Blackball, the Black Sox, and the Babe: Baseball's Crucial 1920 Season

By Robert C. Cottrell

Nineteen-twenty was a crucial year not just for the Chicago White Sox but for the game of baseball, in the aftermath of the 1919 World Series scandal. This work is both a collective biography of four individuals whose careers in baseball were forever altered in 1920 and an examination of the 1920 baseball season as a whole. It highlights four legendary personalities--Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis, the longtime commissioner of Major League Baseball; Babe Ruth, the great pitcher and slugger who changed the game forever; Buck Weaver, the true lone innocent among the Black Sox players who threw the 1919 World Series; and Rube Foster, the fine pitcher, imaginative manager, and great administrator of blackball who founded the Negro National League. Key events that affected the season and the history of baseball are discussed.

Nineteen-twenty was the year that Ruth shattered his own home run record and began a hitting spree that brought in record numbers of fans to the ballparks. It was the year that Rube found a way for large numbers of African-Americans to play the game meaningfully, before loyal crowds, despite Jim Crow laws that kept them out of the majors and minors.

Instructors considering this book for use in a course may request an examination copy here.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0786411643
• ISBN13: 9780786411641
• Release Date: December 2001
• Publisher: McFarland & Company
• Length: 331 Pages
• Weight: 1.06 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 6.0" x 9.0"
• Age Range: 18 years and up
• Grade Range: Postsecondary and higher

Customer Reviews

Like being transported to 1920

This is an excellent book covering one of the most interesting baseball periods in history. It really evokes the era, and what it was like to witness Babe Ruth's ascension. The Rube Foster story is just amazing and I can only imagine what a genius like him could accomplish today. The Black Sox sections are probably the least interesting, simply because the story has been covered so extensively in the last few years. What's here is very well done, however, and if Buck Weaver was half the person/player this book claims, he was done a bigger injustice than I thought. Definitely recommended!