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Gabby Harnett is believed by many to be the greatest catcher of all
time. This work chronicles Hartnett's life from his early years in
Millville, Massachusetts, through his twenty-year career with the
Chicago Cubs as player and manager, his time in various capacities
in the minor leagues and with the New York Giants and Kansas City
Athletics, to his post-major league career as a businessman in
Chicago. His childhood, early baseball experiences with the local
team and with a nearby prep school, and his first professional
baseball season with the Worcester Boosters of the Eastern League
are covered in detail. Hartnett's major league career as the
catcher for the Cubs is well-documented, including his near
career-ending arm injury in 1929, the 1932 World Series that
featured Babe Ruth's legendary ""called shot,"" and Hartnett's
famous ""homer in the gloamin"" against the Pittsburgh Pirates that
propelled Chicago to the 1938 National League pennant. The author
also compares Hartnett's statistics to those of his famous
contemporaries, Mickey Cochrane and Bill Dickey, on a year-by-year
basis.
Since the Boston Red Sox came into existence in 1901, some of the
greatest players ever to step onto a baseball diamond have filled
its rosters. Starting with Cy Young, the parade of legendary
players included Tris Speaker, Babe Ruth, Jimmie Foxx, Ted
Williams, Carl Yastrzemski, Carlton Fisk, Roger Clemens, Pedro
Martinez, Manny Ramirez, and David Ortiz, among others. This work
profiles 200 of the most memorable players to have donned Boston's
red, white and blue. Some, like Williams, enjoyed long, illustrious
careers with the Red Sox. Others, like Smokey Joe Wood, shone
brightly for only a brief period. Also included are journeymen who
became legends as a result of one glorious World Series game, like
Bernie Carbo, or players with just one memorable post-season
appearance, like Dave Roberts. Together, these legends, idols, and
heroes made Red Sox history and forever changed American baseball.
The California Winter League was the first to bring together Negro
League teams and white professional teams in one league. It
operated from October through February each year from the early
part of the century until the late 1940s and generally consisted of
one or more Negro League teams, which included Hall-of-Famers
Satchel Paige, Turkey Stearnes, Willie Wells, and Cool Papa Bell on
their rosters, and three or more white teams, which were made up of
major league players who lived in California as well as minor
leaguers from the top-rated Pacific Coast League. This work is the
first complete history of the California Winter League from its
murky beginnings around 1912 to its golden years from 1924 to 1935
to its final demise in the mid 1940s. It provides an overview of
the league and the early years of local amateur ball clubs evolving
into the semi-professional league on through 1919. It then provides
detailed summaries for the official seasons of 1920 through 1947
and accounts of the exciting pennant races between the Negro League
teams and the white professional teams. Appendices provide
statistical information: league champions season by season, career
leaders in many categories such as batting average, home runs,
complete games, victories, and shutouts, batting and pitching
statistics for each season, and more.
It's often said that catcher is the most important, most demanding
defensive position in baseball. This view explains why so many
light-hitting catchers have enjoyed long?and by all accounts
successful?major league careers. Yet arguments over the all-time
greats invariably privilege offensive standouts, and even among
these players batting statistics are more likely than fielding
numbers to affect ranking. So what, historically, have been the
expectations for major league catchers, and who stands as the
greatest in a more balanced view of offensive and defensive
contributions? In Part I of this book, the history of catching and
catchers is discussed in detail, with attention to the most
celebrated players of each era. In Part II, the author employs
sabermetric formulas to rank the 50 greatest catchers since 1920,
when changes to the rules, the parks, and the ball dramatically
changed the way baseball was played. Also included is a chapter on
catchers of the 19th century, deadball era, and Negro Leagues,
whose career statistics are either incomplete, inaccurate, or
produced under markedly different playing conditions and rules.
