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The First Fall Classic: The Red Sox, the Giants and the Cast of Players, Pugs and Politicos Who Re-Invented the World Series in 1912 |  | Author: Mike Vaccaro
Publisher: Doubleday
Category: Book
List Price: $26.95
Buy New: $14.99
as of 7/31/2010 23:28 PDT details
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Seller: PoloBooks
Rating:  12 reviews
Sales Rank: 418485
Media: Hardcover
Pages: 304
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.1
Dimensions (in): 9.1 x 5.9 x 1.3
ISBN: 0385526245
Dewey Decimal Number: 796.357646
EAN: 9780385526241
ASIN: 0385526245
Publication Date: October 6, 2009
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
Acclaimed author Mike Vaccaro presents a riveting, must-read account of what remains, nearly a century later, the greatest World Series ever played.
In October of 1912, seven years before gambling nearly destroyed the sport, the world of baseball got lucky. It would get two teams-the Boston Red Sox and the New York Giants, winners of a combined 208 games during the regular season-who may well have been the two finest ball clubs ever assembled to that point. Most importantly, during the course of eight games spanning nine days in that marvelous baseball autumn, they would elevate the World Series from a regional October novelty to a national obsession. The games would fight for space on the front pages of the nation's newspapers, battling both an assassin's bullet and the most sensational trial of the young century, with the Series often carrying the day and earning the “wood.”
In The First Fall Classic, veteran sports journalist and author Mike Vaccaro brings to life a bygone era in cinematic and intimate detail-and gives fans a wonderful page-turner that re-creates the magic and suspense of the world's first great series.
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Showing reviews 1-5 of 12
 When baseball was new July 3, 2010
Ben Lacy (Greer, SC)
This book chronicles one of the first "big events" in professional sports, the 1912 World Series. While not the first, it was the first to generate huge excitement, bringing Boston and New York to a standstill. I'm a huge fan of the early days of pro sports when things were more wild and unpredictable, and that's certainly true here. Today, one can't imagine an owner throwing a game or a World Series game ending in a tie because of darkness. It's also nice to see other famous players of that era besides Cobb and Ruth, such as Tris Speaker and Christy Mathewson, get some attention. This story also provides an illuminating look at a pre-radio America, as people have to gather in front of newspaper offices and watch dioramas of the games to find out what's happening. As the series runs it's course, Teddy Roosevelt faces an assasin's bullet and the trial of a police officer shows a level of corruption in the police one hopes is long past.
My only negatives were that a couple of the games may have deserved more questioning as to what really happened. A spectacular catch made at the end of one game helps keep the Giants alive but almost no one could see it because of the fog and the dark. I truly wondered if that catch was actually made. Another issue I have is the author's contention that this was a great World Series. It was clearly an exciting one, but the Sox were also definitely the better team and it only became close because of some truly horrific play by both teams. The number of errors was ridiculous and will make you wonder whether the dead ball era players were truly as great as they've come to be regarded.
A good addition to a Deadball fan's library April 4, 2010
Barry Sparks (York, PA)
Given that Michael Vaccaro is a sports columnist for the New York Post, his infatuation with the New York-Boston rivalry is understandable. His contention that the Giants and Red Sox reinvented the World Series in 1912, however, is quite debatable. True, it was the first series to go seven games (eight games were actually played, one ended in a tie) and be decided in extra innings, but fan interest, the intensity and the hoopla were easily matched by the 1911 World Series between the New York Giants and the Philadelphia Athletics.
The Red Sox and the Giants were bitter rivals. The Red Sox, led by Smokey Joe Wood's 34-5 record, were favored. Giants' manager John McGraw stoked the competitive fires when he labeled the Red Sox as a "one-man team," referring to Wood.
The Red Sox were up three games to one (plus a tie) when controversy and suspicions began to pop up. The players felt they were entitled to share revenues from the first five games, since one was tied, instead of the first four games. Of course, the baseball owners and the National Commission disagreed.
Boston could have wrapped up the series with one more win. Everyone expected Wood to start the decisive game, but Boston owner James McAleer convinced manager Jake Stahl into starting rookie Buck O'Brien, who didn't get word that he would start until game day. Unfortunately, he had done some heavy drinking the night before. The decision caused the players and fans to murmur, "The fix is in." The Giants roughed O'Brien up for five runs in the first inning and went on to win, 5-2.
Wood started the following game, but suspiciously allowed six runs on 13 pitches in the first inning before he was relieved. The Giants went out to win 11-4 and tie the series at three games a piece. The crucial seventh game pitted Christy Mathewson of the Giants against Hugh Bedient of the Red Sox (Wood offered to start for the Red Sox).
Tied 1-1 after nine innings, the Giants scored in the top of the 10th and the Red Sox tied it in the bottom of the inning. The winning run scored when center fielder Fred Snodgrass muffed a fairly routine fly ball. The play became known as the "$30,000 muff."
There are other story lines throughout the book--the presidential election of 1912, the attempted assassination of Theodore Roosevelt, a murder trial and the antics of the Royal Rooters--but it's the baseball line that's most interesting. Vaccaro does a good job of recreating the games and focusing on the suspicions that not every game of the 1912 World Series was played on the up and up.
