34 of 37 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Boots and bungles, April 14, 2006
This review is from: When Chicago Ruled Baseball: The Cubs-White Sox World Series of 1906 (Hardcover)
I was really looking forward to this book, because I believe each World Series, especially in the deadball era should be recorded for history with a scholarly account.
Unfortunately the 1906 White Sox- Cubs series still awaits that account.
Potential readers expecting a book of the same standard as Louis P. Masur's Autumn Glory or Roger I. Abrams The First World Series, both about the 1903 World Series will be sorely disappointed by this effort.
I got the impression that parts of the book were rushed out after the White Sox won the 2005 series and were not written by Bernard Weisberger, but by a TV script writer. I find it hard to believe that a "distinguished teacher and author of American History" and "one of the best historians on earth" could write in the following style.
"It was a great double play of the balletlike kind that makes baseball glow, and like Evers great pickup in the first, it stopped the hemorrhaging. But four more runs were in for Jones's pyrotechnic experts."
"He attended Georgetown University, and in 1902 earned his dental degree (the course for which was then shorter)."
Four years, two years, ten years, we are not told. One minute we are being given lengthy essays on Spalding, Comiskey and the labor wars, and then we are given very clipped one sentence career information about the actual players, who participated in the series.
Also some of the content and comment was just annoyingly wrong and clearly not checked by a competent editor.
For instance, "....-but the Irish and the Germans had begun to make their inroads."
This is 1906 we are discussing, and perhaps the author had never heard of Jennings, Keeler, Kelley and McGraw, those "hardscrabble Irish" heroes of the Baltimore Orioles. But surely as the players in the series included, Hofman, Sheckard, Moran, Schulte, Steinfeldt, Kling, Reulbach, Pfeister, Hahn, Rohe, Donahue, Dougherty, Sullivan, Altrock and Walsh, I think we can safely say that the Germans and Irish had more than "begun to make their inroads".
I don't like being so harsh, but when a book is only 184 pages long I want it to spend the pages on the subject or closely related themes, not lengthy diversions on baseball's labor wars, and the 2005 White Sox victory.
One particularly annoying feature was that in the first paragraph of chapter 5 Bernard Weisberger lenghtily explains that the third and fourth games of a best of seven series tied at one all are the "swing games", as if we are unable to count to three or four. Fielders are "like a hawk hovering over a field mouse", or run down fly balls "like a cheetah." If these embellishments were intended to replicate the style of 1906 newspaper reporting they were a singular failure.
This could have been such a good book if it had concentrated more on the series, the players, the season, and the city of Chicago as it was in 1906. If you are billed as "one of the best historians on earth" with "enormous talents" your books have to meet a very high standard, and unfortunately I don't think this book reached those standards.
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7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Compelling subject matter rates 4 stars for Sox & Cubs fans; fewer for others, August 19, 2006
This review is from: When Chicago Ruled Baseball: The Cubs-White Sox World Series of 1906 (Hardcover)
Having recently moved to Chicago and become a White Sox rooter during their Cinderella season of 2005, I eagerly anticipated using Bernard Weisberger's "When Chicago Ruled Baseball" as a means of introducing myself to the history of the city's two storied franchises. Certainly, the subject matter the book covers is worthy of a treatise, as the 1906 World Series between the Sox and Cubs was noteworthy from multiple perspectives. The book's compelling subject matter kept my interest, but if Weisberger had taken more time to polish his prose and delve into more detail, the book could have been much better.
To his credit, Weisberger puts the 1906 World Series into historical perspective, and uses it as a springboard to discuss other important related subjects, including a portrait of turn-of-the-century Chicago (the 1906 World Series was just 35 years after the great Chicago fire); the genesis and formative early years of the major professional baseball leagues; and the formation of Chicago's two major league ball clubs (the original White Stockings who became the Cubs, and the upstart American League's White Sox). Each of these topics in and of itself is worthy of a book, and indeed Weisberger relies upon and cites several primary source books. So, "When Chicago Ruled Baseball" provides a surface-level overview of these subjects, along with game descriptions of the actual contests, drawn from newspaper accounts.
It left me wishing for more. If Weisberger had delivered 284 pages of prose instead of 184 he would have been able to delve more deeply into each of the major subject areas, other than the game descriptions (lacking an audio or visual record of the games, there is only so much that can be perused from newspaper write-ups). My other major complaint is that the writing was unpolished and flat at times.
"When Chicago Ruled Baseball" will be most appealing to, no surprise here, Sox and Cubs fans who don't already know the early history of their teams and their World Series appearances. That described me, so I am glad I read the book. Others might want to proceed cautiously, or choose to read one of the books that Weisberger relied upon.
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Thoroughly Enjoyed This Book, December 4, 2007
I couldn't disagree more with some of the critical reviews posted here about "When Chicago Ruled Baseball." I'm not exactly sure what some of the other reviewers were expecting from a book on this topic, but in my opinion everyone from serious students of baseball history to the casual fan will be very pleased. I'm a long-time Chicago baseball fan (since about 1956). I fancy myself as an amateur baseball historian, and I'm also an avid student of the Dead ball era, so this book was right up my alley. I thought it was entertaining, very well done, and I enjoyed it thoroughly. I've read "The 1903 World Series" and "Autumn Glory" (as one reviewer suggested) and thought this book compares very well...if anything, I enjoyed it more.
It was a fun book to read and I thought it captured just the right mix of relevant historical setting, delightful local color, extremely interesting character development, and in-depth baseball research. Mr. Weisberger writes in an engaging narrative style that flows very well and kept my attention throughout. I love books like this and it certainly deserves a second read. Apparently some of the other reviewers were expecting some sort of doctoral dissertation on the subject. I guess they're disapppointed. Everyone else will probably enjoy the book.
I was familiar with all of the personalities in the book, but reading about them within the context of the 1906 pennant races and World Series, I feel I now have a much deeper appreciation for them all. Also, I have a much deeper appreciation for baseball as it existed in Chicago in the historic year of 1906. In spite of all the changes to the game, it's still amazing how similar the game was played over 100 years ago. This was all captured well in the book and Mr. Weisberger is to be commended.
If you are serious student of the game, or if you just want to learn about the historic 1906 World Series, I'd highly recommend this book. You won't be disappointed.
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