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Type of bind: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 796.357092
EAN num: 9780803294332
ISBN number: 0803294336
Label: Bison Books
Manufacturer: Bison Books
Quantity: 1
Page Count: 516
Printing Date: April 01, 1998
Publishing house: Bison Books
Sale Popularity Level: 316310
Studio: Bison Books
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Editor's Notes and Comments:
Product Description:
'This lavishly illustrated narrative of Walter Johnson's life is the definitive work on the subject and is likely to remain so.' - Lawrence S. Ritter, 'Oldtyme Baseball News'. 'Henry Thomas's biography of Walter Johnson is carefully researched, thoroughly documented, and, best of all, a pleasure to read.' - 'Spitball'. 'Does justice to Johnson's extraordinary on-field accomplishments, and it also emphasizes his decency, humility, and self-effacing humor.' - 'Booklist'. 'Belongs in the very top ranks of sports biographies.' - 'Washington Times'. 'One of the most comprehensive biographies ever written about an athlete. Incredibly detailed, filled with fascinating stories about arguably the greatest pitcher of all time.' - Tim Kurkjian, senior writer for 'Sports Illustrated'. 'Delights the soul.' - 'Sports Collectors Digest'. Henry W. Thomas, the grandson of Walter Johnson, lives in Arlington, Virginia. He is currently editing, for audio release, the interviews taped by Lawrence Ritter for his classic 'The Glory of Their Times'. Shirley Povich died in 1998 at the age of 92 after seventy-five years as an award-winning sportswriter for the 'Washington Post'.
Amazon.com Review:
How good a pitcher was Washington Senator ace Walter Johnson? Babe Ruth, Ty Cobb, and Joe Jackson considered him the best ever. His career strikeout record lasted for half a century, and no one's ever come close to his mark of 110 shutouts; some of his Senator teams were so bad, the only way Johnson could win was literally to keep opponents from scoring. Of course, the numbers alone don't tell the story. Johnson was a towering figure in the very first quarter of the baseball century. One of the most respected--and liked--men in the game, he was something of an anti-Cobb: straight, honest, and clean, with a life off the field as content as it was accomplished on it. This is an excellent, exhaustive biography, showing clear affection for Johnson from the very first pitch: Thomas is Johnson's grandson. Despite the blood tie, Thomas doesn't just go straight down the middle; he is willing to work the corners of his grandfather's life, which actually allows his relationship to his subject to add to the work's significant depth. --Jeff Silverman
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Rated by buyers 
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Has there ever been a Major League Baseball star who was as nice a person as Walter Johnson a.k.a. "The Big Train?"
Even Christy Mathewson and Ernie Banks and a bunch of other guys over the years who were great people would be hard-pressed to top Johnson. Walter was about as kind and gentle as a pro athlete could ever get. That's the main thing I came away with after reading this biography of the Hall of Fame pitcher.
I knew Johnson, just from his victory total alone, was one of the greatest pitchers of all time. (Some still think he was the best.) I didn't know what high character the man had, and that everyone - including infamous nasty guys like Ty Cobb and John McGraw - loved him, too. You read the book and you'll know why Johnson was such a beloved figure.
Despite his superstar celebrity status in Washington, D.C., Johnson had a lot of disappointments and tragedies in his life, too. The book, written by his grandson Henry Thomas, tells us all of them. Being in the family, he would know a lot of family information.
Normally, I would think that since Thomas was a direct relation to the great pitcher, the book would too biased but everyone had so many good things to say about Walter, that I believe this a true account of the man.I would love to see films of him and his 100 m.p.h. fastball.
People talk about role-models in sports. Well, here is one.
Rated by buyers 
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The strength of this book is its detail. As a scientist as well as a baseball fan, I was always intrigued by the question of pitching speed.
This, unlike home run distances and nymber of HRs, has not been affected by changes in the baseball, stadium size, etc. There were no means for
measuring Johnson's ball speed while he was playing, in his prime, but there is a means of getting a good estimate, and that from Bob Felller, whose speed was measured at a bit over 98 MPH. But that was at home plate, not during midflight, as is often the case for measurements performed by doppler guns, and which would show higher speeds, since the ball is slowing down from the instant it leaves the pitcher's hand. So we can assume rather confidently that Feller's pitches exceeded 100 MPH.
And here's the link to Johnson : Bob Feller had seen Johnson pitch firsthand, at close range, and said that Johnson was way faster than he was. That can only lead me to believe that Johnson's pitches must have exceeded 110 MPH. Other anecdotal evidence has come from Cobb and Ruth
and Shoeless Joe Jackson, all of whom considered Johnson easily the best pitcher they ever saw, and Cobb remarked that Johnson's fastball actually hissed as it went by. He was rather afraid to stand there while Johnson was throwing, who he said had two pitches : fast, and REALLY fast. At 5 foot 11 inches and 200 pounds, and with very long arms, Johnson was physically well endowed as a fastball pitcher. Statistics fail to portray
how good he really was, considering the enormous workload he carried and for such a rotten team for most of his best years.
