Honus Wagner: A Biography

I have been reading and studying old time baseball for many years. Not only in search of the greatest players but also enjoying the characters that played the game because they loved it and their team and the city they played in. I have always heard about and thought Honus was a very good player. After doing my research I have come to the conclusion Honus is without a doubt one of the top players in the history of the game. He could play any position and play it well. He could run and steal bases almost at will. He could hit with the best. What is not as well known is he was a team player. He loved his team and did everything he could to help them win. What might be as important about Honus is his "off-field" life. He was a tremendous ambassador for the game of baseball, he was a great family man and he was a pillar of strength in the community. To sum it up, he was a great man. I am glad I did my research on him, which includes this book.

It's sad that this book has gotten such poor reviews. I tore through the entire thing cover-to-cover and was riveted the entire time. What others see as weakness I see as a strength of the book: you come away knowing not only Johannes Peter Wagner but also Fred Clarke, Deacon Philippe, Tommy Leach, Barney Dreyfuss, and many others. The book takes you on the journey of Honus The Ballplayer, from the early days through each year he played, chronicling not only his ups & downs but also the fortunes of the Pirates teams of those early years along with the city itself. If people were expecting some tabloid revelations about illicit dealings or some scandalous dirt it reveals their own failings, not the book's. Remember, this is the guy who insisted his tobacco card be pulled (the famous T206) because he had moral objections about peddling cigarettes to kids. So enjoy the book as a great period-piece about the people, places, and times of that early 20th-century baseball era. It really is a treat.

I see some tough criticism on this page, but I cannot accept that the book has too much baseball detail. When I think of other, more recent biographies of Whitey Ford, Gabby Hartnett, and others that read like a series of several hundred box scores in prose, I think of this book as just the opposite. It paints a good picture of Wagner the man and his family, and how he spent his non-baseball hours and seasons. It retells good anecdotes in proper context, and as my fellow reviewer, Eddie Waddell notes, it doesn't try to gloss over any weaknesses the man may have had - a fault of so many baseball biographers whose goal is to get their man into the Hall of Fame by their book's building up his stats. The de Valerias obviously love their man, and you will too before you are done with the volume. Just the right amount of baseball detail, I'd say. And not just about Honus. You learn a great deal about his lesser known teammates. And the stats are almost always on target. The de Valerias may not have included a Wagner stats sheet, but at least they seem to have researched all stats they use in the book well. Yes, I wish the footnotes were more specific to the quotes, but that shouldn't deter the majority of readers.

Wow, reading the reviews, this is a tough crowd! Too much detail, not enough detail. For me, the detail was just about right. I have been listening to the unabridged audio edition while commuting. The book covers Wagner's career starting in his teen-age years. It provides a good illustration of American life at the turn of the century particularly as it related to baseball. I was especially interested to learn how many of the western PA towns I grew up around had had their own minor league ball teams back in the day - Sharon, New Castle, Warren (PA), etc. I think the authors did a good job of marching the reader through Wagner's career including the highs and the lows while also teaching about the early days of professional baseball and how the sport quickly became America's pastime.

I apparently enjoyed this book much more than the reviewers before me. This book did contain a good bit of detail but I think a true baseball fan enjoys details of a famous player's life, even of selected ballgames. I especially enjoyed the detailed accounts of the 1903 and 1909 World Series and the 1908 pennant race. The tall tales Honus spun were fun to read about as well as the Dutchman's relationships with other players like Fred Clarke, Ty Cobb, and others. The DeValerias really did their homework in researching Wagner and wrote a thourough, balanced biography of the man including the "good, bad, and ugly." I read this book quickly and found it entertaining as well as informative. It also gives a great account of what baseball, and American culture, was like at the turn of the century. To me, this was a great baseball book. I hope the DeValerias write more.