“Bill Felber has woven a picturesque tale of how baseball was played more than 100 years ago in the rowdy days of the 1890s. The story, although concentrating on the 1897 pennant race between Baltimore and Boston, vividly describes the atmosphere of the game on and off the field, and in doing so creates a rollicking good tale to boot.”—Pete Palmer, coeditor of ESPN Baseball Encyclopedia, 4th edition
“Felber . . . excels at demonstrating the dissimilarities between these two evenly matched opponents. . . . [He] gives a spirited retelling of the season, giving life to greedy owners, rabid fans, drunken ballplayers and terrorized umpires, all the while bringing to life an era of baseball when home runs were a rarity, players fielded with no gloves and starting pitchers threw almost 400 innings a season.”—Publishers Weekly
“A fine source of stories about the days when . . . Boston fans celebrated victories by tossing into the air beans which they had carried to the games in their pockets for that purpose, and when an umpire could be arrested twice in one season without losing his job.”—Bill Littlefield, WBUR-FM Radio, NPR’s “Only a Game”
“This book is a hoot from start to the cliff-hanging conclusion.”—John Linsenmeyer, Greenwich Times (CT)
