My Greatest Day in Baseball, one of the earliest collections of the game’s oral histories, presents forty-seven famous stars from the golden age of baseball relating their most unforgettable moments in the sport. Ty Cobb vividly recreates the seventeenth-inning tie between the Philadelphia Athletics and Detroit Tigers with the 1908 pennant at stake. Grover Cleveland Alexander describes the day he saved the 1926 world championship for the St. Louis Cardinals. Babe Ruth recalls hitting the homer he had promised to the crowd at a 1932 World Series game. Dizzy Dean recounts a run-in with Ford Frick and a record-setting day in 1933 when he struck out seventeen Chicago Cubs. Among the other celebrated baseball figures telling their dramatic stories are Leroy “Satchel” Paige, Casey Stengel, Leo “The Lip” Durocher, Honus Wagner, Johnny Evers, Lefty Gomez, Tris Speaker, Cy Young, Pepper Martin, George Sisler, Billy Southworth, Enos Slaughter, Connie Mack, Walter Johnson, and Rogers Hornsby.
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Book Description
Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com Review
That the original 1945 incarnation of My Greatest Day in Baseball has returned to print, courtesy of the University of Nebraska's Bison Books imprint, is as welcome as a hanging curve to a power hitter. It's a cornerstone volume to any serious baseball library. Based in Chicago, John Carmichael was one of America's most celebrated sports columnists from the early '30s to his retirement 40 years later. For My Greatest Day, he collected the first-person rambles of 47 of the best ballplayers of the first half of the century. The roster is a virtual who's who: What aficionado wouldn't want to share a dugout with, among others, Babe Ruth, Ty Cobb, Honus Wagner, Frankie Frisch, Satchel Paige, Mel Ott, Rogers Hornsby, and Jimmy Foxx?
Sometimes myth triumphs over absolute truth in the players' memories, but baseball has always made room for its legends, and so much antiquated charm manages to seep into these pages as a result. For example, listen to how the Bambino begins his recollection of the famed "Called Shot" (which may or may not have actually happened) against the Cubs in the 1932 World Series: "What blankety-blank fool would-a done what I did that day. When I think of what-a idiot I'd a been if I'd struck out and I could-a, just as well as not because I was mad and I'd made up my mind to swing at the next pitch if I could reach it with a bat. Boy, when I think of the good breaks in my life..." Ruth leads off the volume, and merely sets the table. The 46 who follow acquit themselves equitably in bringing My Greatest Day home. --Jeff Silverman
Review
"Indispensable: a nostalgic delight."—New York Times Book Review
(New York Times Book Review )"This collection . . . is a knockout. A lot of [baseball’s greatest stars] are here . . . with reminiscences that are the very essence of the thrills—and laughs—of America’s favorite sport."—New Republic
(New Republic )
Product Details
Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
|
Customer Reviews
|
Share your thoughts with other customers:
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Baseball When It Was A Game--Great Nostalgia,
By A Customer
This review is from: My Greatest Day in Baseball (Paperback)
Do you get a chill when you see names like Ruth, Cobb, and Gehrig in an actual box score--a box score from a bygone era that omits runs-batted-in and sometimes even times at bat? Have you ever heard about the "Merkle boner," Walter Johnson's dramatic first world series victory (in relief!), unknown Howard Ehmke starting a world series game instead of the great Lefty Grove and setting a strikeout record against the heavy-hitting Chicago Cubs (yes, the Cubs), Pete Reiser's Dodgers heading toward a pennant, Tinker to Evers to Chance? If so, you'll love this well-written, nostalgic look at baseball the way it used to be (before 1945). Though these first-person accounts were written by leading sportswriters of that era, the personalities of the players come through clearly. Some old-time (if occasionally fuzzy) pictures add to the fun. Highly recommended.
Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
|
|
Tag this product(What's this?)Think of a tag as a keyword or label you consider is strongly related to this product.
Tags will help all customers organize and find favorite items. |
Sell a Digital Version of This Book in the Kindle Store
If you are a publisher or author and hold the digital rights to a book, you can sell a digital version of it in our Kindle Store.
Learn more
Customer Discussions
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
