100 Years of the World Series

100 Years of the World Series by Eric Enders

This coffee table book on the World Series makes an attempt to transcend its form with a bit more detail and analysis than usual, but the form is so restrictive that, when all is said and done, the book still comes down to the quality of its photo collection. Fortunately, the quality of the photos is very high, the extra text effort provides a couple of real quirky surprises, and the few problems are minor. If you want a true analytical history of the World Series, this book will not satisfy, but if you want a World Series book for your living room, this is indeed the one to get.

First, the photos. Coffee table books justify their large size, high price, and all that glossy paper by being crammed with photos, with just enough accompanying text to get the reader through. In the case of the World Series, this leads to two big problems. First, what you want is photos of the highlights of the individual series, but they don't always exist. Second, you want the best quality photos you can get, but the best quality photos are usually posed shots with no action, often in civilian clothes rather than baseball uniforms.

These problems increase as you go back in time. Early in the century, there are virtually no action shots at all, and the ones that do exist are fuzzy and grainy at best. Later, you can find movie clips of the action, but the individual frames aren't sharp and clear. Only recently has the quality of film stock and camera balance risen to the point where you can find clear, sharp photos of the key moments in a series.

Author Enders, who lives in Cooperstown, NY, and has connections to the Hall of Fame, is in a position to find the best photos available, and he has done his work well; the book is almost as much a history of baseball film techniques as it is of the series. Consider the series of 1905, a truly tough assignment. Enders has, first, an action shot of George Browne batting and Ozzie Schreck catching. It's not a highlight shot, and it's grainy, but you can easily tell what's going on. Browne, trying to bunt, has been brushed back by the pitch. You can see him leaping back, his feet off the ground. Schreck is standing up with his glove raised over his head, trying to catch the high inside pitch. It's an action moment, and you can tell what's going on.

On the next page is a shot of Giants' manager John McGraw talking to star pitcher Christy Mathewson. It's a "candid" shot - not posed, but no action. It's quite clear. You can tell what John McGraw looked like in 1905, and you can get a sense of his mood. Mathewson is less recognizable, but that's not the photo's fault; Christy's face is twisted by the embarrassingly-ungentlemanly chaw of chew in his cheek. Did you know that Christy Mathewson chewed tobacco? Next to that photo is a posed shot of A's manager Connie Mack and his star pitcher, Chief Bender. It's an outstandingly clear shot, especially of Bender, who appears to have little trust in cameramen. On the next page is a panorama shot of the Polo Grounds, filled with 1905 series spectators. Panorama shots were popular early in the century, so they're not hard to find, but the clarity on this one is tremendous. All in all, it's a great set of photos for 1905 baseball, and it's really no better than those for the other early years.

And the photos get better as time goes on, with one weak period, the 1950s and 1960s. What happens here is that action shots become easier to get, because the series is being filmed nonstop every year, but the quality goes down because the shots are frames from movie stock, and really clear high-speed film hasn't been invented yet. Consider 1958, a representative sample from the period. There's a very clear shot of Warren Spahn after a game, a pretty grainy one of Yogi Berra catching a throw bare-handed as Wes Covington scores, a really grainy one of Hank Aaron taking an extra base on a bad throw, and an astonishingly clear posed shot of managers Casey Stengel and Fred Haney. Sure, you could get clearer shots if they were all posed, but the action shots are of Berra and Aaron, the superstars of the two teams, doing something flashy.

By 2003, the photos are amazing. The only shot that is even remotely grainy is one of the infamous Steve Bartman play, from the NLCS rather than the series itself, where you can easily see the ball, Bartman's glove, and Moises Alou's glove just a wee bit under Bartman's. Turn a couple of pages of very clear color action shots, and you get a candid shot of Marlins manager Jack McKeon sucking on a stogie that is actually unsettling. It isn't flattering to McKeon, and you feel like you're right there talking to him - you want to tell him to get that damn thing out of his mouth.

