"Delahanty's career spanned the last decades of the nineteenth century during a time when the sons of post-famine Irish refugees dominated the sport and changed the playing style of America's national pastime. In this "Emerald Age" of baseball, Irish-American players comprised from 30 to 50 percent of all players, managers, and team captains. Baseball for Delahanty and other young Irishmen was a ticket out of poverty and into a life of fame and fortune. The allure and promise of celebrity and wealth, however, were disastrous for Delahanty. He found himself enmeshed in desperate contract dealings and a gambling addiction that drove him to alcohol abuse.

More than any other sport, baseball has developed its own niche in America's culture and psyche. Some researchers spend years on detailed statistical analyses of minute parts of the game, while others wax poetic about its players and plays. Many trace the beginnings of the civil rights movement in part to the Major Leagues' decision to integrate, and the words and phrases of the game (for example, pinch-hitter and out in left field) have become common in our everyday language. From AARON, HENRY onward, this book covers all of what might be called the cultural aspects of baseball (as opposed to the number-rich statistical information so widely available elsewhere). Biographical sketches of all Hall of Fame players, owners, executives and umpires, as well as many of the sportswriters and broadcasters who have won the Spink and Frick awards, join entries for teams, owners, commissioners and league presidents. Advertising, agents, drafts, illegal substances, minor leagues, oldest players, perfect games, retired uniform numbers, superstitions, tripleheaders, and youngest players are among the thousands of entries herein. Most entries open with a topical quote and conclude with a brief bibliography of sources for further research. The whole work is exhaustively indexed and includes 119 photographs.

Described as "the Greatest Batsman in the Country" by sportswriters of his era, Dennis "Big Dan" Brouthers compiled a .342 batting average, tying with Babe Ruth for ninth place all-time, and slugged 205 triples, eighth all time, in 16 major league seasons. He won five batting and on-base percentage titles, and seven slugging titles, and was the first player to win batting and slugging crowns in successive years. Although he ranked fourth among nineteenth-century home run hitters, many fair balls he hit into the stands or over the fence were counted only as doubles or triples due to local ground rules. Brouthers was extremely difficult to strike out--in 1889, for example, he did so just six times in 565 plate appearances. He was the first player to be walked intentionally on a regular basis. This comprehensive biography of Dan Brouthers examines his life and career from his youth as an apprentice in a print and dye factory to his final years as an attendant at the Polo Grounds. It corrects numerous errors that have crept into earlier accounts of his life, and clarifies his position as one of the greatest hitters ever to play the game.

A fascinating and charming encyclopedic collection of baseball firsts, describing how the innovations in the game—in rules, equipment, styles of play, strategies, etc.—occurred and developed from its origins to the present day. The book relies heavily on quotations from contemporary sources.

Early in the history of America's favorite pastime, trading baseball players was almost as easy as trading baseball cards. This was before the end of the reserve clause and the advent of arbitration, free agency, gargantuan salaries, and no-trade contracts. Fran Zimniuch takes an in-depth look at trading throughout the years, profiling many of infamous players who teams regrettably traded and getting insiders' perspectives from the general managers and the players themselves. With a foreword by former general manager of the Los Angeles Dodgers Fred Claire, Going, Going, Gone is a must-read for baseball fans.

The Pennsylvania state leagues of the 1880s and 1890s rank among the most interesting minor leagues in the history of baseball. The rules were changing, the world around baseball, particularly the economy, was changing and things that would seem impossible in a later time were happening every year. These leagues had not only black players but also wholly black teams. They had great major leaguers--on their way up but also on the way back down. In fact, the greatest player of the age, surrounded by what would have been a major league all-star team only a few years before, played in a Pennsylvania minor league for almost a full season. The play was exciting, the players were exciting and the owners, managers and league politics were often more interesting than the games.

Ben-Zion Gold's memoir brings to life the world of a million Jews in pre-World War II Poland who were later destroyed by the Nazis. Warmly recalling the relationships, rituals, observances, and celebrations, Gold evokes the sense of family and faith that helped him through the catastrophe that followed.