5 comments about Ed Delahanty in the Emerald Age of Baseball.

1. This is a well written book on the life of Ed Delehanty and the Delahanty family. It is thoroughly researched. I could not put this book down once I started reading it.



2. I just finished reading Jerrold Casway's epic work which focuses on the life, times and career of "contract-jumper" Ed Delahanty, little-known (at least to me, up until I read this book) Hall of Fame baseball player who starred in the late 1800s- early 1900s.
   
   This book is painstakingly and meticulously researched (45 pages of footnotes alone, no less!)-- and the enormity of this undertaking by a highly skilled author is readily apparent with every turn of the page. Anyone who appreciates and enjoys the game of baseball (formerly called "Base Ball" as so documented in the book) should find this to be a VERY insightful read-- not only about the EVOLUTION of our National pastime (artfully related IN CONTEXT with key news, events, and "snapshots" of the surrounding world outside-- i.e. Presidents, wars, strife, natural disasters, etc. at any given time along the continuum in which the story is being told)-- but also about the life, times, mighty feats, travails and the ultimate demise of a skilled but wanton, highly intemperate (off the field) slugger.
   
   To this reader, it became apparent while reading this masterpiece is that a great many parallels can be drawn from a MANAGEMENT/PLAYER relations standpoint between today's game and that of yesteryear. In other words-- "the more things change, the more they stay the same". I have now learned that adversarial relationships have always existed between these parties. This is not at all unique to today. Skilled ballplayers sought the highest bidder for their services then, as now. Ed Delahanty, though, was the ultimate "contract-jumper". He'd strike a new deal while the ink was still drying on another one that he had just signed. Being mindful of the limited window of opportunity that he had (before his playing skills would deteriorate), he played this card for all it was worth-- or not.
   
   The game was in a rather constant state of "flux" during Delahanty's time-- what with new "upstart" leagues raiding the incumbent leagues for key talent. Legal decisions and eventual reversals of those decisions abounded. Signed contracts would ultimately be voided by the courts. The emotional turmoil of being "caught in the middle" of this tug of war.. A "pickle" of his own making.. Whilst feeling the "crunch" of legal obligation to several teams at once-- was a source of great distress to Delahanty... and helped lead to his eventual demise... His liquor problems notwithstanding.
   
   But there is much, much more to the story. I simply suggest that you just pick up this book and read it. You will not be disappointed. Another aspect that I thoroughly enjoyed was the manner in which the author "works in" various "snippets" of columns written by the sportswriters of that era-- offering their "take" on the various baseball news items-- and there are many-- that came up. This book is extremely well-documented.
   
   One caveat- unless you are a Evelyn Wood grad, you will find it very difficult to "speed-read" through. That is because a great many paragraphs are jam-packed with facts and detail. This book is also written for the intelligentsia amongst the baseball/Irish history buff contingent. In other words, this is a college-level book. If your reading level is 6th-grade, for example, you may not be able to keep up. On the other hand, this book is VERY intellectually stimulating to those of us that truly appreciate MASTERFUL application of the English language-- a very COLORFUL and ARTFUL one, at that. So, grab your favorite beverage, curl up on the couch and enjoy this fine work.
   
   I rate this book FIVE AND A HALF-STARS OUT OF A POSSIBLE FOUR!
   
   Tim Fitzgerald, Chicago IL



3. While this biography of a fine, mysterious player is adequate, Casway's assertion that 19th Century baseball was an "Emerald Age," due to Irish dominance is ludicrous. Almost all the top ball players were of English ancestry at the time, which reflected the U.S. immigrant population. With the exclusion of Negroes, Latins etc. Irish did stand out as a "colorful" minority.



4. This is one of the best baseball biographies I have read. Unlike some that mainly take you on a timeline from one noteworthy game (with dutiful descriptions of achievements or failures) to the next, Casway does an excellent job of going behind the player to reveal the person, flaws and all. It is fascinating to see the 1890s version of the immature superstar with only one marketable skill (crushing a baseball) as he tries to cope with personal and family problems as that skill rapidly deteriorates. You know the outcome, but it is still a great read. I found the descriptions of the Phillies management very interesting, and learned a few new things about John McGraw. Clearly a lot of careful research went into this book. If you enjoy baseball biographies, you'll like this one.



