Amazon.com Review
The first decade of baseball in the 20th century witnessed the ascension of two stars who stood above the rest: Ty Cobb in the American League and Honus Wagner in the National. If Cobb was the game's tortured bully, Wagner was the anti-Cobb. He was kind and quiet, the most beloved figure in the game before Ruth, the local boy from the coalfields of western Pennsylvania who made good on the green fields of Pittsburgh's ballparks. Despite terribly bowed legs and freakishly large hands, he patrolled the shortstop slot with remarkable dexterity; he may not have been as acrobatic as Ozzie Smith, but no shortstop was steadier defensively. Offensively, he was a genius, winning eight batting crowns, four in a row between 1906 and 1909, and he remains, almost a century later, among the all-time top 10 in hits, doubles, triples, and stolen bases. Cobb, who rarely complimented anyone, considered Wagner "the greatest ballplayer that ever lived." Yet more than 40 years would pass after his death before any biographer seriously went to bat with his life.
In Honus Wagner, the DeValerias have produced a clean hit, maybe not a home run, but, befitting a star of the dead-ball era, a well-placed, well-struck double. As solid as Wagner himself--and at 5'11" and 200 pounds, he was solid--the "Flying Dutchman" emerges as a shy man who loved the game and loved to play it, and that's about the extent of it. He was a regular guy, no tormented Cobb, no educated Mathewson, no flamboyant Ruth. There are simply no strikes against him; he was unfussy, immensely likeable, anxious to please, tremendously supportive of his friends and teammates, and, while inordinately polite on the field, off of it he rarely pulled his punch lines. If anything haunted him, it was his poor performance against the Red Sox in the 1903 World Series, which he more than made up for against Cobb and the Tigers six years later. He may have led a simple life, but he wasn't exactly a simple man; his biographers treat him with the same respect he treated the game, and propel themselves with the same thoroughness, doggedness, and care that Wagner displayed on the field. --Jeff Silverman
--This text refers to the
Paperback
edition.
From Publishers Weekly
Baseball's legendary "Flying Dutchman" was born in Pennsylvania in 1874, the son of immigrant German parents. He was signed to play in the minor leagues and made his National League debut with Louisville in 1897. When the team folded, he moved to the Pittsburgh Pirates, where he would spend the rest of his career. A gifted athlete who could play any position, he finally settled in at shortstop, where he would go on to lead the league in batting eight times during the "deadball" era. The authors, members of the Society for American Baseball Research (SABR), look at the highlights of Wagner's career: playing in the first World Series in 1903; going head-to-head with his rival Ty Cobb in the 1909 World Series; and becoming the second player in major-league history to collect 3000 hits. Having gone on to manage the Pirates and to become one of the original members of the Baseball Hall of Fame, Wagner died in 1955. This workmanlike bio will appeal primarily to those interested in the early years of baseball. Photos not seen by PW. Foreign rights: Holt.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.
