When the Giants Were Giants : Bill Terry and the Golden Age of New York Baseball
, by Peter Williams; W. P. Kinsella
- ISBN: 9780945575023 | 0945575025
- Cover: Hardcover
- Copyright: 4/1/1994
This is the story of a forgotten Giant - the man Baseball Magazine called in 1930 "baseball's greatest first baseman," the last National League .400 hitter, Bill Terry.
It's also the story of a time when America looked to baseball for hope and heroes, a time before television, before night baseball, before player strikes and free agents - a time when two great New York teams, the Giants and the Yankees, were the biggest names in sport. It was a time of legendary players and managers that are now fast fading from living memory - John J. McGraw, Babe Ruth, Carl Hubbell, Ty Cobb, Mel Ott, Casey Stengel, Joe McCarthy, Lou Gehrig, Lefty Gomez, Hack Wilson, Dizzy Dean, Walter Johnson, Frankie Frisch, Rogers Hornsby, Joe DiMaggio.
In When the Giants Were Giants, Peter Williams looks at the end of one era and the beginning of another through the lens of a Hall-of-Fame player and manager whose career embraced it all - Bill Terry.
Brought up from poverty and the obscurity of semipro ball in the South by the famed "Little Napoleon," manager John McGraw of the Giants, Terry developed into the team's key player during the late twenties. As America battled the hopelessness of the Depression, the no-nonsense Terry replaced the flamboyant McGraw as manager of the Giants and led the team to three pennants and a world championship. But along the way he ran afoul of the press and made many enemies. Peter Williams, whose sports-columnist father was perhaps Terry's harshest critic and greatest antagonist during the Depression years, argues here that the bad press was largely a bad rap.
Exclusive interviews with Terry in his last years and the players of his era bring to life the rich and colorful tapestry of Golden Age baseball in When the Giants Were Giants. Peter Williams helps us see a great player - and the time in which he played - in a new light.
It's also the story of a time when America looked to baseball for hope and heroes, a time before television, before night baseball, before player strikes and free agents - a time when two great New York teams, the Giants and the Yankees, were the biggest names in sport. It was a time of legendary players and managers that are now fast fading from living memory - John J. McGraw, Babe Ruth, Carl Hubbell, Ty Cobb, Mel Ott, Casey Stengel, Joe McCarthy, Lou Gehrig, Lefty Gomez, Hack Wilson, Dizzy Dean, Walter Johnson, Frankie Frisch, Rogers Hornsby, Joe DiMaggio.
In When the Giants Were Giants, Peter Williams looks at the end of one era and the beginning of another through the lens of a Hall-of-Fame player and manager whose career embraced it all - Bill Terry.
Brought up from poverty and the obscurity of semipro ball in the South by the famed "Little Napoleon," manager John McGraw of the Giants, Terry developed into the team's key player during the late twenties. As America battled the hopelessness of the Depression, the no-nonsense Terry replaced the flamboyant McGraw as manager of the Giants and led the team to three pennants and a world championship. But along the way he ran afoul of the press and made many enemies. Peter Williams, whose sports-columnist father was perhaps Terry's harshest critic and greatest antagonist during the Depression years, argues here that the bad press was largely a bad rap.
Exclusive interviews with Terry in his last years and the players of his era bring to life the rich and colorful tapestry of Golden Age baseball in When the Giants Were Giants. Peter Williams helps us see a great player - and the time in which he played - in a new light.
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