Baseball’s Comeback Players

This book profiles forty major league ballplayers who engineered remarkable comebacks to salvage fading careers. Details of each comeback is provided along with a summary of the player’s career. The comeback players range from Hall of Famers like Ted Williams and Stan Musial; to near-greats like Tommy John and Luis Tiant; to journeyman performers like George McQuinn and Tony Cuccinello.
In the absence of statistical standards to evaluate or even define comebacks, the selection of the top comeback players was based on the following criteria: historical significance, uniqueness, dramatic content, degree of difficulty, and the player’s overall reputation and standing.

Society for American Baseball Research member Rick Swaine has five baseball books in publication, two of them on baseball’s integration era. He has also been a contributor to The Baseball Research Journal and The National Pastime. Retired from an accounting career, he lives in the Tallahassee, Florida area.

Rick Swaine
Format: softcover (7 x 10)
Pages: 248
Bibliographic Info: 33 photos, appendix, notes, bibliography, index
Copyright Date: 2014
pISBN: 978-0-7864-7654-1
eISBN: 978-1-4766-1435-9
Imprint: McFarland

Table of Contents


Introduction  1

 1. Tommy John 5

 2. Hank Greenberg 10

 3. Smoky Joe Wood 16

 4. Monty Stratton 21

 5. Bo Jackson 25

 6. Eric Davis 30

 7. Andres Galarraga 36

 8. Ted Williams 40

 9. Stan Musial 47

10. Grover Cleveland Alexander 54

11. Rabbit Maranville 60

12. Willie McCovey 65

13. Eddie Waitkus 70

14. Tony Conigliaro 74

15. Charley Gelbert 79

16. Dennis Eckersley 84

17. Red Schoendienst 91

18. Rico Carty 97

19. Dave Dravecky 103

20. Jack Quinn 108

21. John Hiller 114

22. Steve Howe 118

23. George McQuinn 123

24. Luis Tiant 128

25. Robin Roberts 134

26. Babe Adams 139

27. Mark Koenig 146

28. Orlando Hernandez 150

29. Sal Maglie 155

30. Jimmie Wilson 161

31. Satchel Paige 166

32. Darryl Strawberry and Dwight “Doc” Gooden 173

33. Dennis Martinez 183

34. Fernando Valenzuela 188

35. Julio Franco 194

36. Johnny Lindell 198

37. Fred Mitchell 203

38. Tony Cuccinello 208

39. Van Lingle Mungo 213

Appendix: Comeback Player of the Year Award  221

Chapter Notes  223

Bibliography  231

Index  235