Assesses the top fifteen baseball teams of the twentieth century, including such legendary squads as the 1927 Yankees and the 1970 Orioles, to determine which team was the greatest of the modern era.

Baseball has had its fair share of one-and-out champions, but few clubs have dominated the sport for any great length of time. Given the level of competition and the expansive length of the season, it is a remarkable accomplishment for a team to make multiple World Series appearances in a short timespan. From the Baltimore Orioles of the 1800s who would go to any length to win—including physically accosting opponents—to the 1934 Cardinals known as the “Gashouse Gang” for their rough tactics and determination, and on to George Steinbrenner’s dominant Yankees of the late twentieth century, baseball’s greatest teams somehow found a way to win year after year. Spanning three centuries of the game, Baseball’s Dynasties and the Players Who Built Them examines twenty-two of baseball’s most iconic teams. Each chapter not only chronicles the club’s era of supremacy, but also provides an in-depth look at the players who helped make their teams great. Nearly two hundred player profiles are included, featuring such well-known stars as Joe DiMaggio, Jackie Robinson, Sandy Koufax, and Pete Rose, as well as players who were perhaps overshadowed by their teammates but were nonetheless vital to their team’s reign, such as Pepper Martin, Allie Reynolds, and George Foster. With a concluding chapter that profiles the clubs that were on the cusp of greatness, Baseball’s Dynasties and the Players Who Built Them is a fascinating survey of what makes some teams dominate year after year while others get only a small taste of glory before falling to the wayside. Written in a lively style with amusing anecdotes and colorful quotes, this comprehensive book will be of interest to all fans and historians of baseball.

The Story of the Greatest Yankees Team—and Baseball Team—of All Time New York, 1936. Red Ruffing, Lefty Gomez, Bill Dickey, Lou Gehrig, Tony Lazzeri, and rookie Joe DiMaggio—with these six future Hall of Fame players, the Yankees embarked on a four-year run that would go down in the history books as the greatest Yankees team, if not, the greatest baseball team of all time. Over the next four years, the Yankees won four straight pennants, finishing an average of nearly fifteen games ahead of the second-place team. They won their four World Series by an overall margin of 16-3, sweeping the last two, putting the punctuation mark on baseball’s first true dynasty. Even the Ruthian Yankees of the twenties never won more than two consecutive world championships. From 1936 to 1939, the world was changing rapidly. America was in the grip of the Great Depression. Franklin D. Roosevelt was re-elected president in the greatest landslide in American history. And Hitler’s Germany was on the move in the fall of 1939, just as the Yankee dynasty reached its climax. Against the backdrop of a world in turmoil, baseball, and America’s love for baseball, thrived. Starring the best team of all time, featuring little-known anecdotes of players and set against a history of the world, Yankees 1936–39, Baseball's Greatest Dynasty tells the tale of a legendary team that changed history.

It has been said that Connie Mack managed only two kinds of teams during his half-century in the City of Brother Love--unbeatable and lousy. His teams collected nine pennants and five World Series titles, balanced by 17 last place finishes. While Mack, an enterprising businessman, had a gift for discovering talented players and molding them into a team, by the time he was well into his sixties, Philadelphians suspected that the A's skipper had lost his ability. Mack went on to disprove all doubts, however, with a second championship dynasty in 1929 that vindicated the "Tall Tactician." This work chronicles the rise and fall of the 1929 Philadelphia Athletics and their six-year rivalry with the New York Yankees, 1927 to 1932. Based primarily on newspaper accounts, the book tells the story of the "Grand Old Man of Baseball"--and the 1929 A's team that is unfairly overlooked in favor of the 1927 Yankees as baseball's greatest all-around team. This history is packed with photographs, notes and statistical appendices, and includes a foreword by The Sporting News writer Dave Kindred.

"Mileur provides a game-by-game account of the 1942 St. Louis Cardinals, world champions and the winningest team in franchise history. He recounts the team's close pennant race against the Brooklyn Dodgers and World Series victory over the New York Yankees, while conveying the physical and mental demands on the players within the context of wartime America"--Provided by publisher.

The tape measure home run is the greatest single act of power in the game of baseball, and the tales of these homers are the most cherished legacies players and fans hand down through the generations. Fully illustrated with photos of the players and aerial ballpark photos showing the landing spots of each stadium's longest homers.

Charles Albert Bender was one of baseball&’s most talented pitchers. By the end of his major league career in 1925, he had accrued 212 wins and more than 1,700 strikeouts, and in 1953, he became the first American Indian elected to baseball&’s Hall of Fame. But as a high-profile Chippewa Indian in a bigoted society, Bender knew firsthand the trauma of racism. In Money Pitcher: Chief Bender and the Tragedy of Indian Assimilation, William C. Kashatus offers the first biography of this compelling and complex figure. Bender&’s career in baseball began on the sandlots of Pennsylvania&’s Carlisle Indian Industrial School, where he distinguished himself as a hard-throwing pitcher. Soon, in 1903, Philadelphia Athletics manager Connie Mack signed Bender to his pitching staff, where he was a mainstay for more than a decade. Mack regarded Bender as his &“money pitcher&”&—the hurler he relied on whenever he needed a critical victory. But with success came suffering. Spectators jeered Bender on the field and taunted him with war whoops. Newspapers ridiculed him in their sports pages. His own teammates derisively referred to him as &“Chief,&” and Mack paid him less than half the salary of other star pitchers. This constant disrespect became a major factor in one of the most controversial episodes in the history of baseball: the alleged corruption of the 1914 World Series. Despite being heavily favored going into the Series against the Boston Braves, the A&’s lost four straight games. Kashatus offers compelling evidence that Bender intentionally compromised his performance in the Series as retribution for the poor treatment he suffered. Money Pitcher is not just another baseball book. It is a book about social justice and Native Americans&’ tragic pursuit of the white American Dream at the expense of their own identity. Having arrived in the major leagues only thirteen years after the Wounded Knee Massacre of 1890, Bender experienced the disastrous effects of governmental assimilation policies designed to quash indigenous Indian culture. Yet his remarkable athleticism and dignified behavior disproved popular notions of Native American inferiority and opened the door to the majors for more than 120 Indians who played baseball during the first half of the twentieth century.

During the second half of the twentieth century, Major League Baseball and its affiliated minor leagues evolved from local and regional entities governing the play of America's favorite pastime to national business organizations. The relocation of teams, league expansion, the advent of free agency and an influx of international players has made baseball big business, on an increasingly global scale. Focusing on the last fifty years, this work examines the past and present commercial elements of organized baseball, emphasizing the dual roles--competitive sport and profitable business--which the sport must now fulfill. Twenty-five essays cover five areas integral to the economic side of baseball: business and finance, human resources, international relations, management and leadership and sports marketing. Detailed discussions of the redistribution of revenues, the history of player unionization, aggressive global marketing, strategies of franchise owners and an evaluation of fan costs, among other topics introduce the reader to the important issues and specific challenges professional baseball faces in an increasingly crowded--yet geographically expansive--sports marketplace. The work is also indexed.