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In December, we marked the 70th anniversary of Japan’s bombing of Pearl Harbor, and we remembered the dwindling band of men and women who sacrificed much to save America in the ensuing global conflagration.
One of those heroes is my dad, Robert Achorn, 89, a retired newspaperman living in Sutton, Mass.
Three Christmases ago, he gave me one of the best gifts I ever received: a little spiral bound book called “War Time,” his memories of serving as a naval officer in the Pacific during World War II. He never lost his journalism skills: It is beautifully written, clear as a bell,...
The furor surrounding the mention of a “heavenly father” on a “school prayer” banner at Cranston High School West is something to behold.
For decades, students simply ignored the dusty old banner, symbol of a fading culture that has now all but vanished. It speaks of a time in America when people could refer to a higher power in public places without giving offense, and students could ask that power to inspire them to grow morally, to be good sports, to treat others with kindness, and to bring credit to their school.
That such a humble plea has now been officially ruled...
Washington Nationals catcher Wilson Ramos, who vowed to keep playing winter ball after getting kidnapped in Venezuela, and Texas Rangers outfielder Josh Hamilton, who gutted it out after his unintentional role in a fan’s tragic death, top the list of winners for the 2011 “Radbourn Award” for combined grit and greatness.
The award, named after Hall of Fame pitcher Old Hoss Radbourn, who set the all-time Major League record by doggedly winning 59 games in a single season, goes to the best and grittiest men in baseball at all nine positions.
“Ramos leapt into Radbourn Award contention when he was kidnapped at...
Washington Post: “An astonishing book … a romantic book, equal parts heroic quest, tragic tale and doomed love story.”
Los Angeles Times: “It’s the vibrancy of his story that resonates, the sense of Radbourn and these others not as historical figures but as human beings. The game they played was brutal, with no gloves or protective gear, and no substitutions except in the case of catastrophic injury. … With Fifty-nine in ’84, Achorn returns this remarkable season — and this remarkable pitcher — to something close to life.”
Charles P. Pierce, Boston Globe: “First-class narrative history that can stand with everything Stephen...
Boston Globe book critic Kathleen A. Powers says Edward Achorn’s “Fifty-nine in ’84: Old Hoss Radbourn, Barehanded Baseball, and the Greatest Season a Pitcher Ever Had” would be on her Father’s Day wish list if she were a dad.
She writes in The Sunday Globe: “Achorn has dug deep into newspaper files and other archives, including marvelous photographic collections, to give us a raw and rude picture of baseball’s Old Testament era. He also shows us a vanished America, a time when Providence and Boston were prosperous, pugnacious rivals, their games drawing fans from New Bedford, Fall River, and Worcester; a...
“Fifty-nine in ’84” gets a rave review by Dick Kreck in the Denver Post, who says Edward “Achorn vividly describes” the “successes and personal demons” of Hall of Fame pitcher Old Hoss Radbourn, and “examines the importance of baseball to a city’s psyche.”
“A brilliant look at the game’s early days,” the Post writes.
The book is “well-researched and full of passion,” the paper adds.
Writes the Post: “In this baseball era of closers, set-up men, short relievers and five-inning starters, Old Hoss Radbourn sounds like a mythic character.
“He was real. In 1884, Hoss — actual name Charles — Radbourn pitched 678 innings,...
Here’s what Cleveland.com had to say about the paperback edition of “Fifty-nine in ’84”:
Edward Achorn digs into sports history with a story that captures the era of bare-handed baseball, focusing Charles “Old Hoss” Radbourn, who won 59 games when he pitched for the Providence Grays in 1884.
As Achorn explains, Radbourn’s achievement was extraordinary, but his story “has faded into the mist. Radbourn’s plaque remains in the Baseball Hall of Fame, but modern statisticians have tended to downplay his accomplishment, noting that many men of his era pitched plenty of innings and won piles of games.”
Through the story of...
Reported by TVPredictions.com
Washington, D.C. (February 22, 2011) — Fifty-nine in ’84, the baseball book critics called “astonishing,” “reminiscent of Seabiscuit,” and the “season’s most unexpected volume” is now out in paperback.
Written by Pulitzer Prize finalist Edward Achorn, Fifty-nine in ’84 tells the story of Hall of Fame pitcher Old Hoss Radbourn and his unforgettable 1884 season, when he won an astonishing 59 games – the record to this day – while pitching his team to baseball’s first World Series.
The book, optioned to be made into a Hollywood movie, is a wildly entertaining look at early major-league baseball, when...
