THE FIRST FALL CLASSIC

The story of the 1912 World Series—between the Boston Red Sox and the New York Giants—which electrified East Coast fans in a manner unrivaled even by the exciting three-way 1912 presidential campaign and by a sensational murder trial.

New York Post sports columnist Vaccaro (1941—The Greatest Year in Sports, 2007, etc.) succumbs at times to the pervasive hyperbole in the sports-history genre, but he mostly restrains his diction and focuses on reporting what must indeed have been a most remarkable Series, with one tie game called on account of darkness and, according to the rules, replayed in its entirety the following day. The Series featured some future Hall of Famers, including Sox outfielder Tris Speaker (who played with an injured ankle), Giants manager John McGraw and his legendary pitcher Christy Mathewson, who had remaining only a few good years after 1912. The cast of minor characters is stellar, too, including the only Dane ever to perform in the Majors, Olaf Henriksen, who didn’t play much for the Sox but smacked an improbable pinch game-tying hit against Mathewson in Game 8. Vaccaro pauses continually to discuss certain principals—Smoky Joe Wood, Fred Merkle, the intrusive Sox owner James McAleer—and to provide updates on the 1912 presidential politics. Competing in their own series were W.H. Taft, Theodore Roosevelt and winner Woodrow Wilson; hit by a would-be assassin’s bullet, Roosevelt kept his speaking engagement that day. The author also examines the murder trial of NYPD officer Charles Becker, who was convicted of ordering the murder of a prominent gambler and died in the electric chair. Vaccaro also highlights the fans, tens of thousands of whom jammed the stadiums and, in New York, packed Herald Square and Times Square for updates via telegraph and telephone.

Thoroughly researched and briskly paced, though sometimes predictable and portentous.