The Irish in Baseball

Professional baseball took root in America in the 1860s during the same years that the sons of the first wave of Irish famine refugees began to reach adulthood, and the Irish quickly demonstrated a special affinity for baseball. This is a survey of the enormous contribution of the Irish to the American pastime and the ways in which Irish immigrants and baseball came of age together. Chapters cover Irish immigrants in Boston; the Chicago White Stockings; the Shamrocks, Trojans and Giants; Charlie Comiskey; Patsy Tebeau and the Hibernian Spiders; Ned Hanlon and the Orioles; Hugh Duffy and Tommy McCarthy, the “Heavenly Twins”; umpires; John McGraw; “Wild Bill” Donovan, Patrick Joseph “Whiskey Face” Moran, and Connie Mack; the Red Sox and the Royal Rooters; and more.

David L. Fleitz is a web developer and database analyst who lives in Troy, Michigan. A longtime SABR member, he has written nine other books on baseball history.

David L. Fleitz
Format: softcover (7 x 10)
Pages: 200
Bibliographic Info: 42 photos, notes, bibliography, index
Copyright Date: 2009
pISBN: 978-0-7864-3419-0
eISBN: 978-0-7864-5304-7
Imprint: McFarland

Acknowledgments      v
Prologue      1

1. Beginnings—The Irish in Boston      5
2. The Irish White Stockings of Chicago      16
3. Shamrocks, Trojans, and Giants      28
4. Charlie Comiskey and the St. Louis Browns      43
5. White Stockings, Colts, and Cubs      56
6. Patsy Tebeau and the Hibernian Spiders      68
7. Ned Hanlon and the Orioles      82
8. The Heavenly Twins and the Boston Irish      96
9. The Umpires      110
10. Comiskey and the White Sox      123
11. McGraw and the Giants      135
12. Wild Bill, Whiskey Face, and the Tall Tactician      150
13. Red Sox and Royal Rooters      164

Epilogue      178
Notes      181
Bibliography      187
Index      189

“thorough…Fleitz loves the game and its history as only a devoted fan could. And it is those devoted fans—the keepers of prodigious amounts of statistics on their favorite players and voluminous detailed histories of their favorite teams—who will most enjoy this new history”—Nine.