Are today's major league baseball pitchers better than ever? Or do
they pale in comparison to the great hurlers of 20, 30 or 40 years
ago? This book tackles a debate that has been traveling baseball
circles for the past decade or so. With changes in everything from
the size of the playing field to the composition of the ball, it's
a tall task to compare pitchers over the 170 year history of the
sport in America. This author does a meticulous job. No stone is
unturned as he delves into every facet from the ancient roots of
the game to bigger size of today's players. The first chapters
reach back to the first known ""batting contests"" in Egypt 5,000
years ago and bring readers to a popular 18th century English game
called rounders, which evolved into organized baseball in 19th
century America. The author then paces through the changes in rules
that helped mold baseball into its modern form, and discusses
innovators like James 'Jimmy' Creighton and Asa Brainard, early
stars like Cy Young and Walter Johnson, and modern day standouts
such as Roger Clemens and Kerry Woods. The book explores rule
changes, adaptations to pitching and pitching strategies, and the
effect of pitcher injuries and conditioning, among other
influences. Fourteen former major league players comment on the
game. In the final chapter, the author reviews what has happened to
major league pitching. An appendix gives stats for major league
starting pitchers with comparisons by era, those with more than
5,000 career innings pitched, relief pitchers, and their single
season save records. Another table takes a look at the increase in
major league home runs from 1919 to 2004.
Researchers in American anthropology and archaeology from the late
seventeenth century to the present - including Cotton Mather, John
Wesley Powell, Thor Heyerdahl, and Betty Meggers, among others -
all had discoveries that lead to the following conclusion: America
was visited by Europeans well before the time of Christopher
Columbus. Divided into two main parts, this work is a comprehensive
study of the evidence suggesting that ancient European and Asian
mariners visited the United States more than 1000 years ago. The
first section is an historical overview of the external evidence
that would support the theory of ancient incursions to America. A
review of ancient ships and the currents in both the Pacific and
Atlantic oceans is offered. The experiences of several seagoing
peoples (such as Polynesians and Vikings) are explored. Both
legendary voyages and modern adventures of mariners are discussed.
Ancient transoceanic stories are also examined. From mammoth stone
chambers of New York and New England to inscribed stones found in
ancient graves form Minnesota to West Virginia, the second half of
the work focuses on the American evidence for ancient visitations
to the U.S., primarily in the northeast section of the country.
Several alleged ancient sites are also explored in this richly
illustrated work.
Covering Mike Tyson's complete amateur and professional boxing
career, this book follows the Brooklyn native from his early years
as a 12 year old criminal in Brownsville to his 1988 heavyweight
unification match with Michael Spinks. The book focuses on the
Catskill Boxing Club - where boxing guru Cus D'Amato trained the
210-pound teenager in the finer points of the art and developed his
impregnable defense - and on his home life with D'Amato and his
surrogate mother Camille Ewald, and the other boys who shared the
house with him. Tyson's boxing education began in the unauthorized
"smokers" held in the Bronx every week, matching his skills against
older, more experienced fighters. He won the 1981 Amateur
Heavyweight Boxing Championship in Colorado Springs at the age of
14, and repeated the amazing feat the following year. By 1985,
finding no other challenging amateur competition, he was forced to
join the professional ranks where, in November 1986, he became the
youngest heavyweight champion in boxing history. Less than two
years later, he unified the crown, establishing himself as one of
the most dominant heavyweight fighters in the annals of the game.
Negro League ballplayers, earning paychecks comparable to those of
blue-collar workers, needed an off-season source of income to make
ends meet. Many of them found the answer in baseball, by joining
racially integrated barnstorming teams that toured the country
after the regular season ended, or by playing in the organized
winter leagues that operated in Florida, California, in a number of
Caribbean countries, and in Central and South American countries.
This history recounts the experiences of American black ballplayers
outside of the Negro Leagues--often in places where a lack of
prejudice contrasted sharply with conditions at home. Tracing the
development of the game in each location and the unique character
of each winter league, it details the contributions of the Negro
League players and collects their statistics in each of the winter
leagues.
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