As mentioned above, the book, aside from the photos, is not exceptional, and has a few minor flaws. Consider, for example, the series of 1948, known as the "Spahn and Sain and pray for rain" series, after the two pitching stars of the (then) Boston Braves. There's a great four-photo movie-frame set of the controversial Phil Masi pickoff play, clear enough that you can see the action. That's a big plus, and the text has an analysis of the play, complete with manager strategy quotes, which is another. But Enders begins his description of the third game with "When the Braves' prayers for rain went unanswered" without bothering to mention "Spahn and Sain", or the famous quote, or any context for the phrase, anywhere in the entire article. If you don't already know the quote - and the audience here is for coffee table books - then the phrase makes no sense.

There is also a problem with his analysis of the opposing Cleveland Indians. He attributes their success in finally beating the Yankees out of the AL pennant to two rookies, Satchel Paige and Gene Bearden. He does mention that Paige was the first black pitcher in the AL. But he forgets to include Larry Doby, who was a rookie in 1948 (cup of coffee in 1947), played center field, hit third in the lineup, and was the first black player at any position in the American League. Doby was clearly more important to the Indians than Paige, who only had 7 decisions all year, and was almost as valuable as Bearden, who wasn't even the best pitcher on the team (Bob Lemon). It's an odd omission. Enders clearly knows who Larry Doby is; he mentions him and his rookie status later in the essay. Perhaps Enders meant to focus on rookie pitchers only, but he doesn't say that. Both errors are, essentially, sloppy editing, and will probably be fixed in later editions.

Sometimes the errors are teases. Enders prints two photos - Home Run Baker in 1911 and Duffy Lewis in 1915 - taking batting practice swings right handed, although they were both lefty hitters. He notes this but doesn't explain it. My guess is that the cameras of the day were difficult to set up, so they were placed on the correct side for shooting right-handed hitters, and the lefties were asked to accommodate, rather than force the moving of the camera. But I don't know that, and Enders doesn't say.

Essentially, though, these are minor errors, and there aren't that many of them. More noticeable are a couple of odd quirks in the book, pertaining to world series that don't involve the American League. First, Enders just dismisses the World Series of the 1880s between the National League and the (then a major league) American Association. There were 7 of these, and the whole set gets one whole page, and one whole photo (plus a lithograph of Old Hoss Radbourne). Now, it is true that the AA was not the equal of the NL, and only won one of the series. However, the disparity is no greater than that between the NL and the AL during the 1950s, when the AL, except for Bill Veeck, refused to integrate. The AA was considered by all to be a major league at the time, albeit the lesser of the two. On the other hand, I wouldn't want to go looking for clear, sharp baseball action photos from 1886, either.

Enders gives the same page and photo of coverage to the series of the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League, which was obviously not a major league world series. This, however, is a big plus, as the league, much less its series, is all but forgotten today, in spite of the recent Tom Hanks film. Enders actually goes to the trouble to list the MVPs of the series, which is a nice feature.

Finally, Enders gives 4 pages of coverage to the Negro League World Series. Yes, there were two negro leagues for a time. No, they weren't as good overall as the white major leagues. Yes, they did, however, have many players who could have played - and starred - in the white majors. And no, their world series weren't exactly the highlights of their seasons. Their all-star games were the highlights, and Enders mentions that. And then he obsesses. Eric Enders has concluded that the 1924 Negro League World Series was the best ever played at any "major league" level.

This claim is based entirely on one fact: the last 7 games of the 1924 series (there were 10 games in all, including a tie) were won in the winning team's last inning, either the top or bottom of the 9th inning or later. Now, that is certainly excitement on a stick, and the series does have a claim, but there are other things that can make a series memorable. The 1924 series did not feature the star player of the leagues (at the time, the aging Pop Lloyd by reputation, probably Oscar Charleston by 1924 ability), much less a confrontation of the best two. It was a traveling circus played in 4 different cities, like the earliest of the 1800s series were, so fan interest wasn't at fever pitch.

