About the Book
In 1884, Providence Grays pitcher Charles “Old Hoss” Radbourn won an astonishing fifty-nine games – more than anyone in major-league history ever had before, or ever will again. Then he went on to win all three games of baseball’s first World Series.
Fifty-nine in ’84 tells not only the dramatic story of that amazing feat of grit, but also the tale of big-league baseball two decades after the Civil War—a brutal, bloody sport played barehanded, the profession of ill-educated, hard-drinking men who thought little of cheating outrageously or maiming an opponent to win.
It is also the story of the woman Radbourn loved, Carrie Stanhope, the alluring proprietress of a boarding house with shady overtones, a married lady who was said to know every man in the National League personally.
Wonderfully entertaining, Fifty-nine in ’84 is an indelible portrait of a legendary player and a fascinating, little known era of the national pastime.
Table of Contents
Prologue: Old Hoss Is Ready
The Importance of Grit
I Am a Pitcher
Raging, Tearing, Booming
Lucky Man
Treasure from the Gold Country
Brimstone and Treacle
Pneumonia Weather
She’s Yours, Rad
Red Fire
A Working Girl
An Ugly Disposition
Rendezvous of the Wayward
Crackup
Drunk Enough to Be Stupid
The Severe Wrenching
Inward Laughs
A Promise Kept
The Best on Earth
Epilogue: Called Out By the Inexorable Umpire
