We're happy to be hosting Jonathan Weeks' BASEBALL'S DYNASTIES AND THE PLAYERS WHO BUILT THEM Book Blast today!
About the Book:
Title:
Baseball’s Dynasties and the Players Who Built Them
Author: Jonathan Weeks
Publisher: Rowan and Littlefield
Pages: 408
Genre: Sports History
Baseball has had its fair share of one-and-out champions,
but few clubs have dominated the sport for any great length of time. Given the
level of competition and the expansive length of the season, it is a remarkable
accomplishment for a team to make multiple World Series appearances in a short
timespan. From the Baltimore Orioles of the 1800s who would go to any length to
win—including physically accosting opponents—to the 1934 Cardinals known as the
“Gashouse Gang” for their rough tactics and determination, and on to George
Steinbrenner’s dominant Yankees of the late twentieth century, baseball’s
greatest teams somehow found a way to win year after year.
Spanning three centuries of the game, Baseball’s Dynasties and the Players
Who Built Them
examines twenty-two of baseball’s most iconic teams. Each
chapter not only chronicles the club’s era of supremacy, but also provides an
in-depth look at the players who helped make their teams great. Nearly two
hundred player profiles are included, featuring such well-known stars as Joe
DiMaggio, Jackie Robinson, Sandy Koufax, and Pete Rose, as well as players who
were perhaps overshadowed by their teammates but were nonetheless vital to
their team’s reign, such as Pepper Martin, Allie Reynolds, and George Foster.
With a concluding chapter that profiles the clubs that were on the cusp of
greatness, Baseball’s Dynasties and the Players Who Built Them is a
fascinating survey of what makes some teams dominate year after year while
others get only a small taste of glory before falling to the wayside. Written
in a lively style with amusing anecdotes and colorful quotes, this
comprehensive book will be of interest to all fans and historians of baseball.
For More
Information
the Players Who Built Them is available at Amazon.
Book Excerpt:
With a roster full of superstars, the Orioles captured three
straight pennants from 1894–1896. They followed with a pair of near misses,
placing second in 1897 and 1898. Along the way, they developed a reputation as one
of the nastiest teams in baseball. John Heydler, an umpire who would later
ascend to the NL presidency, described the Orioles of the 1890s as “mean,
vicious, ready at any time to maim a rival player or an umpire.” Infielder John
McGraw was proud of that distinction. “We’d go tearing into a bag with flying
spikes as though with murderous intent,” he boasted. “We were a cocky,
swashbuckling crew and wanted everybody to know it.”
Pirates great Honus Wagner manufactured a tall tale about a
harrowing trip around the bases against the Orioles. After driving a ball deep
into the outfield, he claimed to have been tripped at first base by Jack Doyle
and then knocked flat by Hughie Jennings at second. Climbing to his feet, he
lumbered toward third, only to find John McGraw holding a shotgun on him. “You
stop right there!” McGraw allegedly bellowed. Although Wagner’s story is
obviously apocryphal, numerous reliable accounts confirm the fact that the
Orioles resorted to underhanded tactics regularly. When they weren’t physically
accosting opponents, they were treating them to streams of verbal abuse. Baltimore
players were so free in their use of profanity that a resolution was adopted in
1898, imposing mandatory expulsions upon anyone using “villainously foul”
language.
Even the groundskeepers at Baltimore
were deceitful. Soap flakes were mixed with the soil around the pitcher’s mound
to make the hands of opposing hurlers slippery when they reached into the dirt.
Orioles moundsmen knew to keep untainted soil in their pockets. The
infield was mixed with clay and rarely watered, creating a surface not unlike
cement. Baltimore players chopped down on the ball, creating dramatically high
hops that gave them a head start to first base (hence, the origin of the term
Baltimore chop). The outfield was ruddy and riddled with weeds. Outfielders
allegedly kept extra balls hidden out there in the event that the ones in play
eluded them.
About the Author
Weeks
spent most of his life in the Capital District area of New
York. He earned a degree in psychology from SUNY
Albany. In 2004, he migrated to Malone, NY.
He continues to gripe about the frigid winter temperatures to the present day.
A member of the Society for American Baseball Research, he writes about the
game because he lacked the skill to play it professionally. He still can't hit
a curve ball or lay off the high heat. Baseball’s Dynasties is his fourth
nonfiction work.
For More Information
and Goodreads.
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