Dennis DeValeria,Jeanne Burke DeValeria
With the coming of the twentieth century, America was thinking on a grand scale. Barriers of communication and transportation were being overcome and giants such as Andrew Carnegie, John D. Rockefeller, and William Randolph Hearst walked the land. The nationâ€™s game was baseball, and its giant was Honus Wagner. In 1996, a baseball card depicting Honus Wagner sold for $640,500 - the largest sum ever paid at auction for a sports artifact. What could possibly make that piece of cardboard, approximately one-and-a-half by two-and-a-half inches, worth more than half a million dollars? The DeValerias tell the unique story behind this now-famous baseball card and the man depicted on it. In doing so, they accurately present the local, regional, and national context so readers gain a thorough understanding of Wagnerâ€™s times.Wagnerâ€™s gradual emergence from the pack into stardom and popularity is described here in rich detail, but the book also reveals much of Wagnerâ€™s family and personal life - his minor leauge career, his values, his failed business ventures during the Depression, and his later years. Neither the â€œrowdy-ballâ€ ruffian nor the teetotal saint constructed of legend, Wagner is presented here in a complete portrait - one that offers a vivid impression of the era when baseball was Americaâ€™s game and the nation was evolving into the worldâ€™s industrial leader.
Sports,Baseball,Sports,Sports,Biography,Nonfiction
Honus Wagner: A Biography