A Game of Brawl; The Orioles, the Beaneaters & the Battle for the 1897 Pennant

Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 2007. Presumed First Edition, First printing. Hardcover. Very good/Very good. xxi, [3], 295, [1] pages. Illustrations. Foreword by Senator Edward M. Kennedy. Sources and Acknowledgments. Appendix. Notes. DJ has slight wear and soiling. Bill Felber is executive editor of The Manhattan Mercury. A native of Chicago's south side, he graduated from Kansas State University with a degree in journalism and has worked in that field for more than three decades. A baseball historian and researcher for twenty years, he has authored studies for Total Baseball and other publications on numerous on-field and off-field aspects of the game. Between 1894 and 1896, the Baltimore Orioles acquired a reputation as the slickest, smartest, and dirtiest team in baseball. Behind the play of future Hall of Famers John McGraw, Wee Willie Keeler, and Foxy Ned Hanlon, the Orioles had won three straight National League pennants heading into the 1897 season. Their style of play, however, met with widespread disapprobation among fans - the Oriole repertoire included deliberately hitting batters, tampering with the playing surfaces, interfering with opposing baserunners, and verbally assaulting anyone within earshot including the umpires, opposing players, and occasionally each other. the comparatively saintly Boston Beaneaters, took on a decidedly moralistic flavor - the inveterate Orioles versus the benevolent Beaneaters. It was the most intensely watched team sporting event in the country's history to that time. Fittingly, the race came down to a three-game series between the two teams in the season's final week. down the gates and walls of a facility designed to hold 10,000 to watch the Beaneaters grind out a win and bring down baseball's first and most notorious evil empire.