Fifty-nine in '84 tells the story of Charlie "Old Hoss" Radbourn and the 1884 Providence Grays, who were a team in baseball's National League. Radbourn rung up an astounding fifty-nine pitching victories that year and, as an afterthought, won all three games in baseball's first World Series. But this book is about more than just Radbourn, the Grays, and barehanded baseball in general -- reading it will give you a profound sense of what life was like in late-19th century urban America. Author Edward Achorn is an evocative writer who paints pictures with his words, stirring vivid imagery of horse-drawn carriages, pollution-spewing smoke stacks, and the incessant competitiveness of almost every aspect of urban life during this time of great upheaval in the U.S.
Normally I wouldn't worry about "spoilers" in a non-fiction work, but be warned that this summary contains some: As I said in the title of this review, "Fifty-nine in '84" would make a great movie, but the real-life plot is so preposterous, most viewers would be unable to suspend disbelief if they didn't know it was a true story. The action begins at the start of the 1884 baseball season, when the Providence Grays -- who led the pennant race for most of 1883 but faltered at the end -- have brought on hot-shot rookie pitcher Charles Sweeney. This does not make the jealous Radbourn -- who set a record for most pitching wins the previous season -- happy in the least, especially when Sweeney is depicted as the team's ace and given the opening-day starting assignment. In these days, teams normally used only two starting pitchers, and once a game was started, it was expected that the pitcher finish it, so Sweeney and Radbourn took turns pitching for the Grays.
About a quarter of the way through the season, Sweeney throws nineteen strikeouts in one game -- a major-league record that would stand for 102 years, until broken by Roger Clemens. After coming home from the road game where this happened, Providence throws Sweeney a big parade -- inflaming Radbourn's jealousy. Soon after, the overworked Sweeney says he needs rest, so it's up to Radbourn to go it alone. Radbourn demands that he be paid Sweeney's salary in addition to his own ($3,000; among the highest in the league!), but management refuses. Against this backdrop, the rogue Union Association baseball league is trying to steal Radbourn away from the NL's second-place Grays. Under the collusive rules of the two major leagues (the NL and the American Association), players who break their contracts to play for "rogue" leagues like the UA are forever blacklisted, but Radbourn wants out of the "unappreciative" Providence so badly, he strongly contemplates jumping. Ultimately, he has a "crack up" on the field and is suspended without pay, leading him to the precipice of leaving the Grays.
It should be noted here that the Providence press has been hard on Radbourn all year at this point. They suggest his claims of chronic soreness are false, that he's not trying his hardest, and that he's jealous of the younger hurler Sweeney. Radbourn, at this point, is already on pace to beat his all-time best 48 wins from the year before, and the Grays are in second place! So Sweeney has to go it alone for a time while Radbourn sits out, and Sweeney ends up having a "crack up" too -- only much worse: He shows up at a game with two prostitutes (which are ubiquitous throughout the book, by the way), and after taking the lead into the 7th inning, the Grays' manager orders him to move into right field and let another player take over the pitching duties. In these days, being "unable" to finish a game made a player look bad, so Sweeney refuses. Ultimately, he leaves the field entirely -- and in those days, you weren't allowed to make mid-game substitutions except in the case of injury -- so the Grays had to complete the game with only eight players! Now Sweeney is expelled from the team and the National League and black-listed from the majors altogether! After boozing and whoring in Providence for a few days, he signs up with the St. Louis team in the Union Association.
At this point, the Grays are still in second place. But over the course of eight days, they went from looking great, with two of the best pitchers of all time, to having neither of them, and the team's board of directors come perilously close to folding the team mid-season! Instead, they swallow their pride and bring back Radbourn, agreeing to pay him Sweeney's paltry salary in addition to his own and, more importantly, to grant him an unconditional release from his contract if he can pitch Providence's way to the pennant. As you know, he does.
Radbourn was quite a character: He was the first man in history to be photographed giving his middle finger to the camera, and is likely the source of the term "Charlie horse." He set the record for most pitching wins in a season and won the first world series -- but today he is virtually unknown. He took his used-up arm back to his home in Illinois and made some wise investments, but lost most of his wealth in an economic panic later in his life. Ultimately, he gets shot in the face while hunting, and although it isn't fatal, it dashes his hopes of returning to the big leagues. He dies at 42, anyway, of syphilis, which he most likely contracted from his prostitute-turned-wife. These were hard and interesting times, and Edward Achorn's book captures them beautifully. A "history" book without focus can be dull and tedious, but given a proper prism through which to examine the "on-the-ground" history of people who really lived it, a book like Achorn's can educate as well as entertain. I loved every second of reading "Fifty-nine in '84," and give it my most fervent recommendation.
