This first biography of four-time all-star Al Rosen covers the career of perhaps the best player on the fabulous Cleveland Indians’ teams of the 1950s. From 1951 to 1956, the Tribe won one American League pennant (1954) and finished second to New York the other five seasons. Rosen was selected as the League’s Most Valuable Player in 1953, the last Indians player to be so honored. He led the League in home runs (43) and RBI (145). Washington’s Mickey Vernon edged Rosen by a single percentage point (.337 to .336) for the league batting championship.
His play between the white lines was not the only place where Rosen left his mark on the game. He spent 14 seasons as a president or general manager for the New York Yankees (1978–1979), Houston Astros (1981-1985) and the San Francisco Giants (1986-1992). Under his guidance, those teams won two pennants and one world championship. Rosen is the only person in Major League Baseball history to win an MVP award as a player and to be recognized as Executive of the Year by The Sporting News (1987).

Joseph Wancho is a member of the Society for American Baseball Research (SABR) and has contributed articles to more than 35 books on the history of baseball. He lives in Brooklyn, Ohio.

Joseph Wancho
Format: softcover (6 x 9)
Pages:
Bibliographic Info: photos, appendices, notes, bibliography, index
Copyright Date: 2021
pISBN: 978-1-4766-8131-3
eISBN: 978-1-4766-4393-9
Imprint: McFarland

• “Rosen’s life represents a vacant slot on the baseball bookshelf, and this work fills that void nicely.”—William H. Johnson, author of Hal Trosky: A Baseball Life and Marion Motley: A Life in and Beyond Football

• “A satisfying examination of Al Rosen’s career on and off the field, which often doesn’t get much attention outside of his MVP season.”—Jonathan Knight, author of Summer of Shadows: A Murder, a Pennant Race, and the Twilight of the Best Location in the Nation