"Ban Johnson is one of the most important figures in baseball history. Virtually single-handedly he created the American League. ... His career ended sadly, anticlimactically, and, from Johnson's perspective, tragically. But no other individual dd so much to shape the baseball world or today. Murdock's biography of Johnson is an example of the new seriousness of baseball history. It is scholarly, annotated, cautious, probing, and persuasive. If baseball historians emulate Murdock in his professionalism, they will have no difficulty having their enterprise taken fully seriously."
Review
Ban Johnson is one of the most important figures in baseball history. Virtually single-handedly he created the American League. ... His career ended sadly, anticlimactically, and, from Johnson's perspective, tragically. But no other individual dd so much to shape the baseball world or today. Murdock's biography of Johnson is an example of the new seriousness of baseball history. It is scholarly, annotated, cautious, probing, and persuasive. If baseball historians emulate Murdock in his professionalism, they will have no difficulty having their enterprise taken fully seriously.
Eugene Murdock's biography is a welcomed addition to the growing literature on baseball. It is well-grounded in the primary sources; Murdock made use of archival materials at the National Baseball Library at Cooperstown, Marietta College, and Oberlin College, as well as contemporary newspapers, autobiographies, family records, and numerous interviews. He did a thoroughly professional, scholarly job in the research of the book.
