Fred LiebCritiques

I probably read the entire series, which, as far as I know, covered 15 of the 16 major league clubs at the time, but the one I remember best was this one, since the Cardinals were my favourite team at the time.

In the late 1940s, G.P. Putnam's Sons commissioned individual histories of 15 of the then existing 16 major league baseball teams (or maybe the commissioned 16, but at any rate, no history of the Philadelphia Athletics appeared). This history of the Pirates was first published in 1948. In 2002, the Southern Illinois University Press republished several of these team histories as part of their "Writing Baseball" series. Several of the authors hired to write these books eventually made it into the journalists' wing of the MLB Hall of Fame. Frederick G. Lieb is one of those.

At the time of his writing this history, Lieb was already a veteran Pittsburgh sports writer. He had covered the Pirates for many seasons and was friends with the team's long-time owner Barney Dreyfuss, who had died only a few years before the book was written. He knew many of the players and had attended many of the most famous games. He also did lots of good research, so that his accounts of the earliest years of professional Pittsburgh baseball, going back to the National League's 19th-century origins, is lively and, for a baseball fan, very interesting. Lieb was also able to provide perspectives on key events, trades and relationships from the owner's point of view, as well as often taking us into the dugout to see what players and managers had to say about things. Feuds, holdouts, trades good and bad, and in-game strategic decisions are illuminated along the way. The historic perspective is certainly interesting, given that, writing in 1948, to Lieb 1918 was only as distant in the past as 1990 is to us now.

The real stars of the first half of the book are Dreyfuss, who bought a team in Louisville and brought it to Pittsburgh in the early days of the NL, and Honus Wagner, one of the all-time greats of the game who played for the Pirates in the early 20th century. The book takes us right up to slugger Ralph Kiner's rookie year.

At times, the whirl of player names, trades and statistics becomes a blur, especially towards the book's final quarter. I got the idea that a) this was all recent enough information that Lieb thought his readers would already be familiar with it and b) perhaps Lieb was rushing through these most recent (to him) seasons to be done with the project. At any rate, it's still fun to read.

For baseball fans, the differences in the game between then and now will jump out. The most glaring is Lieb's frequent reference to the criteria that allowed a pitcher to be considered a "regular pitcher." One needed to have pitched at least 10 complete games during a season. Each staff was expected to have three or four such pitchers. Those were the days. Writing in 1948, Lieb simply takes segregation for granted and never mentions it. Jackie Robinson's entry into the game in 1947, the final season Lieb describes, is ignored. The one at only reference to integration at all is this one:

"And even though the Pirates rode seventh or eighth through the late spring and summer months, they had their moments, as when the Buccos gave Brooklyn a stunning setback by crushing them in a midseason Sunday double-header and later ruined the debut of big Dan Bankhead, {Branch} Rickey's Negro pitching find."*

Also, while we are told early on that Barney Dreyfuss was a German-born Jew, the subject is entirely dropped thereafter. We are either to understand from this that Dreyfuss never had to deal with antisemitism in the higher rungs of baseball ownership or, perhaps more likely, that Lieb was aware that his readers wouldn't find antisemitism any more noteworthy than baseball's segregation. That's looking at things with my 2020 readership glasses on, of course. I suppose such things simply wouldn't be discussed in polite society in those days.

Anyway, for readers interested in baseball and, more specifically, baseball history, this book is a lot of fun. Perhaps it's best to think of it, in some ways, as more of an oral history than as an authoritative historical work.

* A quick check online tells us that the mostly forgotten (not very successful) Bankhead was, nevertheless, the first African-American to pitch in the Major Leagues. One would think Lieb would have found that event more interesting than he evidently did.½

A nice overview of the life and times of the great A's manager Connie Mack! I am a huge Oakland A's fan, so this was fun to read! From the founding of the club, to the publishing of this book (1944), we get an in depth look at the team, the game, and the man. We also get a glimpse of history, as Mack's story begins during the Civil War, he plays through the Spanish American War, and he manages during World War I and II. Baseball history too - the founding of the American League, the baseball wars, and the first All-Star game! There are also tidbits of trivia, like how the Pirates got their name, and brief glimpses of other baseball greats during that era. Though at times the author seemed like to much of a "homer" in his viewpoints, this book kept my interest and taught me a thing or two! I'm glad I found it!

A nice overview of the life and times of the great A's manager Connie Mack! I am a huge Oakland A's fan, so this was fun to read! From the founding of the club, to the publishing of this book (1944), we get an in depth look at the team, the game, and the man. We also get a glimpse of history, as Mack's story begins during the Civil War, he plays through the Spanish American War, and he manages during World War I and II. Baseball history too - the founding of the American League, the baseball wars, and the first All-Star game! There are also tidbits of trivia, like how the Pirates got their name, and brief glimpses of other baseball greats during that era. Though at times the author seemed like to much of a "homer" in his viewpoints, this book kept my interest and taught me a thing or two! I'm glad I found it!

I have read that this is actually the volume for the Athletics in the "Putnam's Pennant Series", but that it was changed over to be a quasi-biography of Mack, at that time synonomous with the team, because the team was so poor at that time that nobody would buy the book. Indeed, except for a certain amount of detail about Mack's playing career and considerable direct quotation from him, the book is formatted exactly as the other team histories. One aspect of the book which I liked is that the interview excerpts humanize Mack as a man with a sense of humor and the irony of the human condition, in contrast to the dour sourpuss we tend to see him as today.

In the early 1950’s Putnam published a series of baseball histories which included The Philadelphia Phillies by noted sports writer Fred Lieb and Stan Baumgartner, a former Phillies player. Long out of print, Kent State University Press reissued the book in 2009, adding a new forward by baseball scholar William C. Kashatus and an index. Lieb and Baumgartner chronicle the beginnings of Philadelphia baseball and the start of what would be one of the oldest major league team franchises. The ups and downs, ins and outs of the team are covered along with special insights by pitcher Baumgartner. Philadelphia was awarded a National League team in the 1880’s and the story becomes one of frustration and hope, interwoven with Connie Mack’s rival A’s. Over the years, the Phillie owners preferred not to put money into the team so, when they needed cash, they sold their quality players, putting the team in the second division through most years up to 1952 and for many years after. (Of course, 1915 and 1950 were exceptions, but the team had to wait until 1980 to win the World Series.) To be a Phillies fan yesterday and today is to accept that, to quote the immortal Richie Ashburn, “defeat will be snatched from the jaws of victory.”

There are no footnotes or bibliography; however the original preface acknowledges the help of various individuals and cites baseball guides. The text is a facsimile of the 1952 edition so the errors in the original text were not corrected. It was disconcerting to see that the authors regularly confused manager Henry Wright with his brother George, using both names interchangeably.

Although there are other books on the history of the team, especially several written for a juvenile audience, this book is worth reading to gain a sense of the Phillies’ roots.½

This is, without a doubt, the worst of the "Putnam's Pennant Series" books. The author is very good on the "old" Orioles, and, for that matter, on the International League Orioles, which admittedly were a quasi-major league team for much of their existence. That leaves the Browns stuffed into a few afterthought chapters at the end. Admittedly, they did not have a distinguished history, but they were interesting and remain under-documented, partialy because of this misfire.

Hardly authoritative but fun to read. This was my first introduction to baseball history as a teenager, and Lieb is a good storyteller--but not a historian.

The History of a Colorful Team in Baltimore and St. Louis