"All fans of baseball, all fans of a good story, will love this book." -- Professor Gordon Wood, Pulitzer and Bancroft Prize winner
"This is a beautifully written, meticulously researched story about a bygone baseball era that even die-hard fans will find foreign, and about a pitcher who might have been the greatest of all time." -- Joseph J. Ellis, Pulitzer prize-winning historian
Following in the tradition of the sleeper bestseller Crazy '08, Fifty-Nine in '84 is the story of Charles Radbourn, a brilliant major league baseball pitcher who, in the 1884 season,...
"All fans of baseball, all fans of a good story, will love this book." -- Professor Gordon Wood, Pulitzer and Bancroft Prize winner
Chris von der Ahe knew next to nothing about base¬ball when he risked his life's savings to found the franchise that would become the St. Louis Cardinals. Yet the German-born beer garden proprietor would become one of the most important--and funniest--figures in the game's history. Von der Ahe picked up the team for one reason--to sell more beer. Then he helped gather a group of ragtag professional clubs together to create a maverick new league that would fight the haughty National League, reinventing big-league baseball to attract Americans of all classes. Sneered at as "The Beer and...
Chris von der Ahe knew next to nothing about base¬ball when he risked his life's savings to found the franchise that would become the St. Louis Cardi...
