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Inventing Baseball Heroes
- Ty Cobb, Christy Mathewson, and the Sporting Press in America
- Narrated by: Pam Rossi
- Length: 7 hrs and 36 mins
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Publisher's summary
In Inventing Baseball Heroes, Amber Roessner examines "herocrafting" in sports journalism through an incisive analysis of the work surrounding two of baseball's most enduring personalities - Detroit Tigers outfielder Ty Cobb and New York Giants pitcher Christy Mathewson. While other scholars have demonstrated that the mythmakers of the Golden Age of Sports Writing (1920-1930) manufactured heroes out of baseball players for the mainstream media, Roessner probes further, with a penetrating look at how sportswriters compromised emerging professional standards of journalism as they crafted heroic tales that sought to teach American boys how to be successful players in the game of life.
Cobb and Mathewson, respectively stereotyped as the game's sinner and saint, helped shape their public images in the mainstream press through their relationship with four of the most prominent sports journalists of the time: Grantland Rice, FC Lane, Ring Lardner, and John N. Wheeler. Roessner traces the interactions between the athletes and the reporters, delving into newsgathering strategies as well as rapport-building techniques, and ultimately revealing an inherent tension in objective sports reporting in the era.
Inventing Baseball Heroes will be of interest to scholars of American history, sports history, cultural studies, and communication. Its interdisciplinary approach provides a broad understanding of the role sports journalists played in the production of American heroes.
The book is published by Louisiana State University Press.
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Story
In the most famous scandal of sports history, eight Chicago White Sox players - including Shoeless Joe Jackson - agreed to throw the 1919 World Series to the Cincinnati Reds in exchange for the promise of $20,000 each from gamblers reportedly working for New York mobster Arnold Rothstein. Heavily favored, Chicago lost the Series five games to three. Although rumors of a fix flew while the series was being played, they were largely disregarded by players and the public at large.
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Great telling of a truly American story
- By Robert Taylor on 01-06-21
By: Charles Fountain
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Opening Day
- The Story of Jackie Robinson's First Season
- By: Jonathan Eig
- Narrated by: Richard Allen
- Length: 12 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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Drawing on interviews with surviving players, sportswriters, and eyewitnesses, as well as newly discovered material from archives around the country, Jonathan Eig presents a fresh portrait of a ferocious competitor who embodied integration's promise and helped launch the modern civil-rights era. Full of new details and thrilling action, Opening Day brings to life baseball's ultimate story.
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Great book, not so great reading
- By Joe Baseball on 08-30-07
By: Jonathan Eig
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The League
- How Five Rivals Created the NFL and Launched a Sports Empire
- By: John Eisenberg
- Narrated by: Daniel Thomas May
- Length: 11 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
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The National Football League's current dominance has obscured how professional football got its start. In The League, John Eisenberg reveals that Art Rooney, George Halas, Tim Mara, George Preston Marshall, and Bert Bell took an immense risk by investing in the professional game. At that time, the sport barely registered on the national scene. The five owners succeeded only because at critical junctures in the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s, each sacrificed the short-term success of his team for the longer-term good of the League.
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what a great book. loved it completely.
- By Daniel Mosca on 11-08-18
By: John Eisenberg
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Summer of '68
- The Season That Changed Baseball - and America - Forever
- By: Tim Wendel
- Narrated by: Mark Ashby
- Length: 8 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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From the beginning, ’68 was a season rocked by national tragedy and sweeping change. Opening Day was postponed and later played in the shadow of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s funeral. That summer, as the pennant races were heating up, the assassination of Robert Kennedy was later followed by rioting at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago. But even as tensions boiled over and violence spilled into the streets, something remarkable was happening in major league ballparks across the country. Pitchers were dominating like never before, and with records falling and shut-outs mounting, many began hailing ’68 as “The Year of the Pitcher".
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Detroit Upsets St. Louis in 1968 World Series.
- By Matthew Tsien on 05-01-18
By: Tim Wendel
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The Last Innocents
- The Collision of the Turbulent Sixties and the Los Angeles Dodgers
- By: Michael Leahy
- Narrated by: Joe Barrett
- Length: 15 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
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Legendary Dodgers Maury Wills, Sandy Koufax, Wes Parker, Jeff Torborg, Dick Tracewski, and Tommy Davis encapsulated 1960s America: white and black, Jewish and Christian, wealthy and working class, pro-Vietnam and anti-war, golden boy and seasoned veteran. The Last Innocents is a thoughtful, technicolor portrait of these seven players - friends, mentors, confidants, rivals, and allies - and their storied team that offers an intriguing look at a sport and a nation in transition.
