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Tales from the Deadball Era

Ty Cobb, Home Run Baker, Shoeless Joe Jackson, and the Wildest Times in Baseball History

Mark S. Halfon

$42.95   $36.89

Paperback

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English
Potomac Books Inc
02 May 2023
"2014 Baseball Caucus Readers' Choice Award winner from the Special Libraries Association

The Deadball Era (1901-1920) is a baseball fan's dream. Hope and despair, innocence and cynicism, and levity and hostility blended then to create an air of excitement, anticipation, and concern for all who entered the confines of a Major League ballpark. Cheating for the sake of victory earned respect, corrupt ballplayers fixed games with impunity, and violence plagued the sport. Spectators stormed the field to attack players and umpires, ballplayers charged the stands to pummel hecklers, and physical battles between opposing clubs occurred regularly in a phenomenon known as ""rowdyism."" At the same time, endearing practices infused baseball with lightheartedness, kindness, and laughter. Fans ran onto the field with baskets of flowers, loving cups, diamond jewelry, gold watches, and cash for their favorite players in the middle of games. Ballplayers volunteered for ""benefit contests"" to aid fellow big leaguers and the country in times of need. ""Joke games"" reduced sport to pure theater as outfielders intentionally dropped fly balls, infielders happily booted easy grounders, hurlers tossed soft pitches over the middle of the plate, and umpires ignored the rules. Winning meant nothing, amusement meant everything, and league officials looked the other way.

Mark S. Halfon looks at life in the Major Leagues in the early 1900s, the careers of Hall of Famers like John McGraw, Ty Cobb, and Walter Johnson, and the events that defined the Deadball Era. He highlights the strategies, underhanded tactics, and bitter battles that make this storied era of the game so memorable, while providing detailed insights into the players and teams involved in bringing to a conclusion this remarkable period in baseball history."
By:  
Imprint:   Potomac Books Inc
Country of Publication:   United States
Dimensions:   Height: 229mm,  Width: 152mm, 
ISBN:   9781496235190
ISBN 10:   1496235193
Pages:   244
Publication Date:  
Audience:   General/trade ,  ELT Advanced
Format:   Paperback
Publisher's Status:   Unspecified
AcknowledgmentsIntroduction Part 1: Deadball Era Highlights1. Big League Cheating2. Baseball at the Turn of the Century3. A Pitchers’ Paradise4. Inside Baseball5. Rowdyism Part 2: Deadball Era Standouts6. Little Napoleon7. The Georgia Peach8. The Big Train9. A Game for the Ages Part 3: Beyond the Deadball Era10. Baseball at the Crossroads11. The Black Sox Scandals12. The Black Sox Myth PostscriptNotesBibliographyIndex

Mark S. Halfon is professor of philosophy at Nassau Community College in New York. He has published work in various scholarly journals and written two books on moral philosophy. He is the author of Can a Dead Man Strike Out? Offbeat Baseball Questions and Their Improbable Answers.

Reviews for Tales from the Deadball Era: Ty Cobb, Home Run Baker, Shoeless Joe Jackson, and the Wildest Times in Baseball History

Halfon transports his readers back to that time, giving them an inside look at the minds of the baseball legends of that day. Tales From The Deadball Era is highly recommended for baseball history buffs. -The Writer's Journey For anyone interested in baseball's past, Halfon's Tales from the Deadball Era provides an introduction not only to the sport itself but to American culture as well. -Matthew Teutsch, ARETE If you're looking for a fun summer read I highly recommend Halfon's Tales From the Deadball Era. -Mike Lynch, Seamheads Most fans will enjoy reading this book and spending the time traveling back to these decades long ago. -Gregg Kersey, Gregg's Baseball Bookcase Tales from the Deadball Era etches early twentieth-century baseball far different from today's. Fixed games, patrons on the diamond, and players belting hecklers were all in a day's work. So, too, were cash and flowers given regulars, 'joke' and charity games, and a batter willingly getting hit-anything for a run. In this delightful book about Ty Cobb's and John McGraw's era, Mark Halfon recalls an age when baseball has seldom been more alive. -Curt Smith, author of Pull Up a Chair: The Vin Scully Story It strikes baseball enthusiasts today that a homer or strikeout approach to tallying runs prevails. Not during the Deadball Era. Mark Halfon shows us-with a historian's eye and unfailing love of the game-how [the scarcity of baseballs in pre-1920] was the mother of invention. -Ken Shouler, author of The Real 100 Best Players of All Time and Why Mark Halfon captures a raucous era in baseball history, when the sport was characterized by cheating, gambling, and violence-on the part of both players and their fans-and he recounts intriguing tales of baseball's mythical figures. -Ronna S. Feit, PhD, State University of New York


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