The First World Series and the Baseball Fanatics of 1903 [Paperback]

Roger I. Abrams (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 9, 2005

Recapturing the drama and color of this historic sporting event, Roger I. Abrams shows how the first world series (Boston Americans vs. Pittsburgh Pirates) provided a unique lens to view American life and culture at the dawn of the twentieth century.

It is a fascinating story brimming with colorful, larger-than-life characters: legendary players Honus Wagner, Cy Young, Jimmy Collins, Fred Clarke, Big Bill Dineen, and Deacon Phillippe on the field; and Mike "Nuf Ced" McGreevey, "Honey Fitz" Fitzgerald, and the boisterous Boston Royal Rooters, cheering, chanting, and singing in the grandstands. This is also the story of how the post-season play gave disparate classes in society--Brahmins, industrialists, Irish politicians, Jewish immigrants--the rare opportunity to join in common support of their local teams and heroes.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Though the title may be misleading, Abrams's new book deals with economic issues almost as much as his past effort, The Money Pitch. He contends that baseball served as the primary unifier of an American society made up of distinct classes created by a host of factors associated with pre-WWII economics including immigration and expanding cities. While the majority of Abrams's prose is accessible, when faced with the burden of proof, his writing can turn academic, saturated with long quotations. And where is the World Series in all of this? Though the series was extremely competitive, Abrams's game recaps, presented using the era's lexicon, can't convey the excitement of the century-old series. Smartly, Abrams focuses the book's baseball sections on two subjects that baseball fans adore: nostalgia and statistics. The book's strength is the vignettes on stars like Pittsburgh's Honus Wagner, characters like pitcher Edward Doheny, who went "berserk" before the series started, and the antics of Boston fan "Nuf Ced" McGreevey and his Royal Rooters. Abrams has a strong case thanks to his broad and exhaustive research and he lets the statistics speak for themselves. For instance, Cy Young's 1903 season and astounding career numbers serve not only as a window into the national pastime at the turn of the century but also make for an intriguing contrast to today's game. Overall, Abrams's pitch is a strike for history buffs and diehard baseball fans, while for others it's more like a ball on the outside corner; just a bit out of reach.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Booklist

In October 1903, the Boston Americans and the Pittsburg (no h in those days) Pirates played the first World Series of baseball, a five-of-nine game contest that Boston won in eight. With the one-hundredth anniversary of that landmark event on the horizon, a valuable new book tells the story. Abrams, a professor of sports law at Northeastern, takes the same material as Masur with a different focus. The Huntington Avenue Grounds, where the Boston Americans played, is now part of the Northeastern campus, and Abrams, in between his accounts of those eight World Series games, is interested in people: Mike "Nuf Ced" McGreevey, the leader of the Royal Rooters; Boston's Cy Young; Pittsburgh's Honus Wagner. He also examines the Jews, the Irish, and the Brahmins of Boston to relate how class and status fit into the city of Boston at the time and the game of baseball in that city. GraceAnne DeCandido
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 208 pages
• Publisher: Northeastern; New edition edition (August 9, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1555536441
• ISBN-13: 978-1555536442
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.7 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,686,233 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Roger I. Abrams is the Richardson Professor of Law at Northeastern University School of Law in Boston. An honors graduate of Cornell University and the Harvard Law School, Professor Abrams is a recognized authority on Sports Law. He has published four books on the business of sports: LEGAL BASES: BASEBALL AND THE LAW (TEMPLE UNIVERSITY PRESS, 1998); THE MONEY PITCH: BASEBALL FREE AGENCY AND SALARY ARBITRATION (TEMPLE UNIVERSITY PRESS, 2000); THE FIRST WORLD SERIES AND THE BASEBALL FANATICS OF 1903 (NORTHEASTERN UNIVERSITY PRES, 2003); THE DARK SIDE OF THE DIAMOND: GAMBLING, VIOLENCE, DRUGS AND ALCOHOLISM IN THE NATIONAL PASTIME (ROUNDER BOOKS, 2008). His fifth book, SPORTS JUSTICE: THE BUSINESS AND LAW OF SPORTS, will be published by University Press of New England in October 2010.
Professor Abrams has served as a Major League Baseball salary arbitrator starting in 1986, and he is regularly asked to comment on legal and economic issues involving the national game by the print and electronic media. His blog on the business of sports is featured on Huffington Post. In the fall of 2006, Professor Abrams served as Scholar-in-Residence at the Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum in Cooperstown, New York.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A book for baseball and Americana fans, April 18, 2003

By 

William Ciaburri (Hamden, CT USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The First World Series and the Baseball Fanatics of 1903 (Hardcover)

Highly entertaining and informative book about the 1903 series includes historical backgrounds of early baseball.However American history fans will also enjoy stories of the people of Boston and Pittsburgh of that era.Well researched.Only quibble is the lack of footnotes,though a bibliography is included.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars 1903 World Series gets short shrift., May 22, 2004

By 

J. C. Aston "Baseball fan" (South Gate, California USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The First World Series and the Baseball Fanatics of 1903 (Hardcover)

As other reviewers have noted, this book's title is rather deceptive.
At first presented as background information, the intense investigation into the ethnic and economic make-up of turn-of-the-century Boston takes up a considerable portion of the book. In the end, I would say that the accounts of the landmark 8-game series are actually a mere backdrop to Abrams' essay on 1903 Boston.
While the details of the Irish and Jewish emmigration are interesting, and do have some place in understanding the fans (or "cranks" as they were known at the time) of those early days of the Grand Old Game, I would have preferred to have more details on the games themselves ... some games are recounted in only a few brief paragraphs ... rather then entire chapters devoted to the social conflicts between the Brahmins and Yankees (no, not the New York American League team) or the search for a Jewish Homeland (in Boston).
Sadly, the most fascinating thing about this book is the fact that the publisher, Northeastern University Press, is located at the site of the Huntington Avenue Base Ball Grounds, home of the first modern World Series game on October 1, 1903.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars History of Baseball AND Boston, February 18, 2004

By 

M. Buisman (Amstelveen, The Netherlands) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The First World Series and the Baseball Fanatics of 1903 (Hardcover)

Although the title of this book would lead you to believe it is just about the First World Series between Pittsburg and Boston in 1903 but it is more than that. Abrams also writes about the ethnic make-up of Boston and its influence on the game.
The people around the game (cheerleaders, politicians) are also talked about. This book is interesting for those interested in the history of Baseball but also very intersting for those interested in the history of Boston around the turn of the century. It's not that long and easy to read.