Fifty-nine in '84

<p><strong>First-class narrative history that can stand with everything Steven Ambrose wrote. . . . Achorn's description of the utter insanity that was barehanded baseball is vivid and alive. --<em>Boston Globe</em></strong></p><p><strong>A beautifully written meticulously researched story about a bygone baseball era that even die-hard fans will find foreign and about a pitcher who might have been the greatest of all time. -- Joseph J. Ellis Pulitzer prize-winning historian</strong></p><p>In 1884 Providence Grays pitcher Charles Old Hoss Radbourn won an astounding fifty-nine games--more than anyone in major-league history ever had before or has since. He then went on to win all three games of baseball's first World Series. </p><p><em>Fifty-nine in '84</em> tells the dramatic story not only of that amazing feat of grit but also of big-league baseball two decades after the Civil War--a brutal bloody sport played barehanded the profession of uneducated hard-drinking men who thought little of cheating outrageously or maiming an opponent to win. </p><p>Wonderfully entertaining <em>Fifty-nine in '84</em> is an indelible portrait of a legendary player and a fascinating little-known era of the national pastime.</p>