A Game of Brawl
The Orioles, the Beaneaters, and the Battle for the 1897 Pennant
Published on 1. March 2014
Book
Paperback/Softback
320 pages
978-0-8032-2636-4 (ISBN)
Description
Not only was it probably the most cutthroat pennant race in baseball history, it was also a struggle to define how baseball would be played. A Game of Brawl re-creates the rowdy, season-long 1897 battle between the Baltimore Orioles and the Boston Beaneaters. The Orioles had acquired a reputation as the dirtiest team in baseball. Future Hall of Famers John McGraw, Wee Willie Keeler, and "Foxy" Ned Hanlon were proven winners-but their nasty tactics met with widespread disapproval among fans. So it was that their pennant race with the comparatively saintly Beaneaters took on a decidedly moralistic air.
Bill Felber brings to life the most intensely watched team sporting event in the country's history to that time. His book captures the drama of the final week, as the race came down to a three-game series. And finally, it conveys the madness of the third and decisive game, when thirty thousand fans literally knocked down the gates and walls of a facility designed to hold ten thousand to watch the Beaneaters grind out a win and bring down baseball's first and most notorious evil empire.
Bill Felber brings to life the most intensely watched team sporting event in the country's history to that time. His book captures the drama of the final week, as the race came down to a three-game series. And finally, it conveys the madness of the third and decisive game, when thirty thousand fans literally knocked down the gates and walls of a facility designed to hold ten thousand to watch the Beaneaters grind out a win and bring down baseball's first and most notorious evil empire.
Reviews / Votes
"Felber . . . excels at demonstrating the dissimilarities between these two evenly matched opponents. . . . [He] gives a spirited retelling of the season, giving life to greedy owners, rabid fans, drunken ballplayers and terrorized umpires, all the while bringing to life an era of baseball when home runs were a rarity, players fielded with no gloves and starting pitchers threw almost 400 innings a season."-Publishers Weekly "Bill Felber has woven a picturesque tale of how baseball was played more than 100 years ago in the rowdy days of the 1890s. The story, although concentrating on the 1897 pennant race between Baltimore and Boston, vividly describes the atmosphere of the game on and off the field, and in doing so creates a rollicking good tale to boot."-Pete Palmer, coeditor of ESPN Baseball Encyclopedia, 4th edition "This book is a hoot from start to the cliff-hanging conclusion."-John Linsenmeyer, Greenwich Time (CT) "A fine source of stories about the days when . . . Boston fans celebrated victories by tossing into the air beans that they had carried to the games in their pockets for that purpose, and when an umpire could be arrested twice in one season without losing his job."-Bill Littlefield, WBUR-FM Radio, NPR's "Only a Game"More details
Language
English
Place of publication
Lincoln
United States
Target group
Professional and scholarly
Product notice
Paperback (trade)
Illustrations
16 photographs, 5 illustrations
Dimensions
Height: 219 mm
Width: 140 mm
Thickness: 19 mm
Weight
376 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-8032-2636-4 (9780803226364)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
E-Book
03/2014
University of Nebraska Press
€30.49
Available for download
Persons
Bill Felber recently retired as the executive editor of the Manhattan Mercury. He is the author of The Book on the Book: An Inquiry into Which Strategies in the Modern Game Actually Work.
Content
List of IllustrationsForeword by Senator Edward M. KennedySources and AcknowledgmentsIntroduction1. Baseball's Original Evil Empire2. The Royal Rooters3. Spring Thunderbolts4. Parade of Champions5. Suspected Criminals6. Streaks of June7. Sunday Misdemeanors8. The Rise and Fall of Louis Sockalexis9. Day Job for Garroters10. Don't They Keep Warm?11. Fall in BaltimoreAfterwordAppendixNotes