5. We all know of players like Cy Young and Ty Cobb, but for most of the baseball world, the late 1890's and Early 19th century is a forgotten period of baseball. Even Larry Anderson, one of the Philadelphia Phillies broadcasters, was unaware of how teh late Phils slugger Ed Delahanty died. (I'm not telling you, you'll find out easy enough, anyway.) He only found out recently during a blow out game, when a certain player had a chance for hitting 4 home runs in single game. A feat, which was accomplished by the Only Del.
   
   In the 1890's, the Phillies had one of the best teams ever to be featured on a baseball diamond. None the less, they were never able to put together a champion. Most of the blame should go to the Phillies owners, who insisted on paying their players far below their worth, and the hiring of string after string of bad managers, not to mention constant inteferance with said managers by the Front Office.
   
   Of Course, the players didn't have much say in any of these things. They could do what they did on the playing field, but a pay raise was hard to come by. In fact, many players saw their salaries go the other way during the 1890's. The reserve clause bound you to your team, and the others in the league weren't allowed to sign you. This set of circumstances led to the creation of the short lived Player's League in the early part of the 1890's and later the formation of the American League in 1901. (At least in part.)
   
   Ed was one of the many great Irish players in baseball at the time. The Irish far outnumbered any other minority in baseball during this period. Irish Ed was one of the greatest players of his (or any other) time, and other teams repeatedly offered the Phillies rather large sums of money in exchange for Big Ed. Ed batted over .400 for a good chunk of his career, and played at every position except pitcher and catcher. He was an amazing left fielder, but kept being moved back to first base for various reasons. (Injuries to other player's, mostly.)
   
   Ed had a love for the arts, and this is the only part of the book that is never really expanded on. Big lived a "Superstar" lifestyle without much regard for his or his families future, rather foolishly thinking that baseball could support him forever. Sadly, he only wanted to be paid what he was worth, and this led him to jump to the American League's Washington Senators in 1902. The departure of Delahanty and the core of the great Phillies team left the Phils in such a state that it took the franchise years, even decades to recover.
   
   Big Ed didn't seem to be as loved in Washington as he was in Philadelphia. At first, maybe, but as time went on, most of the media and cranks (Rowdy bleacher fans) turned on him. During this period of time, Ed began his descent that would end in his death. He had problems with gambling and alcohol late in his life, and after losing a good chunk of cash betting on the racetrack Ed attempted to jump back to the National League for the New York Giants. It was a lucrative contract with a huge, unheard of, bonus for it's time. But it didn't work out. Ed was beset by the owners of the Phillies and Senators, and the rest of the League Owners, and eventually during the winter and spring of 1903, Ed was forced to return to the Senators.
   
   He had already spent most of his bonus, and the two teams agreed to take the money out of Ed's salary. Ed was now being paid almost nothing for his services, and debts began to mount for him and his family.
   
   Ed continued to have deeper and deeper problems with alcohol, depression, and gambling as the season went on, in that order. He wasn't in great shape, and his playing suffered at times. Finally, desperate, drunk, and depressed Ed decided to try to Jump again to the Giants after a few players had successfully switched leagues just recently. After a drinking binge and subsequent confrontation by his monther and teammates in Detroit, Ed boarded a train leaving them behind and heading across Canada for Buffalo, where he would switch to a train bound for New York. He never told anyone where he was heading, and even left his mother strnaded in Detroit, with no money to return to Cleveland, their familiy home.
   
