Days of Reckoning

Author : Ronald T Waldo

Book Type : Non-Fiction

Players Punching Their Ticket Out of Pittsburgh during the Barney Dreyfuss Era Since the dawn of baseball disputes between players and management have always existed. A glorious period of diamond success...

$31.95

Availability : Out of stock

ISBN/ASIN: 9798888191033

Players Punching Their Ticket Out of Pittsburgh during the Barney Dreyfuss Era

Since the dawn of baseball disputes between players and management have always existed.

A glorious period of diamond success and pennant glory occurred when Barney Dreyfuss owned the Pittsburgh Pirates from 1900 through 1932. During that time, the Pirates claimed six National League flags, appeared in four World Series’, and won championship titles twice—in 1909 and 1925. After gaining full control of Pittsburgh’s baseball organization in 1901, Dreyfuss acted as the supreme authority regarding all the club’s affairs.

Many talented players pulled on a Pirates uniform throughout the Barney Dreyfuss ownership period. Some of these all-star diamond performers fell out of favor with management through two baseball eras and soon found themselves packing their bags and moving on to another city. The list of stalwart players shown the door when Dreyfuss ruled his diamond empire included Rube Waddell, Jesse Tannehill, Jack Chesbro, Vic Willis, Al Mamaux, Rabbit Maranville, Babe Adams, Max Carey, Kiki Cuyler, Glenn Wright, and Dick Bartell.

An ugly group of gamblers, stationing themselves at Exposition Park and Forbes Field, subjected certain players to their vile comments and disgusting verbal abuse. The actions of these unsavory individuals had a hand in the organization ridding itself of Kitty Bransfield, Claude Ritchey, and Bill Abstein because the constant taunting and heckling affected their performance.

From Waddell to Bartell, Ronald T. Waldo shares why many of the greatest players in Pittsburgh Pirates history were traded or released during Barney Dreyfuss’s tenure owning the team.

by Ronald T. Waldo
Page Count: 422
Trim Size: 6 x 9
Publish Date: October 3, 2023
Imprint: Sunbury Press
Genre: Baseball

SPORTS & RECREATION / Baseball / History
SPORTS & RECREATION / Baseball / Statistics
SPORTS & RECREATION / Baseball / Essays & Writings

Customer Reviews

Based on 1 review Write a review

Recently Viewed Products

Reckoning with Barney Dreyfuss

In Days of Reckoning author Ron Waldo portrays a Pittsburgh Pirates organization that was a seething cauldron of personality conflicts and fast dealing during the years leading up to and through the so-called Deadball Era and into the 1920s. Stirring the pot was the man whose ego, temperament and personal style defined the Pirates organization throughout, a man whose name is widely known in the game but whose personal attributes and machinations have not been fully revealed, until now -- Barney Dreyfuss. As he assumed and then exercised ownership of a team that began in the depths of the National League and quickly rose to the top, it was Dreyfuss, Waldo shows us, who pressed the action and who controlled it to the extent he could. He knew and understood his players and his managers, though he did not always like or trust them. But his real love was for the business of the game, and temper tantrums aside, Barney Dreyfuss was all business.

Trading pitcher Rube Waddell from the Pirates to Chicago in exchange for... a cigar? Forcing rival Ban Johnson to hide in a bathroom for hours to avoid discovery of his contacts with Pirates players? This detail-rich study of personalities and tumultuous events from the formative years of the Pirates will hold the interest of anyone with a love of the Pirates and their history.

J.B. Manheim
Author of The Deadball Files series of baseball mysteries and legal thrillers