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Reliving my youth
- By PJ on 05-24-17
By: Michael Leahy
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Game Six
- Cincinnati, Boston, and the 1975 World Series: The Triumph of America's Pastime
- By: Mark Frost
- Narrated by: Andrew Garman
- Length: 13 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
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Best-selling author Mark Frost takes listeners back to the 1975 World Series in this thrilling account of the greatest baseball game ever played. The Reds and Red Sox endured three soggy days of inactivity to reach game six. But all that downtime could not prepare them for what happened when the skies finally cleared.
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For the love of Baseball
- By Al on 03-23-10
By: Mark Frost
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42 Faith
- The Rest of the Jackie Robinson Story
- By: Ed Henry
- Narrated by: Ed Henry
- Length: 9 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
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Journalist and baseball lover Ed Henry reveals for the first time the backstory of faith that guided Jackie Robinson into not only the baseball record books but the annals of civil rights advancement as well. Through recently discovered sermons, interviews with Robinson's family and friends, and even an unpublished book by the player himself, Henry details a side of Jackie's humanity that few have taken the time to see.
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42Faith
- By Phillip L. on 04-11-17
By: Ed Henry
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The Team That Changed Baseball
- Roberto Clemente and the 1971 Pittsburgh Pirates
- By: Bruce Markusen
- Narrated by: Kevin Free
- Length: 8 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
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In The Team That Changed Baseball: Roberto Clemente and the 1971 Pittsburgh Pirates, veteran baseball writer Bruce Markusen tells the story of one of the most likable and significant teams in the history of professional sports. In addition to the fact that they fielded the first all-minority lineup in major league history, the 1971 Pirates are noteworthy for the team's inspiring individual performances.
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The first All Black and Brown Baseball Line-up.
- By Matthew Tsien on 05-22-16
By: Bruce Markusen
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The Summer of Beer and Whiskey
- How Brewers, Barkeeps, Rowdies, Immigrants, and a Wild Pennant Fight Made Baseball America's Game
- By: Edward Achorn
- Narrated by: Ax Norman
- Length: 9 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
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Chris Von der Ahe knew next to nothing about baseball when he risked his life’s savings to found the St. Louis Browns, the franchise that would become the St. Louis Cardinals. Yet the German-born beer garden proprietor would become one of the most important - and funniest - figures in the game’s history.
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Well written and extensive research but just not interesting
- By Samuel C on 07-30-20
By: Edward Achorn
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The Extra 2%
- How Wall Street Strategies Took a Major League Baseball Team from Worst to First
- By: Jonah Keri
- Narrated by: Lloyd James
- Length: 9 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
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In The Extra 2%, financial journalist and sportswriter Jonah Keri chronicles the remarkable story of one team's Cinderella journey from divisional doormat to World Series contender. By quantifying the game's intangibles, they were able to deliver to Tampa Bay an American League pennant. This is an informative and entertaining case study for any organization that wants to go from worst to first.
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No Strategies or Insight
- By Victor Luera on 10-11-12
By: Jonah Keri
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King of the Court
- Bill Russell and the Basketball Revolution
- By: Aram Goudsouzian
- Narrated by: J. D. Jackson
- Length: 17 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
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Bill Russell was not the first African American to play professional basketball, but he was its first Black superstar. From the moment he stepped onto the court of the Boston Garden in 1956, Russell began to transform the sport in a fundamental way, making him, more than any of his contemporaries, the Jackie Robinson of basketball. In King of the Court, Aram Goudsouzian provides a vivid and engrossing chronicle of the life and career of this brilliant champion and courageous racial pioneer. Russell's leaping, wide-ranging defense altered the game's texture.
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Portrait of a Basketball Revolutionary
- By Susie on 01-28-13
By: Aram Goudsouzian
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Scribe
- My Life in Sports
- By: Bob Ryan
- Narrated by: Bob Ryan
- Length: 11 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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Ever since he joined the sports department of the Boston Globe in 1968, sports enthusiasts have been blessed with the writing and reporting of Bob Ryan. Tony Kornheiser calls him the "quintessential American sportswriter". For the past 25 years, he has also been a regular on various ESPN shows, especially The Sports Reporters, spreading his knowledge and enthusiasm for sports of all kinds.
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No my idea of a memoir
- By Michael Friedman on 12-19-14
By: Bob Ryan
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Smoketown
- By: Mark Whitaker
- Narrated by: Prentice Onayemi
- Length: 13 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
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Mark Whitaker's Smoketown is a captivating portrait of this unsung community and a vital addition to the story of black America. It depicts how ambitious Southern migrants were drawn to a steel-making city on a strategic river junction; how they were shaped by its schools and a spirit of commerce with roots in the Gilded Age; and how their world was eventually destroyed by industrial decline and urban renewal. Whitaker takes listeners on a rousing, revelatory journey - and offers a timely reminder that Black History is not all bleak.