The analogy to the 1800s series doesn't stop there. Kansas City's star pitcher, Bullet Rogan, who probably was the best pitcher in the negro leagues at the time, played center field when he wasn't pitching, which says volumes about the depth of negro league teams in 1924, as it does about the similar depth of 1800s major league teams. Hilldale played a catcher (Biz Mackey) at third base, which is what happens when you have to carry two catchers to guard against injury, but your backup infielders may not amount to much, as was indeed common in the 1800s white majors.

I would say that this is among the greatest series ever played, but not the clear-cut champion that Enders makes it out to be. The 1886 NL/AA series, featu ring Curt Welch's "$15,000 slide," was probably more famous in its time than the 1924 series was even just among the black community in 1924. The 1909 Cobb vs. Wagner series, when the Tigers could not beat Babe Adams, was certainly more famous. Then there's the Gashouse Gang, or Brooklyn finally beating the Yankees in 1955. The standards are not just tough, they vary from series to series. Picking one series as the best ever says much more about your choice of standards than it does about the series themselves.

I should say a few words about the statistical presentation. Here the standards are impossible for a coffee table book to match. Neft & Cohen's The World Series has play-by-play accounts of every series game, along with box scores and composite boxes. No coffee table book has room for all that. (Neft & Cohen, of course, have no photos.) But for a coffee table book, Enders' work has some stats. Each series gets pitching line scores embedded in the year's essay. There are a couple of pages of series records and MVPs at the end, and then a complete collection of box scores. That's good for a coffee table book, but it's not the strong point. That remains the photos, and on the basis of those alone, this is one baseball book I can easily recommend, if your coffee table looks even the least little bit empty.

Baseball in Blue and Grey: The National Pastime During the Civil War by George P. Kirsch

reviewed by Rich Barbieri

In his introduction to the New Bill James Historical Abstract, James spends two paragraphs explaining why baseball players are widely popular and well paid while cancer researchers are not. His basic conclusion is that baseball does all it can to make itself interesting while cancer research is dull. The history sections of the Abstract are designed they are, James says because an “academic writing a history of baseball often sounds very much like an academic writing about cancer research. He leaves out the details that make it fun.”

Unfortunately, when it comes to George Kirsch’s Baseball in Blue and Gray, James’ conclusion is exactly right. Kirsch knows about his subject and the book is well researched, but the style is a repetitive, dry recitation of facts. The book taught me much about Civil War era baseball, but that is exactly the problem: it felt like a lesson, not a book read for pleasure.

Kirsch first explains how baseball evolved from “town ball” to a game resembling the one we know today. The section in which Kirsch describes this evolution is especially interesting. Kirsch does a good job explaining why baseball, not cricket, is our “national game.” Cricket “was more expensive to play… [and its]…association with the British alienated some, especially as Englishmen generally used the game to reaffirm their ethnic heritage.” Kirsch does a poorer job however, explaining why “New York Rules” baseball triumphed over other versions. He attributes its success to a number of factors without quite explaining why the New York game was better.

The book’s only other major flaw relates to its title. I thought Kirsch would focus on baseball and the Civil War. In truth, the book touches only briefly on baseball in relation to the war, and concentrates far more on baseball played on the home front. Readers expecting a book full of stories about soldiers playing between battles and spreading the game as they marched will be largely disappointed.

It is a shame Kirsch’s book suffers from his poor writing—and an aggravating tendency to treat the last paragraph of every chapter as a Cliff’s Notes summary. The material has the possibility of being very interesting. In Kirsch’s hands however, the research and knowledge goes to waste. Baseball in Blue & Gray ends up as a literary Jose Contreras, full of potential and brief worthwhile stretches but ultimately disappointing.

Richard Barbieri is a student at the George Washington University who wishes his wide-ranging knowledge of Civil War and Baseball history could speed up his being awarded a degree in History.