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Work, Fight, or Play Ball: How Bethlehem Steel Helped Baseball's Stars Avoid World War I - Couverture rigide

Ecenbarger, William

 
9781439925171: Work, Fight, or Play Ball: How Bethlehem Steel Helped Baseball's Stars Avoid World War I
Couverture rigide
ISBN 10 : 1439925178 ISBN 13 : 9781439925171
Editeur : Temple University Press,U.S., 2024

Synopsis

In 1918, Bethlehem Steel started the world’s greatest industrial baseball league. Appealing to Major League Baseball players looking to avoid service in the Great War, teams employed “ringers” like Babe Ruth, Rogers Hornsby, and Shoeless Joe Jackson in what became scornfully known as “safe shelter” leagues. In Work, Fight, or Play Ball, William Ecenbarger fondly recounts this little-known story of how dozens of athletes faced professional conflicts and a difficult choice in light of public perceptions and war propaganda.

Some players used the steel mill and shipyard leagues to avoid wartime military duty, irking Major League owners, who saw their rosters dwindling. Bethlehem Steel President Charles Schwab (no relation to the financier) saw the league as a means to stave off employee and union organizing. Most fans loudly criticized the ballplayers, but nevertheless showed up to watch the action on the diamond.

Ecenbarger traces the 1918 Steel League’s season and compares the fates of the players who defected to industry or continued to play stateside with the travails of the Major Leaguers, such as Christy Mathewson, Ty Cobb, and Grover Cleveland Alexander, who served during the war.

Work, Fight, or Play Ball reveals the home field advantage brought on by the war, which allowed companies to profit from Major League players.

Les informations fournies dans la section « Synopsis » peuvent faire référence à une autre édition de ce titre.

À propos de l'auteur

William Ecenbarger, a freelance writer, is the author of Pennsylvania Stories--Well Told (Temple), Walkin’ the Line, Glory by the Wayside: The Old Churches of Hawaii, and Kids for Cash: Two Judges, Thousands of Children, and a $2.6 Million Kickback Scheme. He is the coauthor of Catching Lightning in a Bottle: How Merrill Lynch Revolutionized the Financial World (with Winthrop H. Smith) and Making Ideas Matter : My Life as a Policy Entrepreneur (with Dwight Evans).

Les informations fournies dans la section « A propos du livre » peuvent faire référence à une autre édition de ce titre.

Éditeur
Temple University Press,U.S.
Date d'édition
2024
Langue
anglais
ISBN 10 
1439925178
ISBN 13 
9781439925171
Reliure
Relié
Nombre de pages
212
Coordonnées du fabricant
non disponible
Personne responsable
non disponible