Tales from the Deadball Era

Ty Cobb, Home Run Baker, Shoeless Joe Jackson, and the Wildest Times in Baseball History

By: Mark S. Halfon

Narrated by: Michael Butler Murray

Length: 8 hrs and 4 mins

Publisher's summary

The Deadball Era (1901-1920) is a baseball fan's dream. Hope and despair, innocence and cynicism, and levity and hostility blended then to create an air of excitement, anticipation, and concern for all who entered the confines of a major league ballpark. Cheating for the sake of victory earned respect, corrupt ballplayers fixed games with impunity, and violence plagued the sport. 

At the same time, endearing practices infused baseball with lightheartedness, kindness, and laughter. Fans ran onto the field with baskets of flowers, loving cups, and cash for their favorite players in the middle of games. Ballplayers volunteered for "benefit contests" to aid fellow big leaguers and the country in times of need. "Joke games" reduced sport to pure theater as outfielders intentionally dropped fly balls, infielders happily booted easy grounders, hurlers tossed soft pitches over the middle of the plate, and umpires ignored the rules. Winning meant nothing, amusement meant everything, and league officials looked the other way. 

Mark Halfon highlights the strategies, underhanded tactics, and bitter battles that defined this storied time in baseball history, while providing detailed insights into the players and teams involved in bringing to a conclusion this remarkable period in baseball history.

©2014 the Board of Regents of the University of Nebraska (P)2019 Tantor

Enlightening History

it's a great book with lots of colorful stories. Baseball fans will especially find the history of gambling, and the player's relationship with Ban Johnson very interesting as even Ken Burns didn't dive into the laissez-faire approach the league and the players took to the game just after the turn of the century. The depth of information is wonderful, but the author lacks Burns's storytelling ability to some degree, and unfortunately the author waits until nearly halfway through the book before the stories take on a more linear fashion with respect to time frame. Thus, initially it's a little hard to follow and seems like an unorganized collection of stories, but once the book takes on a linear approach to the history of the game, the book really starts to shine.

Interesting if true

As with all audiobooks, please get somebody who can pronounce names correctly. Is that so difficult?! Apparently it is.
The stories are interesting if they are true. This is the first I’ve ever heard that in the deadball era, the players seemed to allow other players to pad their results at the end of the season. If that’s true, then baseballs hallowed statistics are rubbish.
Another story about how Ty Cobb and Tris Speaker were going to be banned from the game. If this were true, or as dramatic as the book seemed to imply, this would be more widely known.
Kind of a nice fairy tale.

Narrator Issues?

There were obvious pronunciation issues through the audio book with names and other titles. Also, when the narrator mentioned a "20 game" career for Grover Cleveland Alexander, it was clear that he meant 20 years...but maybe that was a typo in the book itself. This made me question the remainder of statistics that were read by the narrator.