At Home Plate

Book Review: The American League - The Early Years

The American League - The Early Years
by David Lee Poremba
Arcadia Publishing
p. 128

Part of Arcadia’s Images of Sports series - which feature a number of books about baseball including several we’ve already reviewed here at At Home Plate (Black Baseball in Kansas City and Baseball in WW II Europe).

This by far is the best of the series of books in this series that I have reviewed - and strangely enough it’s the shortest of them as well. Its strength comes not from brevity, but from having a subject so broad that there is little repetition of the players in the photos being shown. Of course with that I should mention that this book is a photographic look at the early years of the American League.

The book is full of photos of the players who most of us have just heard about - players like Walter Johnson, Denton True “Cy” Young, Eddie Collins, “Sailor” Bob Shawkey, Wally Pip, “Shoeless” Joe Jackson, “Wee” Willie Keeler, Nap LaJoie and a hundred other names you will recognize. Not to mention some of the ballparks of yore like Hilltop Park in New York.

The book is divided into five chapters, which span roughly twenty years of baseball history from 1899 to the thrown World Series of 1919 (see What Every Fan Should Know: The Black Sox Scandal). It starts of course in 1899 when the American League was born (see What Every Fan Should Know: The Birth of the American League) when Ban Johnson transformed a minor league known as the Western League into the American League y renaming it and expanding into cities that the NL had just contracted the franchises from - and going head to head with the senior circuit.

Those early years were key, the NL gave in and acknowledged the AL as a major league equal to themselves in 1903 - it was also the year the first World Series was played and the year the franchise that became the Yankees abandoned Baltimore for New York.

The next chapter is about the first of the real dynasties the Detroit Tigers who roared from 1907-1909 it includes pictures of Ty Cobb, “Wahoo Sam” Crawford, Bennett Park, “Wild Bill” Donovan, Connie Mack, the Big Train and others.

In 1910 the cork-centered ball was introduced and with it changed the game. In chapter three we move on to the age of Connie Mack’s championship Philadelphia A’s and their impact on the game. Then the Tigers and Athletics were the Naps, Nats, and Brownies who make up chapter 4, followed by the Yankees, Black Sox and a flag for Cleveland in chapter five.

Once again it’s filled with great names and legends that we have only heard about. Its kind of strange looking into the face of legends who’ve you read about and never got to see - but in this book each picture truly is worth a thousand words - or perhaps a thousand games which we never had a chance to see.

Give this one 2.5 balls out of 4 and look at the faces of the men who shaped the early years of the game we love today.

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Our Rating System is based on a four ball system as follows:
One Ball: Average. It has something to say but is nothing special.
Two Balls: Something men usually have - also means its a cut above average, and worth reading/owning.
Three balls: Stands out from its peers and is highly recommended.
Four Balls: More than just what two men have when hanging out together, it means it is an exceptional book that truly earns a walk - straight to the local book store to get a copy.

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