   He never arrived in New York. It is a sad tale, but a tale worth reading. Casway has written a fine book, one of the most detailed books about baseball ever written. The Life and Times of Ed Delahanty will come to life in this book. It truely was the Emerald Age of baseball, and it should not ever be forgotten again. If you think for a moment that my desciption of this book in any way gives you the jist of the story, you are sadly mistaken. No review could come close to ever doing this magnificent book justice. If you like baseball, or just sad tales of the death of Kings, this book is a must read

5 comments about A Man Called Lion: The Life and Times of John Howard Pondoro Taylor.

1. This book was done in collaboration with another Africana author Brain Marsh, who apparently lived all of his life around the African hunting scene. Together they worked to explore the life of John Howard Taylor, one of the true characters from the western world who managed to push a lifetime of adventure into a relatively short period of time on the African continent. I will start by stating that I have read most of Taylor's books and found them to be very entertaining so this unauthorized biography on his life was of particular interest when I first encountered it. I would also report that "A Man Called Lion" is a well-written book that adequately covers the factual time line of John Taylor's life including the jobs he held, historical records he left and times he spent away from his beloved Africa due to illness, wars or legal troubles. All of this was done in a professional manner that flowed from one chapter to the next making these parts of the book enjoyable to read. Based on the research, we can follow the track of Taylor's life and piece together the time gaps that were so prevalent in his writings. On these points the book scored well but the author's then took a further step by venturing into the land of conjecture and theories and for the life of me I can't understand why. Regardless of reasons, the effect was profound. I would start by offering that none of us are privileged enough to know the motivations behind every action or decision another person makes during the course of their life and this is why accusations, involving sexual behavior in particular, are so dangerous. This book, unfortunately, is no exception to the age old rule regarding the topic of another person's sex life and the discussion of it having the ability to sell things such as this book.I found this to be a profound shame given the otherwise outstanding content. Perhaps the discussion of Taylor's sex life was intended to boost sales but the book didn't really need this so why insinuate, then later label Taylor a practicing homosexual. With Taylor himself long since departed and not a single person living or dead reporting a relationship of this type, I find these statements no better than slander and I wasn't alone with these feelings. Years after I placed the book aside, I read that a hunting partner of Taylor's, Mr. John Dawkins, was outraged at the way Taylor's private life was characterized stating that he never witnessed or suspected any of these alleged behaviors and went on to recount, that had he known the authors were planning to print these presumptions, he would never have contributed one word of assistance to their book. This is a powerful stand from a man who lived in close proximity to Taylor for the better part of four years. Even though I enjoyed the factual information given about John Taylor's colorful life, the headline grabbing nonsense regarding his sexuality placed a dark shadow over the entire project and for these reasons alone, I have trouble rating it higher or recommending this book to anyone.



2. This book was interesting and fascinating. Capstick sure can write and interesting book whether about hunting or about a biography. Love Capsticks work!



3. This is an excellent read if you love the outdoors and Capstick's writing...



4. If a ever a man turned the gender concept on it's ear, it was John Howard "Pondoro" Taylor. He shot the biggest game, carried the best big-bore rifles and fought the toughest men.
   I would ask readers to overlook Taylor's sexual orientation and concentrate on his prowess as a writer, hunter, and rifleman.This book is best read after reading Taylor's autobiography.



5. I absolutely loved this book. Pondoro may have had faults but this is a great tale! The chapter on Fletcher Jamieson is brilliant!!

4 comments about Terry Fox: His Story (Revised).

1. On harsh moments, Terry's story seems to be the reminder and remmedy. An inspiring life. A must read book!



2. This is a great inside look at the inspirational life, and especially the three thousand plus mile 1980 trek, of Terry Fox. If you don't know who Terry Fox is, shame on you... You need to read this book. If you do know who Terry Fox is, read this book to bring back the memories of this selfless hero. The book has been updated since its original publishing 25 years ago and still has the inside story from Terry's family and friends, as well as his own words from interviews and journal entries. If you are interested in Terry Fox, you should check out the Terry Fox Foundation website as well as the newly published "Terry" by Douglas Coupland.



