As a fan of a team that was one of the original American League franchises, the book intrigued me and was available on Kindle Unlimited so I grabbed it. Here is my review.
Title/Author:
“1901: The War of the Baseball Magnates” by Timothy Zarley
Rating:
3 of 5 stars (good)
Review:
As any baseball fan knows, the American League started play in 1901 - 25 years after the establishment of the National League. This book by Timothy Zarley tells the story of how the “Junior Circuit” got its star and the first season won by the Chicago White Sox.
The White Sox owner, Charles Comiskey, played a prominent role in establishing the league along with its first President Ban Johnson. Their roles are explained in great detail in the early chapters in the book. This is in addition to the many deals that were made and broken between magnates, the magnates and the players and also with cities. At times this was a dizzying read with so many people involved and the intense detail with which Zarley wrote his part. It was interesting and well researched but I had a hard time getting through this.
Once I did, however, I was glad I powered through because once the games started I enjoyed reading how the games played out for the American League (and even some for the National League as well) was better reading. Even more than the games, the writing about the treatment of umpires that season was very interesting. They had a very difficult time, to say the least, and Johnson did his best to stop this behavior. His goal was clean baseball and while often it was, this is one aspect where it was clear that this was a problem. All of this is illustrated and explained in detail by Zarley. If you’re a reader who likes this level of detail in your books, this is the one for you.
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