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Comments? Send e-mail to dlfleitz99@wcnet.org, but take the 99 out of the address before sending. Spam artists scour web pages like this one for e-mail addresses, and the 99 in the address makes it unusable for them.
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David Fleitz's Baseball Page A film student named Peter Marra has completed his master's thesis and posted it on the Web. It's a collection of filmed images collected on an interactive web site about the Black Sox scandal, for which he interviewed me and several other people. A one-minute snippet of an interview that he conducted with me in 2005 can be seen on the site, http://blacksox.tv. Bryan Curtis, a writer for Sports Illustrated, interviewed me for an article on Shoeless Joe Jackson, the steroid controversy, and the general topic of forgiveness for baseball wrongdoing. The article, titled "Children of the Corn," appeared in the May 4, 2009, issue of the magazine. My sixth book, The Irish in Baseball: An Early History, has been released by McFarland. It chronicles the contributions made by first- and second-generation Irishmen to the development of the game. Prominent players and managers of Irish descent, including Connie Mack, John McGraw, Charlie Comiskey, and many others, are featured. Click here to order it on Amazon.com. I'll be signing copies of it this summer at the annual SABR convention in Washington, D. C., from July 29 to August 1. Bill Werber, baseball's oldest living player, died on January 22 at age 100. There are now no centenarian ex-ballplayers; the oldest one now is Tony Malinosky, 99, an infielder who was born in October of 1909 and played in 35 games for the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1937. I have updated the website accordingly; see "Most recent articles" on the left side of this page. I wrote a new article on Louis Sockalexis, baseball's first Native American player, for the SABR Biography Project. The project aims to post bios of major league ballplayers on the Internet, and has over 900 entries so far, eight of which were written by me. Click here to see the Sockalexis bio. A book about the pennant-winning 1959 Chicago White Sox, which has been in the works for a while now, has finally been published in this, the 50th anniversary of the team's appearance in the World Series. It's called "Go-Go to Glory: The 1959 Chicago White Sox," and is printed by ACTA Publishing of Chicago. It's on Amazon.com right now, and you can see it here. I wrote the chapter on Early Wynn, the 39-year-old pitcher who won 22 games and the Cy Young Award that season. The 38th annual SABR (Society for American Baseball Research) convention was held in Cleveland from June 26-29, and I won the individual trivia championship for the third year in a row. I also had an article published in the convention book, "Batting Four Thousand: Baseball in the Western Reserve." My article dealt with a game played in Crestline, Ohio, in October of 1914, featuring Shoeless Joe Jackson and several Cleveland teammates against a bunch of minor leaguers. I have now completed eight biographies for the SABR BioProject web site. Click on the name to see:
More articles: Here is a link to a joint review of the three Louis Sockalexis biographies (including my own) that were published in 2002-03. The review appears at SABR's 19th Century committee website; click under "Business" where the newsletter labeled #2004:2 (new, July 2005) is listed. The review is on page 12. The 2006 issue of the SABR publication The Baseball Research Journal carries an article that I wrote three years ago. Titled The Honor Rolls of Baseball, it summarizes a presentation I made at the SABR convention in Boston in 2002. Click here to see a press release that SABR issued about my article.
My previous books (click on the titles for more information): More Ghosts in the Gallery: Another Sixteen Little-Known Greats at Cooperstown (McFarland, 2007) My fifth book tells the stories of 16 more obscure Hall of Fame players, from 1860s-era star George Wright to 1940s shortstop Arky Vaughan, along with several more outstanding performers from the 19th century, the Deadball Era, and the pre-integration Negro Leagues. The player on the cover is the legendary Smokey Joe Williams, a fastball-throwing Texan who most fans have never heard of, but who may well have been the greatest pitcher of all time. It's a worthy sequel to Ghosts in the Gallery at Cooperstown. Cap Anson, the Grand Old Man of Baseball (McFarland, 2005) Adrian (Cap) Anson was the first superstar of baseball. Still a teenager when he began his career in 1871, he played for the fabled Chicago White Stockings from 1876 to 1897, winning four batting titles and being the first player to amass 3,000 hits. He also managed the team to five pennants and played a regrettable role in drawing the color line that lasted until 1947. Loud, brash, and uncompromising, Cap Anson was a giant in his time, but Cap Anson, The Grand Old Man of Baseball is the first full-length treatment of Anson since the player's own autobiography, which was published 105 years ago. Elysian Fields Quarterly calls the book "a worthy successor to his fine biographies of Shoeless Joe Jackson and Louis Sockalexis.” Ghosts in the Gallery at Cooperstown (McFarland, 2004) There are many players in the Baseball Hall of Fame who are in no way famous, and this book reveals the stories behind 16 of those little-known men. These long-forgotten greats come to life in a narrative that details not only their life stories, but how such unknown men managed to gain election to the Hall. The SABR publication The Inside Game states that the author "bashes another triple off the wall with Ghosts in the Gallery at Cooperstown." Louis Sockalexis: The First Cleveland Indian (McFarland, 2002) A finalist for the 2002 Seymour Medal, this is the first full-length biography of Louis Sockalexis, a Penobscot from Maine who became the first Native American to play major league ball. His career and life ended tragically, but he made such an impression on all who saw him that the Cleveland club was called the "Indians" while he played for them. In 1915, two years after the death of Sockalexis, the team adopted the "Indians" name permanently. Shoeless: The Life and Times of Joe Jackson (McFarland, 2001) Shoeless is the award-winning biography of one of baseball's most colorful and tragic figures, the man made famous by the movie "Field of Dreams." Shoeless reveals the fascinating true story behind the player whose career was destroyed by his ill-advised participation in the 1919 Black Sox scandal. Rob Neyer of ESPN.com named Shoeless the "best baseball biography of 2001." Books to which I contributed: Deadball Stars of the National League (SABR, 2004) This work contains 140 biographies on all the National League's starting players of the Deadball (1901-1919) Era. I wrote the chapter on former Pirates and Reds first baseman Jake Beckley, whom I profiled in my Ghosts in the Gallery book. Deadball Stars of the American League (SABR, 2007) This companion volume to the preceding book contains 140 biographies on all the American League's starting players of the Deadball Era. I wrote three chapters, on Shoeless Joe Jackson and two St. Louis Browns mainstays, pitcher Jack Powell and manager Jimmy McAleer. Sock It To 'Em, Tigers! The Incredible Story of the 1968 Detroit Tigers (Maple Street Press, 2008) This book has biographies of all playing, managing, coaching, front-office, and other personnel on the world champion 1968 Detroit Tigers. I wrote the chapter on Hall of Famer Eddie Mathews. Go-Go to Glory: The 1959 Chicago White Sox (ACTA Press, 2009) This book celebrates the 50th anniversary of the 1959 White Sox, who won Chicago's first American League pennant in 40 years (but lost the World Series to the Los Angeles Dodgers). I wrote the chapter on Hall of Fame pitcher Early Wynn, who won the Cy Young Award that year at age 39. Click here for pictures of Shoeless Joe Jackson.
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