Rated by buyers -
I have read most of the "greatest" baseball books and this is one of the best. This is obviously the writer's lifetime work, and he weaves Walter Johnson's life with his very personal belongings to create a masterpiece.
If you want to get a feel for what baseball was like at the turn of the century, then this will answer your questions. This is one of the only hardbacks that I will keep forever.
Rated by buyers -
The fact that Walter Johnson was the grandfather of the author does not disqualify this book as a legitimate biography. Since he didn't grow up around the "Big Train" Henry Thomas had to rely on meticulous research and perhaps his family connection gave him easier acess to first-person accounts.
Walter Johnson had a freakish right arm. With an easy-going sidearm delivery he threw fastballs with such great velocity that Ty Cobb reported he flinched the very first time he stepped into the batter's box and Johnson's pitched "hissed with danger" as it blew by. The book is peppered with other anecdotes of players reporting that Johnson was so fast other players could hardly see, much less hit the ball. He probably wasn't faster than Nolan Ryan or Randy Johnson in their prime, but he was so much faster than his contemporaries his pitches seemed like bullets.
Yet he was perhaps even more of a gentleman. He was modest,kind,loyal and honest. When Johnson's Washington team finally got into a pennant race in Walter's eighteenth season, there was so much support for him from OPPOSING crowds the cheers for him were repeatedly louder than for the home team, even at stadiums such as Boston's Fenway Park and Babe Ruth's Yankee Stadium.
Johnson's lifetime statistics are amazing. Only Cy Young has more wins than his 417, and if not for his record number of one-run losses, including a record number of 1-0 losses (he also owns the record for 1-0 wins), he would have more wins.
He was among the very first five players inducted into baseball's Hall of Fame, won two MVP awards, and set the all-time record for batting average by a pitcher with .433 in 1925. He won 20 games 12 times, including a record ten in a row, and over 30 games twice. He had 110 career shutouts - no other pitcher has 100. In 1913 he won 36 games, lost 7, and gave up only 44 runs in 48 games. You need a microscope to see his career ERA of 2.13.
He was also a devoted family man, married to a congressman's daughter until death did part them, with four children. He was so popular that in public appearances with his younger, more handsome available teammates, single young women swooned, even though it was well-known that he was married.
Few American sports heroes have embodied the combination of ability, accomplishment and virtue that were all seen in Walter Johnson. This books stands up well subsequent to the most well-known in the genre. I'd much rather see a film version of this than to have seen "Babe" or "Cobb." This is on the short list of "best baseball books."
Rated by buyers -
I will just one particular reason why I like this book. It will seem trivial to some readers, and I will not be surprised if this review gets negative recommendations because of it. After all, the author did not deliberately intend for this "selling point" to occur, but it did. What is it? Well, Henry Thomas is a stickler for names. He insists on calling teams and places what they were called at the time instead of what we refer to them today. The Washington ballpark is not referred to as Griffith Stadium until the early 20's. References are made to the Cleveland Naps and the New York Highlanders. where am I going with this? In the third chapter, Thomas explains how the owners of the Washington American League team decide to officially change the name of team from "Senators" to "Nationals" for good luck. The name did not catch on with fans, who still preferred to call them "Senators", although "Nats" (short for both seNATorS and NATionalS) was a common nickname. Still, Thomas consistently refers to Johnson's team as the "Nationals" since that was the franchise's official name until 1956.
This book was written in 1995. Although there were fans who dreamed major league baseball would eventually return to Washington, D.C., it still seemed like impossible for many people. But eventually, the Montr?al Expos WERE moved to Washington, and Thomas' choice of words proved prophetic. Commissioner Bud Selig wanted to rename the team the "Washington Senators" after the team he remembered in his youth. D.C. Mayor Tony Williams was adamantally opposed to "Senators" since D.C. had no voting representation in Congress---he wanted the team named "Washington Grays" after the champion Negro League team that used to play at Griffith Stadium. "Washington Nationals" was chosen as a compromise.
The result is that if you are sitting in the stands at RFK Stadium watching a Nats game (perhaps the home opener, as I was doing today) and you turn to read Thomas' biography of Walter Johnson and his "Nationals", you realize that the current team is part of a long tradition of Washington baseball, and it is a proud tradition. The proudest part of the history of Washington baseball was the career of Walter Johnson. This book reminds finds why.
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