The First Fall Classic, The Red Sox, The Giants, the Cast of Players, Pugs and Politicos who Reinvented the World Series in 1912 by Mike Vaccaro; 290 pages; $26.95; 2009; Doubleday, New York, NY; 978-0-385-5624-1; Checked out from Multnomah County Library,Central; 7/22-7-27

…”any man who would choose a day’s work over a day of baseball is a fool not worthy of friendship.”

William Howard Taft

In 1912 the New York Giants and Boston Red Sox played a eight  game World Series.  They played eight because the owners were greedy and games were permitted to end in a tie.  The Red Sox owner made the manager change to a pitcher who didn’t know he was going to pitch until the morning of the game, he had been out drinking until the wee hours of the morning.  The games featured their share of bad and great plays, 5 future Hall of Famers played in the series.  The cast of characters in the series includes the gambler who would be indicted in the fix of the 1918 series, Arnold Rothstein, who happened to be the partner of manager John McGraw in a chain of billiard halls.  Also Honey Fitz, the mayor of Boston, was the Sox biggest booster and grandfather of President Kennedy.  This is a terrific account of how the World Series became the fall classic and in now written in capital letters. Each chapter covers a specific game or time during the series, the background on each of the players and participants in the series is thoroughly covered, a wonderful engaging account of a great series.   Grade-A