Böcker av Harry J Deitz

Stanley Coveleski's life was a story of triumph and tragedy.He was born in the Coal Region town of Shamokin, PA in 1889, the eighth child of Polish immigrants, and went to work as a breaker boy when he was twelve. But he escaped the 12-hour work days in the mines by throwing stones at a can tied to a tree-his own crash course in how to pitch a baseball.Years later, he was one of the best pitchers in Major League Baseball.In a season marked by personal and team tragedy-the death of his wife and his teammate Ray Chapman, who is the only player to die as a result of being hit by a pitch-Covey pitched three complete-game victories in the Cleveland Indians' 1920 World Series championship.Covey, one of 17 pitchers still allowed to throw a spitball after it being outlawed before the 1921 season, was elected to the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 1969.Check out this interview about the book...

The life story of Jake Daubert, who left the coal mines of Pennsylvania to become a two-time major league batting champion.Jake Daubert could have followed the path of two of his brothers and died as a young coal miner. Instead he died as an active baseball player. Baseball provided an escape from the dangerous coal mines of Pennsylvania, but it couldn't save him from an undiagnosed genetic condition that cut short his life as one of the best players of the Deadball Era. Jake died in 1924 after a 15-year career during which he had a lifetime .303 batting average, set a National League record for career sacrifices that still stands, won a most valuable player award, was a two-time batting champion, and won NL titles with Brooklyn and Cincinnati and a World Series championship with the Reds in 1919 over the infamous Chicago Black Sox.After his wife convinced him to follow his baseball dream, Jake became baseball's premier first baseman in an era that produced some of the all-time greats, including Babe Ruth, Ty Cobb, Tris Speaker, Walter Johnson, Christy Mathewson, and Zack Wheat, all Hall-of-Famers. Despite Jake's stellar career, he didn't join them in the Hall of Fame, perhaps because of his conflicts with team owners and his active union role as a defender of players' rights.Time has relegated Jake to baseball obscurity, but 100 years ago, he was a star known as much for his clean living, intelligence, and integrity as he was for his batting and defensive skills.