The Year The Red Sox Won The Series: A Chronicle of the 1918 Championship Season [Hardcover]

Ty Waterman (Author), Mel Springer (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 18, 1999

When Babe Ruth pitched and slugged the Boston Red Sox to a six-game World Series victory over the Chicago Cubs in 1918, there was every expectation that the team would continue to dominate the national pastime. Over eighty years later, long-suffering Red Sox fans are still waiting for another championship and deliverance from the Curse of the Bambino. Now they-and baseball fans everywhere-can relive that glory season as told by the sportswriters and cartoonists of the day.

In this thoroughly entertaining and informative chronicle of the last year Boston won the Series, the reader is transported back to a time when the nation was at war, dozens of baseball players were enlisting in the armed services or jumping their teams to play for shipyard clubs, and the government shut down the season a month early to draft all eligible players. Here one will meet a host of memorable characters-Harry Frazee, Ed Barrow, Ty Cobb, Walter Johnson, Harry Hooper, Tris Speaker, Carl Mays, and the young Babe Ruth-and experience first-hand the heroics and antics of the Sultan of Swat and other baseball greats. Here, too, are the colorful and partisan baseball scribes, who themselves become part of the championship story.

This lavishly illustrated work offers illuminating detail on the games, the players, and the times, and it contains a treasure trove of baseball lore. Readers will find out why and when the Star Spangled Banner (before it was the national anthem) was played before games and they will learn why the threatened player strike over the World Series' low purse left hard feelings that reverberate today.

Baseball enthusiasts, woebegone Red Sox fans, and historians will delight in this fascinating journey through the remarkable 1918 championship season.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Ty Waterman and Mel Springer have had a love affair with baseball since childhood, first as devoted fans of the Brooklyn Dodgers and then as avid supporters of their cherished Boston Red Sox. They keep a close vigil over the trials and tribulations of the team and regard Fenway Park as their personal field of dreams. The authors hope that this book, born out of their passion for the game, will end the Curse, and that Nomar and Pedro will take the Red Sox to a World Championship in 1999. Dan Shaughnessy is a sports columnist for the Boston Globe. He is the author of At Fenway: Dispatches from Red Sox Nation and Curse of the Bambino.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 293 pages
• Publisher: Northeastern (March 18, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1555533817
• ISBN-13: 978-1555533816
• Product Dimensions: 10.3 x 8.3 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.7 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,477,166 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Highly Recommended for any true Red Sox Fan !!, June 18, 1999

By 

Jos Zogalis (Mansfield, MA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Year The Red Sox Won The Series: A Chronicle of the 1918 Championship Season (Hardcover)

Great reading !! The book takes you back to that glorious Sox summer of 1918, and as ALL Sox fans are aware of, the last World Championship season. It chronicles the entire season from start to finish. You can also see how the writing style of the sportswriters was quite different than it is nowadays. Also captured in the book are various cartoon illustrations that are no longer a part of the current day sports page, but quite popular back then. This book should be must reading for all Sox fans.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars I wasn't around in 1918, November 22, 2001

By 

Timothy Gager "some call me Tim" (Boston) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Year The Red Sox Won The Series: A Chronicle of the 1918 Championship Season (Hardcover)

But in 1918, the Sox won. They really, really won. This well researched book makes me fell like I was there, 83 years ago, following the REd Sox daily, the same way I do now. Difference is, they win it and this is not good fiction, it is great non-fiction. What Ken Burns did for baseball history, Ty Waterman does for the 1918 Red Sox.

Another interesting thing about this book is the news clips which is how you, as a reader, follow along with the season. The interesting part is not just the information from long ago, but how a ball club is written about back in 1918, and how it differs today. Sure the players had "issues" back then, but now days we can get bogged down on the importance of player's personal problems and the effect that has on the team. Looking foward to digesting the next Ty Waterman fact filled book.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars superb, May 16, 2001

By 

Sean M. Kelly (Portland, Oregon United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Year The Red Sox Won The Series: A Chronicle of the 1918 Championship Season (Hardcover)

No team in professional sports offers a full scale opera with each game more than my beloved Boston Red Sox. All Red Sox and baseball fans know the trials, tribulations, and horror that surrounds this team, and with it Boston, and all of New England. Buckner in '86, Torrez in '78, Bill Lee's junk pitch to Tony Perez in game 7 of '75, the collapse in 72, the could have been of '67, the should have been of '48, Enos Slaughter in '45...the Red Sox have sustained their share of horrific luck since Harry Frazee dealt the Babe to New York in 1919...

Few fans remember, or realize, that the Red Sox dominated baseball for the first 20 years of the past century. They had great pitchers from Cy Young to "Smoky" Joe Wood, to the Babe, and hall of famers Harry Hooper, Tris Speaker, Young, the Babe... yes, the Sox had it all, and it all culminated in 1918, the last time the Babe-led Sox won the World Series.

Waterman's book is a delightful piece of Americana, complete with old tyme sketches, photos, box scores, standings, and everything else that made 1918 what it was- a simpler time in baseball. The stories, from the trade of Speaker to the Indians to the many showcasing the Babe's probelms but undeniable charisma and popularity, to that of Harry Hooper's fight against MLB that lasted all of his life, are fascinating and riviting. The newspaper writers were more than that in those days- they became part of the saga, as well.

This book is a remarkable historical document that fans of baseball, no less those of the Red Sox, will appreciate. Many of the day's brightest stars are mentioned, and it hearkens back to a day when to play baseball was a privledge, not a job. ..and while the 1918 Red Sox were a dysfunctional lot, they played the game hard, and loved what they did. The book, cartoons, and stories from the writers clearly show this. Baseball today can learn more than a thing or 2 from the 1918 Red Sox and baseball of that era. A delightful and informative read.