The Summer of Beer and Whiskey: How Brewers, Barkeeps, Rowdies, Immigrants, and a Wild Pennant Fight Made Baseball America’s Game by Edward Achorn (review)

As author Edward Achorn notes in his preface, “the American Association’s summer of 1883 … marvelously opens a window, as baseball always does, into the culture of America of its time—the harsh struggle, the cruel and mocking racism, the heavy drinking, and the triumphant, glorious spirit of individual achievement of the day” (xiii). Focusing primarily on two teams, the St. Louis Brown Stockings and Philadelphia Athletics, Achorn offers readers a panoramic perspective of the season while also taking time to profile select stars from both teams. Along the way, aided by illustrations drawn by Cincinnati Reds first baseman Long John Reilly, as well as anecdotes and game descriptions provided by contemporary reporters and players, the reader is transported back to “the year America went baseball mad” (xiii), a time when the competition between the established and highbrow National League and the freewheeling American Association resulted in far-reaching ramifications.

While Achorn profiles Hall of Famers (Charlie Comiskey, Tim Keefe, and Cap Anson), should-be Hall of Famers (Pete Browning, Bobby Mathews, and Tony Mullane), and other period characters (including Arlie Latham, the “Freshest Man on Earth,” [63] and “The Only” Nolan), he spends significant portions of the book focusing on Brown Stockings owner—and St. Louis beer magnate—Chris Von der Ahe. Achorn praises Von der Ahe’s “vision of making a day at the ballpark a more exciting experience than ever before, with cheap tickets, booming beer sales, and big crowds adorned by beautiful women” (12), as well as his scheduling Sunday games as a means to “welcome working men and fellow immigrants, those who toiled all week and could not break free from their jobs to attend a game” (13). Achorn describes how Von der Ahe displays both a Veeckian innovative spirit alongside a Steinbrenneresque combativeness—unafraid to challenge the status quo concerning Sunday baseball and ballpark beer sales. The Brown Stockings owner’s propensity to interfere with the on-field activities of his manager and players only intensified as the Association’s pennant race continued into September. In similar, albeit unequal fashion, Achorn also portrays Von der Ahe’s Philadelphia counterpart, renowned minstrel actor and former ballplayer Lew Simmons, whose dedication to his team borders on obsession.

Much of the book’s on-field descriptions center on the four series the Brown Stockings and Athletics played throughout the American Association’s 1883 season. Incredibly, as Achorn notes, the penultimate series—and the last one hosted in Philadelphia—drew “a stunning 50,000 [spectators] for the series” (191), a remarkable figure given the size of the ballparks, the limited spectator base, and the relative newness of the game. Indeed, more than a few modern teams would be pleased with a similar draw over the course of a weekend series. In this series Achorn introduces readers to “Jumping Jack” Jones, the Yale pitcher whose motion involved him “leap[ing] into the air as he released the ball, flinging his arms and legs out in a manner that reminded reporters of a child’s jumping jack” (187). Jones, a character familiar to those fans who can recall Mark Fidrych, Al Hrabosky, and Turk Wendell, not only beat the Brown Stockings in a pivotal game during this series, he also clinched the pennant for the Athletics with an extra-inning win over the Baltimore Orioles. A hero to Philadephians grateful for his contribution to the Athletics pennant, Jones never pitched again in the major leagues, returning to Yale to finish medical school and then head to Harvard to study dentistry (246). But for these accounts of his Doyle Alexander-like September performance, Jumping Jack Jones would remain a footnote to nineteenth-century baseball history. And his story, like others Achorn has uncovered, points to the book’s value as a means of further preserving less-told stories...