Stealing Games

January 11, 2016
Historian Klein (Rainbow’s End: The Crash of 1929) offers a thorough account of the 1911 New York Giants. That team, led by future Hall of Fame manager John McGraw, stole 347 bases in one season—a record likely to stand forever. As a player/manager (a common position at the turn of the century), McGraw was temperamental, a trait he carried from the Baltimore Orioles to the Big Apple when he took over the Giants in 1902 and eventually earned the nickname Little Napoleon. His 1902 squad finished the season an unfathomable 53.5 games behind the pennant-clinching Pittsburgh Pirates. The author then recounts the Giants’ evolution into a dynasty that went on to win three straight pennants, beginning in 1911. Klein writes for the serious baseball fan, and his day-by-day (often hour-by-hour) account of the Giants’ 1911 spring training will test even the most patient of readers. Nevertheless, he offers thought-provoking details of the drastic changes baseball underwent at the time, both on the field and in the boardrooms.

February 1, 2016

The game of baseball is rich with history. In its early days, at the beginning of the 20th century, it was a slow-moving sport, referred to as the "dead ball era." It wasn't until the early 1900s that baseball introduced a corked ball, three strikes instead of four, and made significant adjustments to the rules that sped up the game. What has come to be known as modern baseball, owes a lot to that era. Klein (Call to Arms) has crafted a wonderful book about that period and one of the greatest, most aggressive managers in baseball history: John McGraw. McGraw always encouraged his players to steal bases, resulting in 347 steals in 1911--a record that still stands. A true baseball genius, McGraw knew how to get the best out of his players and put together a winning team. With players such as the great Christy Mathewson, Rube Marquard, and Larry Doyle, he was able to compile a legendary team in an era when baseball was adjusting from the "dead ball" into the "live ball." VERDICT This well-written account of baseball history and the former New York Giants team (which lasted from 1883 to 1957 before the franchise moved to San Francisco) will appeal to all sports history fans.--Gus Palas, Ela Area P.L., Lake Zurich, IL

Copyright 2016 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

January 15, 2016
The rise and glorious moment in the sun of the 1911 New York Giants, widely considered one of the best lineups in baseball history. In 1910, as Klein (Emeritus, History/Univ. of Rhode Island; A Call to Arms: Mobilizing America for World War II, 2013, etc.) carefully chronicles, baseball was evolving, with the introduction of both the cork-centered ball and new rules, including one that held that the pitcher had to be anchored to the mound with the rear foot atop a slab of rubber. "The intent was to spice the game up with more hitting," Klein writes, "and it succeeded." RBIs and batting averages soared, even as wide-ranging fielding became ever more important. Enter John McGraw (1873-1934), who had played brilliantly for the Baltimore Orioles and become a pioneering champion of the hit-and-run play. A man who lived and breathed baseball, McGraw took some of the Orioles' habits of hitting to every field and running on any ball to his new job as coach for the New York Giants, which had but one real star, the legendary pitcher Christy Mathewson. McGraw carefully matched veterans with rookies, making sure everyone had plenty of time on the field, and conveyed his considerable knowledge of and enthusiasm for the game to everyone who would listen. Mathewson himself considered McGraw without peer as a third base coach; but more, he said, "he was the game." Demolishing orthodoxies and hierarchies, McGraw created a league-winning, base-stealing squad out of dust, one that only got better the next two seasons and that made baseball history. Klein writes with appropriate excitement, though with some of the usual cliches and expected groaners: did he have to use the phrase "Faustian bargain" with respect to pitcher Charlie Faust? A lively, absorbing retelling of a great episode in the history of America's iconic pastime, one that modern coaches would do very well to study.

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February 1, 2016
Veteran nonfiction author Klein uses his familiarity with the early twentieth century to contextualize this account of legendary baseball manager John McGraw and his 1911 New York Giants. It is fortunate that, while a baseball expert, Klein is primarily a business historian and, thus, is able to neatly fit the sport into the cultural history of the timesProgressivism, the automobile, the airplane, and so on. The Polo Grounds, home of the Giants, takes a prominent position in the story, as do Hall-of-Famers and McGraw mainstays Christy Mathewson and Rube Marquard, along with team owner John Brush and the era's great sportswriters. The vividly portrayed supporting cast includes the mysterious Charles Victory Faust, hanger-on and very effective clown; first baseman Fred Bonehead Merkle, forever known for his 1908 base-running blunder; and various other eccentrics and drunks. Unfortunately, Klein fails to fully make his case for McGraw's transformative influence in 1911. Yes, speed and baseball were becoming synonymous, but power (Babe Ruth and others) would further transform the sport, and America, a decade later. Still, this is a well-written and absorbing account of an often-overlooked baseball season.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2016, American Library Association.)