St. Louis Baseball Fans: Great Book (cheap too!)
jskirwin
Posts: 700 ✭✭✭
I was born in St. Louis - which means that I bleed Cardinals' red, can't listen to any radio announcer without comparing him to Jack Buck, and can't resist a bargain when I find one. Recently when I was walking out of the local Borders out here in Phillies territory, what did I spy but this book on the discount shelf:
The Spirit of St. Louis: A History of the St.Louis Cardinals and Browns
So I snapped it up.
If anyone is interested in the history of baseball - especially St. Louis baseball - this has to be one of the best reads out there. Peter Golenbock is a sports writer. Sports writing is perhaps the only journalistic style of writing that hasn't been dumbed down by PC-thinking and the blandness that comes with it. Consequently, the players he writes about come alive on the pages; the play-by-play of the 1886 World Series between Cap Anson's White Sox and Charlie Comiskey's Browns is just as riveting as that of the 2006 World Series. For someone like me, who grew up on 1970s baseball, it's been quite an eye opener.
An even bigger eye opener came last night when I read the following paragraph (after the St. Louis Browns were stripped away from Chris Von Der Ahe's ownership:
<< <i>To change the laughingstock image of the team, they changed the design of the uniform. The stockings were no longer brown, but bright red. A reporter for the St. Louis Republic, Willie Hall, had been credited with giving the red stockinged team its new name in 1899: the Cardinals. >>
When I read that, I almost fell out of bed. I always believed the Cardinals arose separately from the Browns. However, according to Golenbock, after Von Der Ahe ruined the Browns by driving away its best players, the Browns were forced to switch to the National League where Von Der Ahe was stripped of his ownership of the team.
The Browns of the 20th Century actually originated in Milwaukee and arrived a couple of years after the Browns/Cardinals switched from the AL to NL.
Wow.
Anyway, it's a great book.
The Spirit of St. Louis: A History of the St.Louis Cardinals and Browns
So I snapped it up.
If anyone is interested in the history of baseball - especially St. Louis baseball - this has to be one of the best reads out there. Peter Golenbock is a sports writer. Sports writing is perhaps the only journalistic style of writing that hasn't been dumbed down by PC-thinking and the blandness that comes with it. Consequently, the players he writes about come alive on the pages; the play-by-play of the 1886 World Series between Cap Anson's White Sox and Charlie Comiskey's Browns is just as riveting as that of the 2006 World Series. For someone like me, who grew up on 1970s baseball, it's been quite an eye opener.
An even bigger eye opener came last night when I read the following paragraph (after the St. Louis Browns were stripped away from Chris Von Der Ahe's ownership:
<< <i>To change the laughingstock image of the team, they changed the design of the uniform. The stockings were no longer brown, but bright red. A reporter for the St. Louis Republic, Willie Hall, had been credited with giving the red stockinged team its new name in 1899: the Cardinals. >>
When I read that, I almost fell out of bed. I always believed the Cardinals arose separately from the Browns. However, according to Golenbock, after Von Der Ahe ruined the Browns by driving away its best players, the Browns were forced to switch to the National League where Von Der Ahe was stripped of his ownership of the team.
The Browns of the 20th Century actually originated in Milwaukee and arrived a couple of years after the Browns/Cardinals switched from the AL to NL.
Wow.
Anyway, it's a great book.
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Another great book that I picked up at Christmas is Cardinals Journal - Day by day with the Cardinals by John Snyder.
It goes year by year, and lists virtually every significant game, trade, etc... each season.
So if Ed Konetchy went 5 for 5 with 8 RBI on June 3, 1911, they note it.
It has lots of interesting anecdotes about players, commentary on things.