Baseball in the Roaring Twenties

The Yankees, the Cardinals, and the Captivating 1926 Season

Thomas Wolf (Autor)

Buch | Hardcover

256 Seiten

2025
University of Nebraska Press (Verlag)
9781496235787 (ISBN)

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In the mid-1920s, America was in the throes of exuberant excess and clashing social change. It was the era of Prohibition and speakeasies; the reemergence of the Ku Klux Klan; popular evangelists, including ex-ballplayer Billy Sunday; a fascination with dangerous stunts like pole-sitting and wing-walking; incredible personal feats and new personalities such as Charles Lindbergh, Gertrude Ederle, and Mae West; and the advancement of innovative forms of entertainment-jazz, motion pictures, the radio. It was the Golden Age of Sports. But it was also a decade of corruption amid the ominous signs of economic collapse.

In 1926 baseball stars of an earlier era still played major roles in the game: Veteran pitcher Grover Cleveland Alexander was the hero of the 1926 World Series; Ty Cobb and Tris Speaker faced explosive allegations of game-fixing; Babe Ruth’s mysterious illness and dismal 1925 season convinced many observers that Ruth was finished-over the hill. Meanwhile, new stars like Tony Lazzeri and Lou Gehrig had arrived on the scene, and the Negro Leagues were at the height of their popularity and success with Rube Foster’s Chicago American Giants winning the Colored World Series of 1926. One of America’s most ardent fans cheered from the White House-not the taciturn president, Calvin Coolidge, but his vibrant and well-liked wife, Grace.

Focusing on the Cardinals and Yankees and their dramatic seven-game battle in the 1926 World Series, Baseball in the Roaring Twenties tells the story of key players such as Babe Ruth and Rogers Hornsby, the Negro Leagues season, and how baseball and the inextricably linked aspects of American life-Prohibition, the Jazz Age, and the rise of sports gambling-converged that year.

Thomas Wolf is the author of The Called Shot: Babe Ruth, the Chicago Cubs, and the Unforgettable Major League Baseball Season of 1932 (Nebraska, 2020), finalist for the Seymour Medal from the Society for American Baseball Research, and coauthor, with Patricia Bryan, of Midnight Assassin: A Murder in America’s Heartland.

List of Illustrations
List of Tables
Author’s Note
Acknowledgments

Introduction: The Roaring Twenties

Part 1. The Teams
1. A Dynasty Is Born
2. Miller Huggins
3. The Cardinals and Rogers Hornsby
4. Spring Training in Terrell Woods
5. Spring Training in St. Petersburg

Part 2. The Season
6. Opening Days
7. Babe Ruth and Ty Cobb
8. Early Season Blues for the Redbirds
9. Grover Cleveland Alexander
10. Away from the Ballpark
11. Dutch Leonard Has a Story to Tell
12. Yankee Pitchers and Tony Lazzeri
13. Rube Foster and Black Baseball
14. Sesquicentennial Games
15. Judge Landis Takes Over
16. The Golden Age of Sports
17. Final Days

Part 3. The Postseason
18. World Series Games One and Two
19. World Series Games Three, Four, and Five
20. World Series Games Six and Seven
21. The Colored World Series of 1926
22. Judge Landis Steps Up to the Plate

Epilogue

Notes
Bibliography
Index

Erscheinungsdatum	19.07.2025
Zusatzinfo	21 photographs, 3 tables, index
Verlagsort	Lincoln
Sprache	englisch
Maße	152 x 229 mm
Themenwelt	Sachbuch/Ratgeber ► Sport ► Ballsport
	Geschichte ► Allgemeine Geschichte ► Neuzeit (bis 1918)
	Weitere Fachgebiete ► Sportwissenschaft
ISBN-13	9781496235787 / 9781496235787
Zustand	Neuware