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Posted By: Frank Wakefield

Aaron, while I never had a class under Dr. Alexander, I agree with your assessment of his books. Great books for anyone wanting to learn or understand.

And Mike Sowell has 2 really good baseball books. You mention The Pitch that Killed. The other is July 2, 1903. It is about Ed Delehanty, and about the development of the American League as a league on equal footing with the National League, and how the two leagues initially didn't honor the other's contracts. This resulted in Lajoie leaving the NL, and playing in the AL, first with Connie Mack's A's, then with Cleveland. Lajoie and Elmer Flick would avoid traveling in Pennsylvania for a time because there was a state injunction against them for jumping contracts, so the two would not travel to Philadelphia for games, but travel ahead and wait for their Cleveland team-mates at the next city. A really good book, that is about so much more than Delehanty and Niagra Falls.