3. Terry Fox His Story is a wonderful and intriguing book about a young man who touched my heart in ways you couldn't imagine. I felt that I was right there with him all the time and I knew what he was going through.
   This is a book about a young man who had a wild dream. Running across Canada. The really unbelievable thing about this is Terry lost his leg to bone cancer. By the time he died he had raised more than 24 million dollars for cancer research. Because of Terry we are getting closer and closer to a cure for this horrible disease!
   I would definitely recommend this book to everyone. It taught me to take a hold on life and to not let it slip away. If everyone read about this amazing young man I'm sure the world would be a better place!!



4. "Terry Fox: His Story" tells of the life of a man who needs little introduction the world over. Terry's one-legged run halfway across Canada in 1980 is a story of great national pride here, and indeed many countries have caught on to the spirit. Terry's tragic, heroic story is commemorated every year with the fundraising "Terry Fox Run", held around the world, with the proceeds going towards cancer research.

   "His Story" succeeds in providing a comprehensive, if not overly personal, look at Terry's life. I was also impressed by the dynamic and care given to the run itself, as it progressed from one location/town to another. Not every city was as enthusiastic as the last one, for instance, and the author takes care to show how Terry learns to respond to these varying regional reactions, and learns to become a very capable public speaker. The author also takes great care to show that the running was not easy work for Terry, that on many days he simply physically could not accomplish what he set out to do. It makes what he did accomplish all that much more impressive.

   All in all, I was left with a new respect for Terry as a result of reading this book. As an occasional runner myself, I know how difficult it is to get up, on two legs, and go. Which makes you wonder, if Terry Fox could jog nearly a marathon every day for six months on one leg, by comparison, what excuse has anybody else got to not do anything?

   Matthew D. Johnston

3 comments about Home Is Everything: The Latino Baseball Story: From the Barrio to the Major Leagues.

1. This is the best book I ever read! Marcos Breton is an amazing writer and historian. Usually, all you ever hear about is Babe Ruth and Mickey Mantle, but now we get to hear about Roberto Clemente, Fernando Valenzuela, and Jorge Posada too! Viva Baseball! This book is a valuable addition to any library.



2. In Home Is Everything, Marcos Breton presents story vignettes of Latinos involved in American Baseball, told in both English and Spanish, and enhanced with full-color photographs by Jose Luis Villegas. Slices of daily life training and competing in this great sport, as well as the names and brief profiles of remarkable and dedicated people, comprise this celebration of baseball which is enthusiastically recommended for the fans of Latino players.



3. This book is very well photographed and written. The photos are stunning and colorful as well as informative and narrative. Not your stanard picture book, this is much better and will have a longer shelf life as the players are legendary. A must have book for the photographer, the sports fan and the Latino communities around America.

5 comments about My Racing Heart: The Passionate World of Thoroughbreds and the Track.

1. This book is driving me crazy. What's wrong with it? I keep thinking I ought to love it. It's well written. Mooney loves horses and the track. She hates what's happening to both, but with a good sense of history she understands nothing's new under the sun. So why is it such a slog to read? Because it's all over the place? Because I can't get a grip on who her grandmother was and Mooney wants me to? Because there's nothing compelling, nothing happening that drives the book or the reader forward? I can't get a handle on what this book is about. Her racing heart. Okay. Her interest in Captain Steve's Derby which the reader forgets is the spine on which she hangs her musings? And she certainly knows a thing or two about her subject. In the end two vital things are missing. The two things a book MUST have to succeed as a book and is why Hillenbrand's Seabiscuit: An American Legend crossed all boundaries. Narrative drive and passion. It's a lukewarm forgettable but horse loving book. An odd experience that I can't quite capture in this review. Just like Mooney can't quite capture the beauty and excitement of the horse or the track...but not for lack of trying.



2. Nan Mooney, My Racing Heart (Harper, 2002)

   Nan Mooney loves horses. Specifically, Thoroughbreds, the ones who hit the track, dust it up with six to twelve of their closest friends, and make humans gape in awe at the process. This odd amalgam of personal-memoir-cum-treatise-on-track-life is not an unfamiliar breed to the horse fan; the measuring stick against which all such books are brought is Bill Barich's stunning Laughing in the Hills. I'm sure one day, another book that good in that genre will arrive. While My Racing Heart has its good points, to be simple about it, this ain't it.

