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Overview
1918. When the Boston Red Sox are having a good season, there’s no escaping that date. Sports announcers talk about the “Curse of the Bambino” while fans of opposing teams taunt Boston diehards with chants of “nine-teen-eight-teen.” The year, of course, is the last season the Red Sox won the World Series.Babe Ruth and the 1918 Red Sox is the first complete account of Boston’s last championship. Though the year is famous, fans and even baseball historians know very little about the events of the season. Even the most knowledgeable baseball fan will find one revelation shocking: Wood has uncovered the possibility that the 1918 World Series may have been fixed, much like the notorious 1919 “Chicago Black Sox” scandal.
During that tumultuous summer, the Great War in Europe cast an ominous shadow over the national game, as enlistments and the draft wreaked havoc with every team's roster. Players and owners fought bitterly over contracts and revenue, the parks were infested with gamblers, and the Red Sox and the Chicago Cubs almost called off the World Series. And a Boston player known as The Colossus, 23-year-old Babe Ruth, began his historic transformation from pitching ace to the game's greatest slugger.
Allan Wood’s extensive original research and lively narrative brings to life a time when the Red Sox ruled the American League. In addition to poring over miles of microfilm, Wood spoke with descendants of the 1918 players, as well as two men who knew Babe Ruth in 1918. With 34 pages of photographs, many never-before published, Babe Ruth and the 1918 Red Sox is a must-read for Red Sox fans and lovers of baseball history.
“Mr. Wood has lit upon one of the most turbulent and at the same time least known years in baseball history. He has done remarkable, revelatory research, and he has a clean, clear way of writing.” Robert W. Creamer, author of Babe: The Legend Comes To Life
Be sure to check out the author's Website: www.1918redsox.com
Synopsis
A fascinating, in-depth look at the last year the Boston Red Sox won the World Series, led by ace pitcher and emerging slugger Babe Ruth.
Boston Phoenix - Mark Bazer
....an intensely researched and entertaining read ...Wood handles the potentially confusing nature of professional baseball's relation to the war especially well [and] he reveals the chaotic nature of a league that was battling the government for the right to finish the season, all the while losing players to combat and war-related industries. ....Babe Ruth still led the league in home runs and had a 2.22 ERA. And apparently he still managed to party and goof off every chance he got.
Editorials
Bob Clark
We hardly need to be reminded that 1918 was the last time the Red Sox won the World Series, but how many know they did it with a patchwork team in a truncated season overshadowed by World War I? Allan Wood recaptures it well with particular emphasis on Ruth making the transition from pitcher to slugger and dominating headlines on and off the field.— Boston Herald
Camden Joy
The scope of "1918" is bigger than Babe Ruth; it is nothing less than the story of a season under siege. By skillfully weaving sports biography into social history, Wood displays a patched-together pastime, its already crooked stitching unraveling further with the threat of war. ... Wood's original research lends urgency to what is sure to become a classic sports book. The fleeting circumstances of baseball, its deceptive pace and sudden, petulant dramas, are rendered with a color and immediacy rarely found in synopses of the game's pre-radio days.— Seven Days
David Plaut
Fresh research on the most "recent" of Bosox world championships uncovers possible evidence that this World Series (as was the case the following year) also might have been influenced by gamblers' wagers and ballplayers on the take.—Baseball Weekly
Mark Bazer
....an intensely researched and entertaining read ...Wood handles the potentially confusing nature of professional baseball's relation to the war especially well [and] he reveals the chaotic nature of a league that was battling the government for the right to finish the season, all the while losing players to combat and war-related industries. ....Babe Ruth still led the league in home runs and had a 2.22 ERA. And apparently he still managed to party and goof off every chance he got.— Boston Phoenix
Publishers Weekly
The year 1918 is special for Red Sox fans the last year their team won the World Series. Growing up in Vermont, Allan Wood was one such fan, and in 1918: Babe Ruth and the World Champion Boston Red Sox, he explores his partisan obsession to the fullest. That series was marred by disputes between players and owners over revenues; indeed, the players almost called it off. It also marked the emergence of 23-year-old Babe Ruth, whom many still see as the greatest player the game has ever known.Wood, who has copiously researched his subject, explores how this ancient triumph came to pass and raises the possibility that, like the infamous "Black Sox" series the following year, the 1918 series was fixed. This book's level of detail is excessive for anyone who isn't a hardcore sports fan but the questions it poses are certain to inflame New Englanders.
Ron Fimrite
....an entertaining and exhaustive account of a tumultuous season.— Sports Illustrated