Urban Shocker : silent hero of baseball's golden age
Author(s)
Bibliographic Information
Urban Shocker : silent hero of baseball's golden age
University of Nebraska Press, c2017
- : hardback
Available at / 1 libraries
-
No Libraries matched.
- Remove all filters.
Note
Includes bibliographical references and index
Description and Table of Contents
Description
2018 SABR Baseball Research Award Winner
Baseball in the 1920s is most known for Babe Ruth and the New York Yankees, but there was another great Yankee player in that era whose compelling story remains untold. Urban Shocker was a fiercely competitive and colorful pitcher, a spitballer who had many famous battles with Babe Ruth before returning to the Yankees. Shocker was traded away to the St. Louis Browns in 1918 by Yankees manager Miller Huggins, a trade Huggins always regretted. In 1925, after four straight seasons with at least twenty wins with the hapless Browns, Shocker became the only player Huggins brought back to the Yankees. He finally reached the World Series, with the 1926 Yankees.
In the Yankees' storied 1927 season, widely viewed to be the best in MLB history, Shocker pitched with guts and guile, finishing with a record of 18-6 even while his fastball and physical skills were deserting him. Hardly anyone knew that Shocker was suffering from an incurable heart disease that left him able to sleep only while sitting up and which would take his life in less than a year. With his physical skills diminishing, he continued to win games through craftiness and well-placed pitches.
Delving into Shocker's baseball career, his love of the game, and his battle with heart disease, Steve Steinberg shows the dominant and courageous force that he was.
Purchase the audio edition.
Table of Contents
List of illustrations
Preface
Acknowledgments
1. Passing By and Drawn In
2. Midwest Connections
3. Sandlots and Love of the Game
4. An Emerging Star in the Minors
5. False Start
6. A Magical Summer on the Island
7. Motor City Mischief
8. The Returned Prodigal and the Coming Phenom
9. The Dream Team
10. The First Trade
11. Love and War and a Little Baseball
12. A Summer to Remember
13. The End of an Era
14. Challenging the Great One
15 The Showdowns Continue
16. The Underdog Arises
17. Good but Not Lucky
18. A Lost Season
19. Free Agency in 1924?
20. The Temperamental Spitballist
21. Back Where I Belong
22. Clouds Approaching
23. The Season That Wasn't
24. Hope Springs Eternal
25. The Comeback
26. Moment in the Sun
27. The Master at Work
28. Promises and Secrets
29. A Star Surfaces and Crashes
30. A Day of Death and Rebirth
Epilogue
Notes
Bibliography
Index
by "Nielsen BookData"
