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

Written by Mark S. Halfon

Narrated by Michael Butler Murray

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.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Tantor Media, Inc
• Release date: Jun 18, 2019
• ISBN: 9781630156879

Reviews for Tales from the Deadball Era

[datrappert · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

This is an interesting book about the deadball era in baseball (1900-1919), although it also strays beyond the end of that era when talking about Ty Cobb, Walter Johnson, and some others. The chapters are not particularly well organized and there is a good amount of repetition. The audiobook also has more than one mistake, such as saying there are no modern 300 game winners--it was probably supposed to be 400 games, so no way of knowing if this was a typo in the print edition or not. In any case, this book is still well worthwhile for the light it casts on just how much players and managers could get away with before the 1919 Black Sox scandal, which finally came to light in 1920, made baseball adopt a more stringent attitude toward gambling. Other figures, such as Ban Johnson, who gets lots of credit in other books of the period, come across weak here. Johnson, for instance, let John McGraw get away with pretty much everything short of murder.

[untraveller · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Interesting, but in need of an editor and it seems less well-known information and more obscure stuff. There were some happenings that were new to me, but again, much of this was a rehash.

[big_bang_gorilla · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Being something of a Hollywood Babylon for the dead ball era of baseball which focuses on cheating, gambling, game fixing, fighting, and drinking during the period; there's a lot of all those to work with. The book is interesting enough reading, though almost all of it will be review for those who have read very much in the area. The book suffers considerably from the author's decision to fill the middle third of the text with mini-biographies of players who already have had full biographies written about them. Cui bono? The book then ends with coverage of the 1908 "Merkle game" and the 1919 Black Sox scandal. Again,. these have been hashed and rehashed. Eventually one wonders about the author's commitment to the period, indeed the sport itself; misspellings are rife, and, embarrassingly, at one point he refers to a Tampa Bay player setting an MLB record whilst playing for the "Buccaneers". This house needs to hire an editor if they are going to publish baseball titles, preferably one who knows and cares about the sport.