P.S. I wish the book had an index.
Red Sox Nation begins March 3, 2010
Jason A. Miller (New York, New York USA)
The biggest fault I could find with "The First Fall Classic" is that although it takes place in Fenway Park's inaugural year -- 1912 -- it fails to include any clear photos of what Fenway looked like at the time, inside or out. Fenway in 1912 was vastly different than the one we grew up with... the big wall in left field was not yet "The Wall" or "The Green Monster", and was fronted by the steep incline of "Duffy's Cliff", for example.
However, a good picture of Old Fenway is one of the few things "The First Fall Classic" doesn't have. New York Post writer Mike Vaccaro goes through the best-of-seven 1912 World Series one game at a time -- the series actually stretched to eight games, thanks to a tie -- and brings back to life many legendary players who have since passed on into something approaching obscurity: managers John McGraw and Jake Stahl; ace hurlers Christy Mathewson and Smoky Joe Wood; and the rest of the starting nine of the New York Giants and Boston Red Sox.
Vaccaro's motivations for writing are two-fold: first, he argues that this is the year that "the world's series" became "The World Series", in capital letters; and second, that Red Sox owner Jimmy McAleer encouraged his team (up 3 games to 1) to tank two games, in order to extend the series and thus the owner's gate receipts. Along the way Vacarro addresses the strained labor relations between the players and the tyrannical National Commission that ran the game, and also (a la Ladies and Gentlemen, the Bronx Is Burning: 1977, Baseball, Politics, and the Battle for the Soul of a City) delves into real world affairs as a counterpoint to on-field action. Vaccaro attempts to show how the three-way 1912 presidential election race may have been subtly influenced by the series (with incumbent William Howard Taft deferring his campaign in order to more closely monitor the games), and intercuts game action with the real-life murder trial of New York City cop Charles Becker.
The book is not entirely successful. Vaccaro admits in his preface that most of his material came from contemporaneous newspaper accounts, and the sportswriters of the day are, how shall we say, known for embellishing events and dialogue. Vaccaro even suggests that he invented his own dialogue when the historical record is blank; as a result, some of the conversations between principals tends to sound a little stilted. Also Vaccaro seeks to demonstrate the "fixing" of Games Six and Seven, but you'll have to make up your own mind on that one, 97 years after the fact (or compare them to Game 5 of the 2009 Series, if you have a nastily suspicious turn of mind).
However, the 1912 World Series really was the first "great" Fall Classic, with only the more one-sided 1905 and 1911 matchups prior to that lingering in our collective memories. Game Eight was a fabulous piece of work and Vacarro does do it justice.
 Collections strong in baseball history must have this January 18, 2010
Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI USA)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
THE FIRST FALL CLASSIC: THE RED SOX, THE GIANTS, AND THE CAST OF PLAYERS, PUGS AND THE POLITICOS WHO REINVENTED THE WORLD SERIES IN 1912 is a 'must' for any library strong in baseball history and culture. It covers a cast of characters who during the course of just eight games spanning nine days elevated the sport to World Series fame, involving sports and political worlds alike in the finest World Series ever played. Collections strong in baseball history must have this.
A baseball story and much more January 2, 2010
Carole McNall (Olean, NY USA)
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
Reviewer's disclaimer: I know Mike Vaccaro, like him and respect his work immensely. We're both alumni of the same journalism program and of the same daily newspaper. That said, you don't have to like Mike to find his newest book enjoyable. Indeed, you don't even have to be a baseball fan -- the story he tells balances great baseball moments with a cast of characters so strange that they have to be real.
The book's full title sets the scene for you: "The First Fall Classic: The Red Sox, the Giants and the Cast of Players, Pugs and Politicos Who Re-Invented the World Series in 1912." Mike's argument, which he supports well, is that the world series (lower case) really became the World Series (the one and only) with an extraordinary series of games in 1912. The series pitted manager John McGraw and the New York Giants against manager Jake Stahl and his Boston Red Sox. The Sox won, but not without twists along the way including a tie ball game, arguments over who got the money, an owner's interference with who played, gamblers, rabid fans, political grandstanding and a nation's attention riveted to the games. (In one of the many enjoyable notes here, Mike shows us how 24/7 sports results were offered long before commercial radio and television, let alone the internet.)
But Mike broadens his story to the world outside. When New Yorkers weren't concentrating on baseball, they spared some attention for the trial of Charles Becker, a New York police officer accused of killing Beansie Rosenthal, a gangster. When they and the rest of the country could spare time from those two stories, they followed the three-way presidential race, pitting Woodrow Wilson against William Howard Taft with a complicating guest appearance by Theodore Roosevelt.
Writers are often told it's the details that will set the stage of their stories and let readers "know" their characters. Careful historical research has given Mike the details that let him tell us exactly what it would have been like to be a fan of either team, what else we might have seen in the newspapers of the day and who these people were. The blend of their stories with the baseball action keeps the reader hooked on Mike's story ... and I suspect that will even be true for those who aren't sports fans.
It's easy to recommend "The First Fall Classic" to dedicated sports fans. But even if you aren't, I'd encourage you to try it. Mike's excellent writing and strong details will give you a story that should appeal ... even during the game descriptions.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 12
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