The Black Prince of Baseball

The Black Prince of Baseball PDF Author: Donald Dewey
Publisher: U of Nebraska Press
ISBN: 0803299664
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 456

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Book Description
As America lurched into the twentieth century, its national pastime was afflicted with the same moral malaise that was enveloping the rest of the nation. Players regularly bet on games, games were routinely fixed, and league politics were as dirty as the base paths. Against this backdrop, Hal Chase emerged as one of the game's greatest players and also as one of its most scandalous characters. With charisma and bravado that earned him the nickname The Prince, Chase charmed his way across America, spinning lies in the afternoon, dealing high-stakes poker at night, and gambling with beautiful women until dawn. Most notoriously of all, he undermined his stature as the era's greatest first baseman by conniving with gamblers to fix games and draw teammates into his diamond conspiracies. But as Donald Dewey and Nicholas Acocella reveal in their groundbreaking biography, The Black Prince of Baseball, Chase was also a scapegoat for baseball notables with hands even dirtier than his. These included league officials who ignored facts in an attempt to pin the 1919 Black Sox scandal on him and--a previously unknown twist--the fabled John McGraw, who perjured himself on a witness stand against the first baseman. Although Chase, contrary to popular belief, was never banned from the major leagues, meticulous research by the authors implicates him in other shady enterprises as well, not least an attempt to blackmail revivalist Aimee Semple McPherson. As The Black Prince of Baseball makes clear, in his protean talents and larcenies, Hal Chase personified all the excesses of Ragtime.

The Black Prince of Baseball

The Black Prince of Baseball PDF Author: Donald Dewey
Publisher: U of Nebraska Press
ISBN: 0803299664
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 456

Get Book

Book Description
As America lurched into the twentieth century, its national pastime was afflicted with the same moral malaise that was enveloping the rest of the nation. Players regularly bet on games, games were routinely fixed, and league politics were as dirty as the base paths. Against this backdrop, Hal Chase emerged as one of the game's greatest players and also as one of its most scandalous characters. With charisma and bravado that earned him the nickname The Prince, Chase charmed his way across America, spinning lies in the afternoon, dealing high-stakes poker at night, and gambling with beautiful women until dawn. Most notoriously of all, he undermined his stature as the era's greatest first baseman by conniving with gamblers to fix games and draw teammates into his diamond conspiracies. But as Donald Dewey and Nicholas Acocella reveal in their groundbreaking biography, The Black Prince of Baseball, Chase was also a scapegoat for baseball notables with hands even dirtier than his. These included league officials who ignored facts in an attempt to pin the 1919 Black Sox scandal on him and--a previously unknown twist--the fabled John McGraw, who perjured himself on a witness stand against the first baseman. Although Chase, contrary to popular belief, was never banned from the major leagues, meticulous research by the authors implicates him in other shady enterprises as well, not least an attempt to blackmail revivalist Aimee Semple McPherson. As The Black Prince of Baseball makes clear, in his protean talents and larcenies, Hal Chase personified all the excesses of Ragtime.

Hal Chase

Hal Chase PDF Author: Martin Donell Kohout
Publisher: McFarland
ISBN: 0786450436
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 348

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Book Description
Hal Chase is considered by many to be one of the best first basemen ever to play the game of baseball. He was able to make the routine look spectacular, the spectacular look routine. But Chase will never have his plaque in Cooperstown because he has gone down in history as the biggest crook in baseball. Chase was repeatedly accused of throwing games, bribing players, betting against his own team, and various other crimes, yet with his relaxed nature he always managed to get off the hook for his misdeeds by working his charm. His major league career lasted from 1905 to 1919, and by the mid-1930s he was a destitute alcoholic living off friends. The last fifteen years of Chase's life saw him hospitalized repeatedly for a variety of ailments, living off a sister and brother-in-law who loathed him. This work traces the turbulent life and times of Hal Chase from his humble beginnings to his sad end.

Burying the Black Sox

Burying the Black Sox PDF Author: Gene Carney
Publisher: U of Nebraska Press
ISBN: 1597971081
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 380

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Book Description
New insight on baseball's most famous scandal

A Prince at First

A Prince at First PDF Author: Ed Dinger
Publisher: McFarland
ISBN: 9780786483365
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 228

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Book Description
Nicknamed Prince Hal, first baseman Hal Chase was the first captain of the New York Yankees in the early years of the twentieth century (when the team was known as the Highlanders). Widely regarded as one of the most gifted first basemen ever to play the game, he is also regarded as the most corrupt individual to play. Prince Hal's charismatic personality, however, helped him overcome repeated accusations of throwing games, bribing players, betting against his own team and various other misbehaviors. At the time of the 1919 World Series fix--the so-called Black Sox scandal--he was thought to have been the mastermind and was banned from organized ball. He died penniless in a state hospital after World War II, the victim of beriberi brought on by years of alcoholism and poor diet. This is a fictional but carefully factual "autobiography." Based on extensive research, it chronicles Chase's many exploits. Even more revealing, it also traces the corruption of the man's soul.

