Walter Johnson; A Life

South Bend, IN: Diamond Communications, Inc, 1995. Second Printing [stated]. Hardcover. Very good/Very good. xii, 300, [2] pages. Career Record. Index. Foreword by Bob Broeg. Jack Kavanagh was born in Brooklyn in 1920, Jack joined SABR on July 9, 1973. He was SABR's first member in Rhode Island. He had designed and was self-marketing a dice and charts table baseball game, "Extra Innings," and looked to SABR as a source of information from which teams of the past could be reconstructed. Prior to 1983 he produced a variety of writing. A book, many articles, sci-fi and detective fiction, a NYC-produced play. Jack Kavanagh's byline appeared mostly for sports articles, but also in such publications as: Alfred Hitchcock, Ellery Queen, and Current Biography. A number of articles also appeared in Baseball Research Journal, The National Pastime and SABR Review of Books. In 1990 he was asked to write for the "Legends of Baseball" series. Jack's titles include Grover Cleveland Alexander, Walter Johnson, Dizzy Dean, Rogers Hornsby, Honus Wagner, and Joe Jackson. Jack contributed an astonishing number-more than 600-of the short biographies in The Ballplayers; compiled the 1930s section of Macmillan's The Baseball Chronology; and prepared the section "Streaks and Feats" for Total Baseball. Finally, a full-length book on Walter Johnson has been published by Diamond Communications. More than 100,000 words cover the career of the pitching great with the tragedies of his private life included. Bob Broeg wrote the foreword and a list of acknowledgments for assistance and an address for readers who want to join the Society further ties this book to SABR. A winner of the 1994 MacMillan/SABR Award, Walter Johnson: A Life by Jack Kavanagh preserves the legacy of baseball's most extraordinary pitcher in this fascinating and timeless biography. Walter Perry Johnson (November 6, 1887 - December 10, 1946), nicknamed "Barney" and "The Big Train", was a Major League Baseball right-handed pitcher. He played his entire 21-year baseball career for the Washington Senators (1907-1927). He later served as manager of the Senators from 1929 through 1932 and for the Cleveland Indians from 1933 through 1935. One of the most celebrated and dominating players in baseball history, Johnson established several pitching records, some of which remain unbroken nine decades after retiring from baseball. He remains by far the all-time career leader in shutouts with 110, second in wins with 417, and fourth in complete games with 531. He held the career record in strikeouts for nearly 56 years, with 3,508, from the 1927 end of his career until the 1983 season, when three players (Steve Carlton, Nolan Ryan and Gaylord Perry) finally passed the mark. Johnson was the only player in the 3,000 strikeout club (achieved 22 July 1923) for 51 years (less 5 days) when Bob Gibson recorded his 3,000th strikeout on 17 July 1974. Johnson led the league in strikeouts a Major League record 12 times-one more than current strikeout leader Nolan Ryan-including a record eight consecutive seasons. In 1936, Johnson was elected into the Baseball Hall of Fame as one of its "first five" inaugural members. His gentle nature was legendary, and to this day he is held up as an example of good sportsmanship, while his name has become synonymous with friendly competition. He was a farmer's son who grew up in Kansas and California, he was shy, modest and sweet-tempered, never blaming his teammates and unwilling to throw at batters, which was standard practice in his time. He neither smoked nor drank, not from moral conviction but because he didn't like the taste. He was happily married to a congressman's daughter and had a large family, to which he was devoted. Like many talented players, he attempted to work as a team manager after his playing days were over and did badly at it. This scrupulously researched, detailed biography by Kavanagh does him credit.