John McGraw |
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Editorial Review / Publisher's Information:
Product Description
“He ate gunpowder every morning,” complained one umpire, “and washed it down with warm blood.” That described John McGraw, who in the 1890s was the rowdiest member of the ferocious Baltimore Orioles, the club that pioneered the hit-and-run, the cutoff, the squeeze play, and the “Baltimore chop.” In 1902 he began his thirty-season reign as manager of the Giants, winning ten pennants—a record matched only by Casey Stengel. His career in baseball spanned forty years and two eras—from the game’s raucous early days to its emergence as big business.Charles C. Alexander, a professor of history at Ohio University, Athens, and the author of Ty Cobb, calls John McGraw “perhaps the single most significant figure in baseball’s history before Babe Ruth transformed the game with his mammoth home runs and unparalleled showmanship.”
Amazon.com Review
Alexander's marvelous biography of McGraw does what McGraw's own My Thirty Years in Baseball couldn't: it lets the volcano that was the man erupt in all its raw glory. A true baseball original, McGraw, as Alexander describes, "ate gunpowder every morning and washed it down with raw blood." He loved to win, but he hated losing more, and as manager of both the old Baltimore Orioles and New York Giants, he's the only skipper in the game's history to win almost 1,000 games more than he lost. McGraw was so outsized, flamboyant, fiery, and, at times, sentimental, that it would be easy to caricature him; Alexander's remarkable achievement here is that he doesn't (nor does he succumb to hero worship or bubble bursting). His triumph is letting McGraw stand on his own two spikes; the man--and the legend--have no problem standing up for themselves. --Jeff Silverman
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Customer Reviews:
• Great Reading For Students Of Baseball History
29 November, 2007
If you are, like me, a serious student of baseball history who never tires of reading about the "old days", you will enjoy this book. If you are a casual baseball fan looking for light baseball reading, this is probably not the book for you.
I think most of the other reviews posted here are on the mark: a lot of factual and interesting research into the life and times of the great John McGraw. People like me love this kind of stuff. But at times it can be bland, uninspired writing that would likely bore the casual baseball fan.
- Amazon Customer Review
• Dry
05 June, 2008
I was really excited to learn more about such an important figure in baseball history. This in an unexciting story about a man of fire. It is sad that there is not more energy from this book.
- Amazon Customer Review
• Great Book
23 January, 2010
I have been a huge fan of John McGraw and really wanted to learn more about him. This was a well-researched book and I did enjoy it very much. However, as others have said, it can be bland at times especially in the latter half. The first half runs well, but the second half seems to be hurried and seasons mix together in a blur. Overall, Alexander does a great job sharing the information he had researched, but he probably could have used some help with the narrative. I highly recommend this book.
- Amazon Customer Review
• A Good Book On Mcgraw
20 March, 2002
This is the first book I have read from the many that Charles Alexander has written about turn of the century baseball players and I have to say that Mr. Alexander is a voracious researcher as he has facts and events of McGraw's life down to every little detail. For this, he is to be commended as he has certainly put to paper, atleast to this point, the definitive book on John McGraw. However, this is not a short or an entertaining read by any stretch of the imagination as Alexander's book is decidedly bland in its detailed accounts of seasons past. After detailing McGraw's many outbursts on and off the field, Alexander chronicles McGraw's gambling misdeeds and even possible corruption (to the degree of the 1919 Black Sox). But Alexander does not write with a lot of imagination. His work reads exactly like you might expect a chronological account might: vanilla. Although I enjoyed reading this book and appreciated all of the facts and research Alexander did on McGraw, I cannot say that this is one of the better baseball books I have read. Still, it remains the only book of any substance on McGraw, so if you want to learn about one of the most important men in the history of baseball, this is your book.
- Amazon Customer Review
• A "dead Ball" Manager Of Superb Skills
19 August, 2006
Born in 1873, John McGraw grew up brawling and playing baseball like he was brawling. And he was very good at it. As the scrappy third baseman and manager of the Baltimore Orioles in the 1890s, he gained fame and not a little fortune as an innovative, autocratic field manager whose teams clawed and fought to championship after championship. His teams represented the epitome of the "dead ball era" of baseball, where speed, defense, and aggressive play on the base paths carried the day. He is credited with inventing the "suicide squeeze" and the "Baltimore chop." He moved from Baltimore to New York in 1902 and during 31 years leading the New York Giants, he won 10 pennants and three World Series. Additionally, under his direction the Giants finished second 11 times. As a legendary manager, h entered the Major League Baseball Hall of Fame in 1937.
This is the story told in this superb biography by Ohio University professor Charles C. Alexander, whose baseball biographies of Ty Cobb and Rogers Hornsby rank as some of the best ever in the developing field of serious baseball history. Alexander's study is in-depth, thoughtful, and engaging. It is a superb work. Enjoy.
- Amazon Customer Review
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