The Old Ball Game: How John McGraw, Christy Mathewson, and the New York Giants Created Modern Baseball - Hardcover

Deford, Frank

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0871138859 ISBN 13: 9780871138859

Publisher: Atlantic Monthly Press, 2005

Synopsis

The early days of baseball are chronicled in this story of the friendship between Christy Mathewson, one of baseball's first superstars, and New York Giants manager John McGraw, in a volume celebrating the centennial of the first World Series in which a New York team played. 50,000 first printing. $75,000 ad/promo.

About this title

About the Author:

The author of fourteen books, Frank Deford has worked in virtually every medium. He is senior contributing writer at Sports Illustrated, where his byline first appeared in 1962. A weekly commentator for NPR's Morning Edition, he is also a regular correspondent on the HBO show Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel. As a journalist, Deford was most recently presented with the National Magazine Award for profiles, and has been elected to the Hall of Fame of the National Association of Sportscasters and Sportswriters. Voted by his peers as U.S. Sportswriter of the Year six times, he was also cited by The American Journalism Review as the nation's finest sportswriter and was twice voted Magazine Writer of the Year by the Washington Journalism Review. He has been presented with a Christopher Award and awards for distinguished service to journalism from the University of Missouri and Northeastern University. For his radio and TV work, Deford has won both an Emmy and a George Foster Peabody Award.

From Booklist:

*Starred Review* When John McGraw stepped down in 1933 after 31 years as manager of the New York Giants, the team had won 10 National League pennants and three World Series trophies--and baseball had become the national pastime. McGraw--known somewhat redundantly as "Little Napoleon"--was the most well-known personality in the game during his early years at the Giants' helm, but his celebrity was soon outstripped by his star player, the game's first "hero," pitcher Christy Mathewson, who won 30 or more games in each of McGraw's first three full seasons as his manager. Deford, a senior contributing editor at Sports Illustrated and author of 14 books, does much more than make a case for his two subjects' sporting legacy. He portrays their fame and emerging preeminence in America's consciousness as parallel to and emblematic of baseball's explosion in popularity, showing in the process how the growth of sport was made possible in the early years of the twentieth century by the rise of the middle class and the increase in disposable income. With McGraw as the gruff but fair father figure and the college-educated Mathewson as the golden boy whom parents wanted for their daughters, the pair became the first sports figures to intrigue the public as individuals. Deford effectively weaves the threads of these two touchstone lives into the broader tapestry of an ascendant sport and a rapidly modernizing America. A fine baseball book but just as fine a study of American popular culture. Wes Lukowsky
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About this edition

• Publisher: Atlantic Monthly Press
• Publication date: 2005
• ISBN 10: 0871138859
• ISBN 13: 9780871138859
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 241