The Year They Called Off The World Series: A True Story
Garden City Park, NY: Avery Publishing, 1991. First edition. Hardcover. Fine in fine dust jacket. First edition, first printing. Hardcover. Illustrated endpapers with reproductions of 1903 composite team photos of the New York Highlanders (later the Yankees) and the New York Giants. xvii+ 236 pp. Illustrated with photos. The year was 1904. Baseball's National League has been operating since 1876; the upstart American League had begun only three seasons previously in 1901. The World Series as we have come to know it, between the pennant winners of the two leagues, had only taken place once, in 1903. As the season progressed manager John McGraw's powerhouse Giants, featuring such stars as Christy Mathewson, Bill Dahlen, Roger Bresnahan, and "Iron Man" Joe McGinnity would cruise to the NL pennant (13 games ahead of the second place Chicago Cubs); in the infant American League the New York Highlanders, with manager Clark Griffith, Wee Wille Keeler, Kid Elberfield and 41-game winner Jack Chesbro) battled it out with the Boston Americans (later to adopt the name "Red Sox") in a race that went down to a doubleheader on the final day of the season. The Boston team would prevail but when it came time for the second World Series to be scheduled, the Giants refused to play in it. They considered the American League an "upstart" and "inferior" and "raiders" organization, and Giants owner John T. Brush and American League president Ban Johnson were bitter enemies. The situation was further complicated when it became apparent that the two New teams might have to play each other---an eventuality of which the Giants were absolutely opposed, not wishing to acknowledge that the American League was proper competition. So--no World Series, a situation that would not repeat itself for ninety years, when a labor dispute led to the cancellation of the final third of the major league season. Fine / fine. Item #E34965
ISBN: 089529480X
Price: $14.95