Description
IN THE GRAND TRADITION OF EIGHT MEN OUT . . .the untold story of baseballโs ORIGINAL SCANDAL Did the Chicago Cubs throw the World Series in 1918โand get away with it? Who were the players involvedโand why did they do it? Were gambling and corruption more widespread across the leagues than previously believed? Were the players and teams โcursedโ by their actions? Finally, is it time to rewrite baseball history? With exclusive access to surprising new evidence, Sporting News reporter Sean Deveney details a scandal at the core of baseballโs greatest folkloreโin a golden era as exciting and controversial as our sports world today. This inside look at the pivotal year of 1918 proves that baseball has always been a game overrun with colorful characters, intense human drama, and explosive controversy. " The Original Curse is not just about baseball. It is a sweeping portrait of America at war in 1918. . . . In the end, the proper question is not, โHow could a player from that era fix the World Series?โ Itโs, โHow could he not?โโ
โKen Rosenthal, FOX Sports, from the Introduction
"Sean Deveney plays connect-the-dots in this intriguing account of a possible conspiracy to throw the 1918 World Series. Thoroughly researched and well written, The Original Curse is a must-read for baseball fans and anyone who loves a good mystery. Is Max Flack the Shoeless Joe of the 1918 Cubs? Deveney lays out the case and let's readers decide if the fix was in."
โPaul Sullivan, Cubs beat writer, Chicago Tribune "This book gives the reader a fun and honest look at baseball as it used to be-- the good guys, the gamblers, the cheaters, the drunks, the inept leaders. But, more than that, it puts those characters into the context of Chicago, Boston and America at the time of World War I, and you wind up with a unique way to explain the motivations of those characters."
โDavid Kaplan, host, Chicago Tribune Live and WGN's Sports Central โDeveneyโs painstaking study of the 1918 World Series between the Cubs and Red Sox argues that the Black Sox scandal was not an aberration and might have had an antecedent. Deveneyโs scholarship does not detract from his ability to spin a good his tendency to imagine playersโ conversations will remind readers of Leigh Montvilleโs The Big The Life and Times of Babe Ruth โฆ. A welcome companion to Susan Dellingerโs Red Legs and Black Edd Roush and the Untold Story of the 1919 World Series , Deveneyโs book contributes greatly to our understanding of this decisive period in baseball and American morals."
โ Library Journal ISBN:9780071629973
