In this Book
- Alexander Cartwright: The Life behind the Baseball Legend
- Book
- 2009
- Published by: University of Nebraska Press
summary
Alexander Joy Cartwright Jr. (1820–92) was present during the organization of the Knickerbocker Base Ball Club of New York in the mid-1800s. That much is certain. Since that time, and especially with his induction into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1938, Cartwright has been celebrated as the founder of our national pastime, much like Abner Doubleday. As with Doubleday, Cartwright’s claim to fame has caused all sorts of conjecture and controversy. His complex life, not just the mythography surrounding him, comes clearly into focus in Monica Nucciarone’s biography of the incomparable Cartwright.
Through journal entries, letters, and newspaper clippings, Nucciarone traces Cartwright’s path from Elysian Fields in New Jersey to a gold-rush adventure in California, and on to Honolulu, where he became involved in the movement to annex Hawaii to the United States. Beginning with the widely held notion that Cartwright created the game of baseball as we know it today, then spread it across North America to Hawaii like a Johnny Appleseed, Nucciarone’s book separates fact from speculation. Although the picture that emerges may not be the Alexander Cartwright of legend, it shows us a man as colorful, complicated, and immense in character—and as worthy of the history books—as any legend he inspired.
Table of Contents
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- Acknowledgments
- pp. xvii-xx
- Part 1: A Legendary Life
- 3. The Rush for Gold
- pp. 23-43
- 4. The Allure of Paradise
- pp. 44-54
- 8. Annexation and the Hawaiian League
- pp. 101-123
- 9. Spalding Comes to Hawaii
- pp. 124-131
- Part 2: The Mythography of a Man
- 11. “Dear Old Knickerbockers”
- pp. 143-160
- 12. “Baseball on Murray Hill”
- pp. 161-178
- 13. “On Mountain and Prairie”
- pp. 179-192
- 14. “On the Sunny Plains of Hawaii nei”
- pp. 193-208
- 15. Baseball and the “Family Lare”
- pp. 209-224
- Bibliography
- pp. 251-256
Additional Information
ISBN
9780803224605
MARC Record
OCLC
440817215
Launched on MUSE
2012-01-01
Language
English
Open Access
No