation as baseball's roughest, toughest club. Baseball became a war in the Gay Nineties, full of cheating, intimidation, and violence on and off the field, from which the concept of sportsmanship had virtually disappeared. The Spiders were the rowdiest team of all. Managed by Oliver (Patsy) Tebeau, a hard-charging, quick-fisted infielder, the Spiders cut a swath through the National League. They fought with umpires, opposing players, and fans at home and on the road, and though they never won a pennant, their battles with the Baltimore Orioles became the stuff of legend. Their story is not all unpleasant. Cy Young, who won more games than any pitcher who ever lived, spent his first nine seasons with the Spiders. They were also ahead of their time from a racial perspective when they signed Louis Sockalexis, the first recognized Native American in major league ball. The Spiders ended their run on a sour note when the 1899 club compiled the worst record in major league history, winning only 20 of 154 games. Shortly afterward, the Spiders were no more. They left a complicated legacy, but an interesting one.

Eddie Cicotte, who pitched in the American League 1905-1920, was one of the tragic figures of baseball. A family man and a fan favourite, he ascended to stardom with nothing more than a mediocre fastball, endless guile and a repertoire of trick pitches. He won 29 games in 1919 and led the Chicago White Sox to the pennant. Although he pitched poorly in the World Series that October, fans did not hold it against him--a slump can happen to anybody. A year later, the public learned the truth: Cicotte's poor performance was no slump. He had taken a bribe to throw the Series. Along with seven teammates, he was implicated in what became known as the Black Sox Scandal, the most disgraceful episode in the history of the sport. Overnight, he became a pariah and would remain so for the rest of his life. This is the first full-length biography of Cicotte, best known today not as a great pitcher but as one of the "Eight Men Out.

Professional baseball took root in America in the 1860s during the same years that the sons of the first wave Irish famine refugees began to reach adulthood, and the Irish quickly demonstrated a special affinity for baseball. This is a survey of the enormous contribution of the Irish to the American pastime and the ways in which Irish immigrants and baseball came of age together. Chapters cover the Irish and early immigrants in Boston; the Chicago White Stockings; the Shamrocks, Trojans and Giants; Charlie Comiskey; Patsy Tebeau and the Hibernian Spiders; Ned Hanlon and the Orioles; Hugh Duffy and Tommy McCarthy, the ""Heavenly Twins""; umpires; John McGraw; ""Wild Bill"" Donovan, Patrick Joseph ""Whiskey Face"" Moran, and Connie Mack; the Red Sox and the Royal Rooters; and, more.