Johnny Evers: A Baseball Life

by Dennis Snelling

Overview

For more than a century Johnny Evers has been conjoined with Chicago Cubs teammates Frank Chance and Joe Tinker, thanks to eight lines of verse by a New York columnist. Caricatured as a scrawny, sour man who couldn't hit and who owed his fame to that poem, in truth he was the heartbeat of one of the greatest teams of the 20th century and the fiercest competitor this side of Ty Cobb.

Evers was at the center of one of baseball's greatest controversies, a chance event that sealed his stardom and stole a pennant from John McGraw and the New York Giants in 1908. Six years later, following reversals and tragedies that resulted in a nervous breakdown, he made a comeback with the Boston Braves and led that team to the most improbable of championships.

Spanning the time from his birth in Troy, New York, to his death less than a year after his election to the Hall of Fame, this is the biography of a man who literally wrote the book about playing second base.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781476615202
Publisher:	McFarland & Company, Incorporated Publishers
Publication date:	04/22/2014
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	236
File size:	9 MB
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Dennis Snelling is a member of the Society for American Baseball Research and the Pacific Coast League Historical Society. He lives in Rocklin, California. (Visit www.dennissnelling.com.)
Dennis Snelling is a member of the Society for American Baseball Research and the Pacific Coast League Historical Society. He is a three-time finalist for the Casey Award for Best Baseball Book of the Year, including for The Greatest Minor League. He lives in Rocklin, California. (Visit www.dennissnelling.com.)

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

Preface
One. The Kid from the Collar City
Two. Rookie
Three. Foraging for Wins in the Land of the Giants
Four. The Best Team in Baseball, But Not Necessarily in Chicago
Five. World Champions
Six. Merkle
Seven. A Sad Lexicon
Eight. Comeback
Nine. Managing the Cubs with Neither a Tinker Nor a Chance
Ten. The Miracle Braves
Eleven. Too Much Electricity
Twelve. When Johnny Comes Marching Home
Thirteen. The Human Dynamo That Needs a Minder
Fourteen. Albany, Alabama Pitts and One Last Reunion
Fifteen. Which Is As It Should Be
Notes
Bibliography
Index

Editorial Reviews

02/15/2014
The last time the Chicago Cubs won the World Series (yes, it did happen), Johnny Evers was the team's star second baseman. As the keystone of the famous "Tinker to Evers to Chance" infield, Evers was a tough, hard-nosed competitor, as famous for his temper as his skills. Snelling (The Greatest Minor League: A History of the Pacific Coast League) has put together a long-overdue biography of this baseball icon, telling Evers's story in a straightforward fashion, culling information from old newspaper accounts and early baseball books. The title nicely balances Evers's sports life with his personal one, painting a picture of an ordinary man at the turn of the 20th century with extraordinary athletic ability, but whose notoriety and prestige did not inure him from the tragedies of life—heartache, illness, and bankruptcy, among others. VERDICT This biography will be a good fit for all baseball collections, including in academic libraries specializing in U.S. sports history. It's a must for Chicago public libraries—at least the ones on the North Side.—BR

Library Journal

a long overdue biography of this baseball icon...nicely balances Evers’s sports life with his personal one, painting a picture of an ordinary man at the turn of the 20th century with extraordinary athletic ability. This biography will be a good fit for all baseball collections”—Library Journal; “splendid.... The book is impressive optically as well as stylistically: layout, font, and picture selection are excellent, as has become typical for McFarland publications...valuable”—The Inside Game (SABR Deadball Era Committee Newsletter); “Snelling provides a portrait of the man in full...meticulously researched.... The Cubs went to the World Series four times in five years from 1906–10…. Evers was the sparkplug for those teams, and also one of the game’s early innovators. He lived a fascinating life, a life which Snelling has done a masterful job of capturing”—MLB.com; “Johnny Evers in his day was simply considered a great baseball player, the heart and soul of the great Chicago Cubs teams of the period, who was entirely deserving of baseball’s highest accolades. In Dennis Snelling’s new biography of “The Crab,” this basic truth about the career of Johnny Evers comes through plainly and convincingly…. [Snelling] gives us the full measure of a player whom it is now possible to properly appreciate”—Spitball; “both enjoyable and informative about one of the most talented and memorable players in Cubs history, I highly recommend”—worldseriesdreaming.com.

From the Publisher

Snelling provides a portrait of the man in full...meticulously researched.... The Cubs went to the World Series four times in five years from 1906-10.... Evers was the sparkplug for those teams, and also one of the game's early innovators. He lived a fascinating life, a life which Snelling has done a masterful job of capturing

MLB.com

splendid.... The book is impressive optically as well as stylistically: layout, font, and picture selection are excellent, as has become typical for McFarland publications...valuable

SABR Deadball Era Committee Newsletter