The Half-Game Pennant of 1908

The Half-Game Pennant of 1908 PDF Author: Charles C. Alexander
Publisher: McFarland
ISBN: 1476665060
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 174

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Book Description
The 1908 American League pennant race was described as a "a fierce and fluctuating fight." With five games left in the season, each of the league's four westernmost teams still had a shot at the championship. It was the height of the Deadball Era, noted for its spectacular pitching, low scoring, quickly played games, and memorable characters. It was also a time when professional baseball truly came into its own as America's national pastime. This lively account details a neglected chapter in the game's history.

California Baseball: from the Pioneers to the Glory Years

California Baseball: from the Pioneers to the Glory Years PDF Author: Chris Goode
Publisher: Lulu.com
ISBN: 0557087600
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 392

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Book Description
Beginning in the 1890s, the book examines the personalities, schools, teams, managers, and owners that helped shape baseball in California. It provides an insightful history of the game from the perspective of the California minor leagues, particularly the California League and Pacific Coast League. While focusing on the lives of a select group of pioneers integral to the sport in the Golden State, it reveals a representative and interesting sample of the achievements, events, and contributions spanning a half-century. Frank Chance, Walter Johnson, Hal Chase, Mike Donlin, Charlie Graham, Hap Hogan, Hen Berry, and Cy Moreing lead teams including Santa Clara College, St. Mary's, the Los Angeles Angels, Stockton Millers, San Jose Prune Pickers, Vernon Tigers, Santa Cruz Sand Crabs, Oakland Oaks, and San Francisco Seals. We begin in San Francisco in 1897 at the genesis of professional baseball in California ' at the San Francisco Examiner Baseball Tournament.

Black Sox in the Courtroom

Black Sox in the Courtroom PDF Author: William F. Lamb
Publisher: McFarland
ISBN: 0786472685
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 238

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Book Description
A comprehensive, non-partisan account of the judicial proceedings spawned by the corruption of the 1919 World Series is badly needed. This book provides it. The narrative of events has been crafted from surviving fragments of the judicial record, contemporaneous newspaper accounts of the proceedings, museum archives and, occasionally, the literature of the Black Sox scandal. Preceding the account of judicial events are a brief overview of the baseball gambling problem, a summary of the 1919 Series, and a discussion of post-Series events that presaged revelations of the Series fix. The grand jury proceedings, the criminal trial, and ensuing civil suits initiated by various of the banned players against the White Sox are then recounted in detail, accompanied by copious source citations. The book concludes with a survey of how Black Sox-related legal proceedings have been treated in scandal literature. The book does not purport to be the definitive account of the Black Sox scandal. Rather, it uniquely presents how the matter played out in court.

Jackie Robinson: He Led the Way

Jackie Robinson: He Led the Way PDF Author: April Jones Prince
Publisher: Random House Books for Young Readers
ISBN: 0593432703
Category : Juvenile Nonfiction
Languages : en
Pages : 49

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Book Description
Perfect for Black History Month and sports fans! Independent readers will be inspired by the story of this barrier-breaking baseball player. Now available in Step into Reading, the premier leveled reader line. Jackie Robinson became the first black Major League baseball player of the modern era when he stepped onto the field as a Brooklyn Dodger in 1947. In simple, engaging language, this book follows Jackie from childhood through his career as an MVP-award winning baseball player and a hero of the civil rights movement. Step 3 Readers feature engaging characters in easy-to-follow plots about popular topics; for children who are ready to read on their own.

The Baseball Trust

The Baseball Trust PDF Author: Stuart Banner
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199930295
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 300

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Book Description
The Baseball Trust is about the origins and persistence of baseball's strange exemption from antitrust law. Told through a frequently riveting and always entertaining history of America's pastime, author Stuart Banner emphasizes the strategies baseball has used to achieve a protected legal status enjoyed by no other industry in America.

Johnny Evers

Johnny Evers PDF Author: Dennis Snelling
Publisher: McFarland
ISBN: 0786475919
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 237

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Book Description
For more than a century Johnny Evers has been conjoined with Chicago Cubs teammates Frank Chance and Joe Tinker, thanks to eight lines of verse by a New York columnist. Caricatured as a scrawny, sour man who couldn't hit and who owed his fame to that poem, in truth he was the heartbeat of one of the greatest teams of the 20th century and the fiercest competitor this side of Ty Cobb. Evers was at the center of one of baseball's greatest controversies, a chance event that sealed his stardom and stole a pennant from John McGraw and the New York Giants in 1908. Six years later, following reversals and tragedies that resulted in a nervous breakdown, he made a comeback with the Boston Braves and led that team to the most improbable of championships. Spanning the time from his birth in Troy, New York, to his death less than a year after his election to the Hall of Fame, this is the biography of a man who literally wrote the book about playing second base.