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Autumn Glory: Baseball's First World Series

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It is appropriate, in this 100th anniversary of the first baseball World Series, that there is a book telling all about it. It's especially appropriate that this book is extremely well-written, interesting and informative. We readers are treated to a history of the rivalry between the established National League, and the upstart American League. We are given thumbnail biographies of many of the personalities of that era, both club owners and players. There is a concise recitation of the "Peace Conference" that effectively ended the rivalry, and we also get to review the respective seasons of the eventual Leagues champions. Each of the eight Series games is then covered out by out, but it's not boring in the least. Along the way we also learn a lot about the way some of the baseball rules we take for granted were established, including the umpire's hand signals, and the foul/strike rule. The fans played a major part in the game, particularly the Royal Rooters from Boston, whose antics would amaze today's somewhat rowdy supporters. This is a book well worth reading, not only for baseball fans, but for lovers of the unusual aspects of American history.

Highly acclaimed author Louis P. Masur has nothing to worry about. His new book, AUTUMN GLORY: Baseball's First World Series, hammers Bob Ryan's tome about the 100th anniversary of the 1903 championship between the Boston Americans and the Pittsburgh Pirates out of the proverbial ballpark.

While Ryan is one of the most renowned sports columnists in the country working for the Boston Globe, his book doesn't even come close to unearthing the full story of professional baseball in America during its infancy at the turn of the 20th-century. Ryan's work largely centers on the relationship between Globe baseball writer Tim Murnane and Boston player-manager and Hall of Famer Jimmy Collins. But there was much, much more to the story of this inaugural World Series than just a friendship between a pro ballplayer and a sportswriter.

Masur's scholarly work, complete with numerous photos, box scores and statistics, tells the story of the breathtaking series, but also examines the off-field doings among legendary baseball men at the time like Charles Comiskey, Ban Johnson, and Henry Killilea.

Even before the first World Series pitch was thrown by immortal hurler Cy Young at the Huntington Avenue Grounds, professional baseball was coming apart at the seams. That is until a Peace Conference in January involving several highly controversial owners at the time realized that the ongoing "war" between the fledgling American League and National League had to come to an end if America's pastime was to continue.

Masur also does a great job of illustrating how controversial Cincinnati Reds owner John T. Brush did all he could to squash the peace negotiations that the owners reached until he realized that doing so would bankrupt his ball club. Brush was so distraught over his defeat that he refused to gather with the rest of the National League owners to sing "In the Good Old Summer Time."

AUTUMN GLORY is an absolute treasure trove of how passionate fans were about their baseball teams in Boston and Pittsburgh during the early days of the game. Masur dedicates eight different chapters to provide in-depth information about each game of the thrilling series that Boston, believe it or not, won five games to three (originally the World Series had a best-of-nine format, as opposed to the best-of-seven format that is used today).

Masur, who is a professor of history at City College of New York, editor of the prestigious REVIEWS OF AMERICAN HISTORY and author of two other previous works, does a fine job at bringing to life numerous ballplayers who were stars of the game 100 years ago. Through tireless research of several newspapers, magazines and diaries by Masur, the importance of players like Boston pitcher Bill Dinneen, who was clearly more dominant than Young during the series, and Pittsburgh Hall of Famer Honus Wagner, is evident throughout the book.

Another fascinating aspect of AUTUMN GLORY is the impact of gambling in the game of baseball by players as well as fans. Masur again does stellar work in narrating the rampant gambling that infected the sport up until 1919 and the great Black Sox scandal.

Certainly both Ryan's book and AUTUMN GLORY overlap in some areas, but Masur crafts his story of this utterly important event in a much finer fashion.

--- Reviewed by David Exum

The title of the book suggests a complete book on the 1903 World Series. Author Louis Masur does an admirable job of bringing the reader back in time to the way it was 100 years ago. The book is 236 pages long, and I initially wondered how he was going to elaborate on an eight game Series over that many pages. What the author did was alternate a chapter on each of the eight games in this best five out of nine games with goings on in the baseball world during the year of 1903. I especially enjoyed the chapters on the games itself as the author does a great job of telling us what baseball and its fans in America were like 100 years ago. The author refers to the Boston American League team as the "Americans" while I have always heard them referred to as the "Pilgrims." This was the Series in which Boston's Royal Rooters became famous for their fan support with their band and singing of various songs including the popular song "Tessie" in which they adapted words to apply to Pirates' shortstop Honus Wagner. It is not mentioned in the book, but JFK's grandfather was a member of the Royal Rooters. The book is an easy read and one that tells us what it was like to be a ballplayer and fan 100 years ago. You will also see that baseball's present day problems are not anything new.

At the beginning of the previous century baseball had two competing business leagues. In 1903 a deal was reached to hold a championship between the winners of the two leagues. The Pittsburgh Pirates and the Boston Americans played the first post-season championship. Several years later this event became known as the World Series and post season championships became a way of American professional sports life throughout the century and still is today a century later.

Baseball fans and early twenty-century history buffs will fully enjoy this deep look at the debut of the premier event of the National Pastime. The rules of 1903 were somewhat different than today adding flavor to an already delightful mix. A similar perspective (just under forty years ago) might be that of the first NFL-AFL championship, later known as the Superbowl that occurred six decades after baseball's premier event debuted. Louis P. Masur provides a grand slam home run with his wonderful look at the first World Series.

Harriet Klausner

Bob Ryan's book may not be as good as Masur's, but at least he's got the most basic of facts right - his subtitle is "A Chronicle of Boston's Remarkable Victory in the First Modern World Series of 1903", while Masur's is "Baseball's First World Series". The first World Series was played in 1884 between Providence of the National League and New York of the American Association. A weak case could also be made for the games played between Chicago and Cincinnati two years earlier, though most regard these as exhibitions.

Baseball did not magically appear at the beginning of the 20th century - the National League was founded before Custer met his fate at the Little Bighorn. Subtitles like Masur's imply that nothing of importance or interest occurred in baseball in 19th century.

For a good description of the World Series played before "Baseball's First World Series", I recommend Jerry Lansche's "Glory Fades Away: The Nineteenth-Century World Series Rediscovered".

"William McKinley - America's First President"