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Hopes for Pittsburgh aka "Up South"
- By Dr. Pepper on 05-01-18
By: Mark Whitaker
What listeners say about Inventing Baseball Heroes
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Steven Gerweck
- 05-25-23
Reflection on the ungodly union
In "Inventing Baseball Heroes," author Amber Roessner reflects on what was once referred to as the ungodly union between the sports world and the media. Roessner spotlights the media;s mythical, and often exaggerated, portrayals of two of baseball's dead ball era stars - Ty Cobb and Christy Mathewson. Both future hall of famer's benefited greatly from their relationship with writers such as John Lardner and Grantland Rice. Media figures would often shape popular opinion of celebrity figures by shining a positive light, whether warranted or not, and in exchange, would be granted access to the stars. In the case of Cobb, the "Georgia Peach" would even plant ideas for writer's to paint him as a national hero - despite his scrapes with the law. As a result, Cobb would be aided financially by signing endorsement deals. Additionally, the media would write stories attributed to baseball stars, but were in reality just ghostly written. In the era long before social media, the author demonstrates how baseball figures enjoyed stellar public relations due to the writer's "creative freedoms" of the time.
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- redsrule1
- 01-30-23
Avoid the Audiobook
When I pay good money for a book, which I did for this, I expect at least a minimum level of professionalism from the writer and the narrator. Presumably they got paid for their work. But the narrator especially fell well short of this expectation. Had I still been able to return this for a refund, I would have after the first hour. As it is, I slogged through the entire thing since I was stuck with it anyway, and boy am I glad it’s over.
The major issue is with the narrator. She speaks clearly and distinctly, which is good. However, she mispronounces many, many common everyday words, to the point of distraction. In just the first hour she had already mispronounced the words "adulation," "context," "construct," "comparable," "Augusta," “fledgling,” and "forsook." Many, many more mispronunciations followed for the rest of the book (including saying “antidote” when what was clearly meant was “anecdote” many times). For some of these mispronunciations, she pronounces them correctly other places, so I can only assume that no one cared enough to have her stop and correct the mistakes. Adding to the frustration is the mispronunciation of various player names (although she got "Honus" right, which many people miss).
A truly baffling error came when the narrator said that New York Giants owner Freedman was a "real estate spectacular." Clearly "speculator" was meant. A glaring example of the carelessness with which the narrator and producer created the recording.
Another issue is the narrator’s inflection. She reads stiltedly, like a school kid called on to read from the textbook in class. She says the words, but it's clear she doesn't understand or isn't paying attention to what the sentence is actually saying, resulting in odd inflections that sometimes changed the meaning of the sentence, or creating sentence fragments such as consistently using periods thinking a sentence is over when it's actually just a comma. These misunderstandings and sentence fragments caused me to have to consistently rewind to try to figure out what the author was really trying to say.
It seemed as if nearly every paragraph suffered from at least one of the above issues. It's baffling to me that anyone has rated her performance as "5" or "4." Had the time and care been taken to correct mistakes, I'd have said the narrator did fine. She has a nice enough voice and she did try.
The author herself is not off the hook, however. I give her kudos for correctly identifying team names used in the early 1900's that differ from the names used today such as the Boston Doves and Brooklyn Superbas, but when the author asserted that Christy Matthewson won a game at Wrigley Field in 1905, I had to begin questioning the author's credibility. The stadium now known as Wrigley Field did not exist until 1914.
The author also falls into the inexperienced writer’s trap of trying to vary the selection of words used and winding up using some near-synonyms incorrectly; for example, stating that a writer “argued” when “stated” or “reported” would fit the context better because the topic was simply a statement of fact and no one was presenting an opposing viewpoint. A minor annoyance, but just another straw on the camel’s back. She also misused the word “infamous” to mean “very famous,” which it doesn’t really mean (please look it up).
She also consistently referred to “gee whiz” and “aw nuts” styles of sportswriting. She defined “gee whiz” but never clearly defined what she meant by “aw nuts,” unless maybe that explanation got lost in the narrator’s reading. As that term was used throughout the book, it was annoying that it had never been properly defined.
Additionally, the author needlessly padded a book that was supposed to be about how sportswriters created the images of Matthewson and Cobb, with unnecessary in-depth details of how various games, especially of the World Series, played out. These recaps weren’t unwelcome or uninteresting, but they were well-known stories that sometimes didn’t add anything to the point she was trying to make about the players’ images being created, and seemed to be added merely to achieve a word count. Or if they did matter, the author failed to make the connection (or the connection was lost by the narrator).
All in all, there was some interesting information about sportswriters and sportswriting during the deadball era, but not a lot of new ground seemed to be covered here. It was as much a biography of Matthewson, Cobb, and sportswriters such as Grantland Rice as it was an analysis of the formation of the players' images. If you’re really interested in the topic, it might be worth picking up the Kindle or printed version. But do yourself a favor and avoid this as an audiobook.
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