   Where Barich succeeds as so many others (Michael Klein, Mooney, Liz Mitchell, and many others) fail is in his ability to take two different things that have inherently different paces and make them merge together into one book whose readability is consistent across chapters on differing subjects (in Barich's case, handicapping the races at Golden Gate while dealing with his mother's cancer). He meshes the two in such a way that, despite being parallel narratives happening a country apart from one another, the whole thing flows. Seamless, like an egg, as Stephen King once said. In Mooney's case the two main threads are a basic nuts-and-bolts look at the Thoroughbred industry from someone with enough clout to get inside the lines but not enough cynicism to keep pumping out the same old platitudes and a memoir about her grandmother, who introduced her to horse racing at an age tender enough that I suspect her parents weren't very happy. Either of these two things on their own would have stood as a book in itself; the slow, meandering passages about her grandmother and how the two of them interacted and the snappy, sometimes sarcastic looks at track life. It is when the two are entwined with one another that things break down to the extent they do, with the reader finding himself transported with no warning from the high of making friends with a Kentucky Derby contender to a lazy meditation on what life must have been like in the early twenties in Alaska.

   Not to say it isn't worth reading; that's not it at all. There is some fine stuff here. It just could have used a little tuning. ** ½




3. I bought this book hoping for some real insight into the world of Thoroughbred racing from the history and allure of the breed to the off limits world of the backstretch. Given the authors credentials, one might think that that's what you'd get. This book, however, is the most self indulgent, cloying piece of pap ever put to paper. This book reads more like a teenage drama queen's diary than a satisfying chronicle of The Sport of Kings. The only reason to buy this book would be the picture on the cover; it's phenomenal. Unfortunately, the photographer wasn't involved with writing the book.



4. This book is so full of useless, flowery writing that I just couldn't take it anymore. Her method of description is simply annoying. Not only that... every chapter begins with lame stories of May May, Nan's grandmother, that just about drove me crazy.



5. simply because the author's name is 'nan'. so sorry, but when i see the name 'nan mooney' it makes me want to vomit, or at least pass on reading this. anyone who walks around and authors books and attaches the name 'nan' screams overweight housewife to me. please pass on this because it really is wrong to read a book by an author with sch a name. if i wrote a book, and signed 'little danny o'malley' would you read it? hell no. or heck, which i'm sure amazon will put in the previous sentence.

No comments about Bluebird and the Dead Lake: The Classic Account of How Donald Campbell Broke the World Land Speed Record.

No comments about Heavenly Twins Of Boston Baseball: A Dual Biography of Hugh Duffy and Tommy Mccarthy.

1 comments about Bat Boy: Coming of Age with the New York Yankees.

1. Once I started reading this book it was hard to put down. The author (Matthew McGough) takes you behind the scene of one of the most prestige franchise of any sports teams. You'll experience what it was like to be on the inside of Yankee Stadium. The star struck kid interacting with the "Stars in Pinstripes". It's a must read book for anyone who has ever dreamed of being a bat boy for a professional baseball team. Anyone who has ever wanted to know what takes place before, doing, and after a baseball game this is also a must read book. You'll also read about the "good guys" and the not so friendly guys who played for the Yankees. Find out it's not always glamorous being a "bat boy". Finally a "kudos" to his parents who made sure school work was always his priority over working Yankees games. Enjoy the adventure!
   
   Andre' Fontenot (former bat boy San Francisco Giants 1974)

No comments about Moments.

2 comments about Big Papi (Spanish edition): La Historia de Mis Anhelos y Mis Grandes Batazos.

1. I bought the book for my cousin, he and myself love it. Is very easy to read and funny



2. Is baseball good? Truly a thought to siphen, nor weary and lasting is the prime thought. I'll concede Senor David Ortiz is great, but only if you stop waiving that violin in my face.