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Book Watch: The First World Series and the Baseball Fanatics of 1903 The First World Series and the Baseball Fanatics of 1903 Roger I. Abrams Northeastern University Press 2003 195 pages including index The First World Series is a fascinating account not only of the 1903 series of games between the Boston Americans of the American League and the Pittsburgh Pirates of the National League, but also of life as it was like in the late 1880s and early 1900s. Author Abrams paints a vivid picture of baseball as it was played in those far off times - with the different rules, no reliance on the home run, gambling on the games, and rough-and-tumble fans and players. The rules of baseball have changed over the years. Way back in 1903, there was only one umpire. He called balls and strikes from behind the plate until someone got on base, and then he moved to stand behind the pitcher to call from there. Way back in 1903, gambling was allowed - managers, players and fans bet on the teams at the ballpark. Way back in 1903, the American League was all of two years old, and they played by the same rules as the National League. (The bugaboo of today, the Designated Hitter, wasn't introduced until 1973.) Table of Contents 1. The Huntington Avenue Grounds 2. The National Game 3. Boston Proper: the Brahmins and the Yankees 4. Boston's Irish Community: Coming of Age 5. The Series Heads North to the Smoky City 6. The Hometown Favorite: Honus Wagner 7. A New Jewish Homeland 8. Boston Victorious Notes Bibliography Index Way back in 1903, there was no social security, and no organized welfare. Blacks were as marginalized as they'd been before the Civil War, and Irish immigrants didn't fare much better. (The US at that time was mostly Protestant and the Irish were Catholic.) Jewish immigrants didn't fare much better. But baseball was the game for all. Caucasian men, women and children who had the price of a ticket poured into baseball fields around the country to watch the national game. The First World Series has to rely on newspaper accounts of the game, as of course there was no radio or TV at the time. But author Abrams does make the games come alive, and there's plenty of vignettes of the players of the game during that time. Abrams also evokes the United States of the early 1900s, with several pages dedicated to such things as identifying the social classes such as the Boston Brahmins and the Yankees, the hardships faced by the Irish during the Potato Famine in their old country, and quite simply the way the country ran over a hundred years ago. I enjoyed the book immensely, but I wish it had been structured differently. I like my stories told in a linear fashion. So, what I wish the author had done was put all the baseball in the front half of the book, starting with how Ban Johnson formed the American League, and the "Cincinatti Peace Agreement" which brought peace to the two warring leagues (as Johnson had been offering higher salaries to National League players, causing them to 'defect' to the American League), and then describe the eight games of the 1903 World Series. And after that, present me with all the important historical social details of America in the 1800s and early 1900s. I'll read them then gladly. As it is, Abrams follows a typical formula for this type of book. Have a few pages of what the book is ostensibly about (the first World Series), and intersperse that with pages and pages of historical detail about the people that lived during those times and the way society treated them. Nevertheless, I highly recommend this book for anyone with either a love of baseball, a love of American history, or both. You'll read about such stars as Jimmy Collins, Cy Young and Honus Wagner, about Ban Johnson, Bernard Dreyfuss, John J. McGraw, and more. And you'll learn about the plight of the immigrants to these shores way back then...and see echoes of the problems of today.

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