Fifty-nine in '84: Old Hoss Radbourn, Barehanded Baseball, and the Greatest Season a Pitcher Ever Had

Fifty-nine in '84: Old Hoss Radbourn, Barehanded Baseball, and the Greatest Season a Pitcher Ever Had

by Edward Achorn
Fifty-nine in '84: Old Hoss Radbourn, Barehanded Baseball, and the Greatest Season a Pitcher Ever Had

Fifty-nine in '84: Old Hoss Radbourn, Barehanded Baseball, and the Greatest Season a Pitcher Ever Had

by Edward Achorn

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Overview

"First-class narrative history that can stand with everything Steven Ambrose wrote. . . . Achorn's description of the utter insanity that was barehanded baseball is vivid and alive." —Boston Globe

“A beautifully written, meticulously researched story about a bygone baseball era that even die-hard fans will find foreign, and about a pitcher who might have been the greatest of all time.” — Joseph J. Ellis, Pulitzer prize-winning historian

In 1884 Providence Grays pitcher Charles "Old Hoss" Radbourn won an astounding fifty-nine games—more than anyone in major-league history ever had before, or has since. He then went on to win all three games of baseball's first World Series.

Fifty-nine in '84 tells the dramatic story not only of that amazing feat of grit but also of big-league baseball two decades after the Civil War—a brutal, bloody sport played barehanded, the profession of uneducated, hard-drinking men who thought little of cheating outrageously or maiming an opponent to win.

Wonderfully entertaining, Fifty-nine in '84 is an indelible portrait of a legendary player and a fascinating, little-known era of the national pastime.


Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780061825873
Publisher: HarperCollins
Publication date: 02/22/2011
Pages: 400
Sales rank: 248,196
Product dimensions: 5.30(w) x 7.90(h) x 1.20(d)

About the Author

Edward Achorn, a Pulitzer Prize finalist for distinguished commentary, is the deputy editorial pages editor of the Providence Journal.

Table of Contents

Preface xiii

Prologue: Old Hoss Is Ready 1

1 The Importance of Grit 7

2 I Am a Pitcher 16

3 Raging, Tearing, Booming 29

4 Lucky Man 46

5 Treasure from the Gold Country 60

6 Brimstone and Treacle 73

7 Pneumonia Weather 88

8 She's Yours, Rad 102

9 Red Fire 118

10 A Working Girl 136

11 An Ugly Disposition 149

12 Rendezvous of the Wayward 168

13 Crackup 179

14 Drunk Enough to Be Stupid 193

15 The Severe Wrenching 208

16 Inward Laughs 230

17 A Promise Kept 251

18 The Best on Earth 262

Epilogue: Called Out by the Inexorable Umpire 281

Acknowledgments 303

Appendix 305

Sources and Notes 319

Index 357

What People are Saying About This

Cait Murphy

Beautifully written and impeccably researched, Pure Grit is the best book out there on 19th-century baseball. Old Hoss Radbourn would be pleased that he is finally getting his due—and angry that it took so long.

Joseph J. Ellis

“This is a beautifully written, meticulously researched story about a bygone baseball era that even die-hard fans will find foreign, and about a pitcher who might have been the greatest of all time.”

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