Other books by David L. Fleitz:

More Ghosts in the Gallery (McFarland, 2007) contains 16 more fascinating biographies of little-known Hall of Famers. It will be released this summer.

Louis Sockelexis: The First Cleveland Indian (McFarland, 2002) tells the interesting and tragic story of the first Native American in major league baseball, and the first minority player of any kind in the National League.

Ghosts in the Gallery at Cooperstown (McFarland, 2004) contains 16 biographies of little-known, but highly fascinating, members of the Hall of Fame.

Shoeless: The Life and Times of Joe Jackson (McFarland, 2001) tells the true story of the legendary character from Eight Men Out and Field of Dreams.  Shoeless was selected as the first winner of the OSBY (Outstanding Sports Book of the Year) Award by the Hickory (NC) Sports Commission and the Hickory Public Library. 

Comments? Send e-mail to dfleitz@wowway.com.

Cap Anson: The Grand Old Man of Baseball

by David L. Fleitz

Adrian C. (Cap) Anson was baseball's most prominent performer of the 1876-1900 period, 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 more than 100 years ago.  David Fleitz, author of the award-winning Shoeless: The Life and Times of Joe Jackson, has once again succeeded in bringing an interesting, complex, and tragic figure to life.  The book is published by McFarland and Company of Jefferson, North Carolina, a recognized industry leader in works on baseball history.

About the Book:

Cap Anson’s plaque at the Baseball Hall of Fame sums up his career with admirable simplicity: “The greatest hitter and greatest National League player-manager of the 19th century.” Anson was the greatest star of baseball's first three decades.  He hit over .300 in all but three of his 27 major league seasons, and upon his retirement in 1897, held the all-time records for games played, times at bat, hits, runs scored, doubles and runs batted in. For much of his career, he also served as manager of the National League’s Chicago White Stockings (now known as the Cubs), winning five pennants and finishing in the top half of the league in 15 of his 19 seasons at the helm.

Anson led a very interesting life. He took advantage of his fame, starring in a Broadway play and touring on the vaudeville circuit. He traveled to England, Europe, Egypt, and Australia, introducing baseball throughout the world. Regrettably, he also vehemently opposed the presence of African Americans in the game and played a significant role in its segregation in the 1880s. From Marshalltown, Iowa, to superstar status, this work traces the life and times of Anson and the growth of the national pastime.

 
The reviewers speak:

This is a fine biography of an oft-maligned figure reaching back to the earliest days of the game.  David Fleitz's fair-minded book ... offers an excellent history of the development of professional baseball as a business and as a pure game from its earliest days, when Anson was far and away the sport's leading celebrity.

-Miami Herald, March 7, 2006

Of great interest to baseball-history buffs ... prodigiously researched, and help[s] us understand how the game of baseball both shaped and embodied American culture in what Mark Twain called the "raging, tearing, booming" 19th century.

-Providence Journal, March 22, 2006

“David Fleitz has become something of a chronicler of the flawed idols of a century ago. Cap Anson, the Grand Old Man of Baseball is a worthy successor to his fine biographies of Shoeless Joe Jackson and Louis Sockalexis.”

-Elysian Fields Quarterly

About the Author:

David Fleitz is a resident of Bowling Green, Ohio and is employed as a software developer and systems designer.  David, a member of SABR (Society of American Baseball Research) since 2000,  is the award-winning author of Shoeless: The Life and Times of Joe Jackson (McFarland, 2001) and Louis Sockalexis: The First Cleveland Indian (McFarland, 2002), which was a finalist for the Seymour Medal, an annual award for the best baseball book published that year.  His third book, Ghosts in the Gallery at Cooperstown, was published by McFarland in early 2004, and his fourth, Cap Anson: The Grand Old Man of Baseball, appeared in 2005.  

David is also a baseball trivia expert, winning the annual competition at the national SABR convention in Seattle in 2006 after taking second place in Toronto the year before.  He has authored articles for SABR's Baseball Research Journal and The National Pastime, and his work appears in two recent compilations, Deadball Stars of the National League (Brassey's, 2005) and Deadball Stars of the American League (Potomac Books, 2007).

How to order:

There are three ways to order Cap Anson: The Grand Old Man of Baseball.

or, call McFarland toll-free at 1-800-253-2187.