Edward Achorn

Legendary Boston Globe columnist Bob Ryan says “Fifty-nine in ’84” is one of the best reads of the summer.

“Edward Achorn’s “Fifty-nine in ’84’’ (Smithsonian) left me envious, as in “Why didn’t I do that?’’ writes Mr. Ryan in The Globe. “Mr. Achorn, the deputy editorial pages editor of the Providence Journal, tells the story of Charles “Hoss’’ Radbourn, who won a record 59 games for the Providence Grays in 1884. That victory total, you will not be surprised to learn, remains the record.”

“What makes his book work is that this is not solely a baseball story. It is a sort of social history, giving us a feel for both baseball as it existed 126 years ago and American life in general. Daily life was decidedly different from anything we can imagine, even in cities the size of Providence.”

Ryan notes Achorn’s description of the horse traffic and robust smells of a 19th century city.

“As for baseball itself, brace yourself. Writes Achorn, ‘Professional baseball in the 1880s was not the pastoral game of myth — green, lovely and languid — but a nasty, brutish, fast-paced affair, populated by profanity-spewing young men in dirt-smeared uniforms who had few qualms about using violence to get their way.’”

Ryan enjoyed many of the books characters and hailed the “fun subplot” of the rivalry between the Rhode Island and Massachusetts baseball writers. “The Grays were involved in a pennant race with the Boston club, and the potshots taken by the Rhody journals and their Massachusetts counterparts fell somewhere between amusing and hysterical.

“Finally, this is a love story. The crusty Hoss was smitten by the charms of a lady named Carrie Stanhope, who ran a popular boarding house,” he adds.

“Writing a book is never fun or easy, but I’m going to guess Mr. Achorn enjoyed researching this one.”

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