Walter Johnson: Baseball's Big Train - Hardcover

Henry W. Thomas

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0964543907 ISBN 13: 9780964543904

Publisher: Farragut Pub Co, 1995

Synopsis

A biography of the early twentieth-century star who is often considered the best pitcher in the history of major league baseball

About this title

Review:

How good a pitcher was Washington Senator ace Walter Johnson? Babe Ruth, Ty Cobb, and Joe Jackson considered him the best ever. His career strikeout record lasted for half a century, and no one's ever come close to his mark of 110 shutouts; some of his Senator teams were so bad, the only way Johnson could win was literally to keep opponents from scoring. Of course, the numbers alone don't tell the story. Johnson was a towering figure in the first quarter of the baseball century. One of the most respected--and liked--men in the game, he was something of an anti-Cobb: straight, honest, and clean, with a life off the field as content as it was accomplished on it. This is an excellent, exhaustive biography, showing clear affection for Johnson from the first pitch: Thomas is Johnson's grandson. Despite the blood tie, Thomas doesn't just go straight down the middle; he is willing to work the corners of his grandfather's life, which actually allows his relationship to his subject to add to the work's significant depth. --Jeff Silverman

About the Author:

Henry W. Thomas, the grandson of Walter Johnson, lives in Arlington, Virginia. He is currently editing, for audio release, the interviews taped by Lawrence Ritter for his classic The Glory of Their Times. Shirley Povich died in 1998 at the age of 92 after seventy-five years as an award-winning sportswriter for the Washington Post.

About this edition

• Publisher: Farragut Pub Co
• Publication date: 1995
• ISBN 10: 0964543907
• ISBN 13: 9780964543904
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 458