Tales from the Deadball Era, Mark S. Halfon
Tales from the Deadball Era, Mark S. Halfon
List: $19.99 | Sale: $13.99
Club: $9.99

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

Author: Mark S. Halfon

Narrator: Michael Butler Murray

Unabridged: 8 hr 4 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Tantor Media

Published: 06/18/2019


Synopsis

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.

At the same time, endearing practices infused baseball with lightheartedness, kindness, and laughter. Fans ran onto the field with baskets of flowers, loving cups, 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 Halfon highlights the strategies, underhanded tactics, and bitter battles that defined this storied time in baseball history, while providing detailed insights into the players and teams involved in bringing to a conclusion this remarkable period in baseball history.

About Mark S. Halfon

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

Goodreads review by Joe

I've read more than the average fan about the deadball era, but I was hoping a general book like this might have some tidbits I didn't already know. The author does a really good job in his overviews (especially about the evolution of the spitball and emeryball), but alot less good on his bios (He le......more

Goodreads review by Scott

Decent quick read about one of the most interesting eras in baseball. I've read other books about this period that were better written and provided a better profile of some of the main characters (John McGraw, Christy Mathewson, Walter Johnson, etc.), but this book makes two important (and related)......more

Goodreads review by Stephen

George Carlin once mocked baseball in one of his sketches, comparing its urbaneness with the ‘technological struggle’ of football. He couldn’t make such a sketch a hundred years before, because baseball as we know it was very different — technically professional, in that players were receiving pay a......more