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Baseball in the Roaring Twenties

The Yankees, the Cardinals, and the Captivating 1926 Season

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Pub Date Sep 01 2025 | Archive Date Aug 31 2025

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Description

In the mid-1920s, America was in the throes of exuberant excess and clashing social change. It was the era of Prohibition and speakeasies; the reemergence of the Ku Klux Klan; popular evangelists, including ex-ballplayer Billy Sunday; a fascination with dangerous stunts like pole-sitting and wing-walking; incredible personal feats and new personalities such as Charles Lindbergh, Gertrude Ederle, and Mae West; and the advancement of innovative forms of entertainment—jazz, motion pictures, the radio. It was the Golden Age of Sports. But it was also a decade of corruption amid the ominous signs of economic collapse.

In 1926 baseball stars of an earlier era still played major roles in the game: Veteran pitcher Grover Cleveland Alexander was the hero of the 1926 World Series; Ty Cobb and Tris Speaker faced explosive allegations of game-fixing; Babe Ruth’s mysterious illness and dismal 1925 season convinced many observers that Ruth was finished—over the hill. Meanwhile, new stars like Tony Lazzeri and Lou Gehrig had arrived on the scene, and the Negro Leagues were at the height of their popularity and success with Rube Foster’s Chicago American Giants winning the Colored World Series of 1926. One of America’s most ardent fans cheered from the White House—not the taciturn president, Calvin Coolidge, but his vibrant and well-liked wife, Grace.

Focusing on the Cardinals and Yankees and their dramatic seven-game battle in the 1926 World Series, Baseball in the Roaring Twenties tells the story of key players such as Babe Ruth and Rogers Hornsby, the Negro Leagues season, and how baseball and the inextricably linked aspects of American life—Prohibition, the Jazz Age, and the rise of sports gambling—converged that year. 
 

In the mid-1920s, America was in the throes of exuberant excess and clashing social change. It was the era of Prohibition and speakeasies; the reemergence of the Ku Klux Klan; popular evangelists...


Advance Praise

“Readers who loved Thomas Wolf’s The Called Shot are in for another treat. Wolf’s Baseball in the Roaring Twenties sets a rich historical and cultural backdrop for his masterful retelling of the dramatic 1926 World Series between Babe Ruth’s New York Yankees and the St. Louis Cardinals of Rogers Hornsby and Pete Alexander, looking also at Rube Foster and the Negro World Series, and the allegations of game-fixing involving Ty Cobb and Tris Speaker.”—Tim Wiles, former director of research for the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum

“Thomas Wolf explores both the national pastime and America itself. Everyone is here, from fading diamond star Grover ‘Ol’ Pete’ Alexander to hot rookie Tony ‘Poosh ’Em Up’ Lazzeri, plus the explorers, gangsters, evangelists, and politicians of the day. Wolf paints a broad, fascinating landscape with skill and grace.”—Jim Leeke, author of Big Loosh: The Unruly Life of Umpire Ron Luciano

“Tom Wolf is Frederick Lewis Allen incarnate. What Allen’s Only Yesterday was to the 1920s in its immediate aftermath, Wolf’s Baseball in the Roaring Twenties is to that most fascinating decade a century later. More than just a baseball book, Wolf’s latest uses the 1926 season as a prism through which to interrogate many aspects of the era’s legacy, both near and far from the diamond.”—Clayton Trutor, author of Loserville: How Professional Sports Remade Atlanta—and How Atlanta Remade Professional Sports

“Tom Wolf’s book is an engaging story about baseball in the heart of the Roaring Twenties, situating the 1926 season in the context of the era and telling of the stunning comeback of the Yankees after their collapse in 1925 and the surprising emergence of the Cardinals to win their first-ever World Series title.”—Steve Steinberg, coauthor of Mike Donlin: A Rough and Rowdy Life from New York Baseball Idol to Stage and Screen

“Readers who loved Thomas Wolf’s The Called Shot are in for another treat. Wolf’s Baseball in the Roaring Twenties sets a rich historical and cultural backdrop for his masterful retelling of the...


Available Editions

EDITION Other Format
ISBN 9781496235787
PRICE $36.95 (USD)
PAGES 264

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Average rating from 8 members


Featured Reviews

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This was a fantastic book. Anyone who loves baseball in its most glorious era will love this book. I wasn't anticipating what I got, but I enjoyed it more than I expected.

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This was an interesting read about baseball in the 1920s and before along with other historical events taking place during that time period. The book does focus somewhat on the season of 1926, but covers a lot of territory outside of that year. Still is is a good read for any fan of baseball.

I received a free Kindle copy of this book courtesy of Net Galley and the publisher with the understanding that I would post a review on Net Galley, Goodreads, Amazon and my nonfiction book review blog.

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First and foremost, thank you to @netgalley for an advanced reader copy of this book!

l've mentioned it a million times, but when I am in on something, I am all in.

Which... means if there are books about said thing? I'm all over them.

In working on my baseball curriculum, l've been immersing myself in the history of the game even more so than normal.

This book is very well written. It's all about the 1926 season and the World Series between the New York @yankees (with Babe Ruth!) and the St. Louis @cardinals (with Rogers Hornsby).

It's well researched and just a very informative book, I loved it.

If you love baseball and reading about baseball (especially the history of the game!), this is the perfect book.

This wonderful book comes out September 1, 2025! Make sure to check it out!

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

#momlifewithcandace #themomlifecollaborative #bookreview #readingwithmisscandace #baseballintheroaringtwenties #netgalley #advancedreaderscopy #baseballobsessed

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Thanks so much to NetGalley for the free Kindle book. My review is voluntarily given, and my opinions are my own.

This is a great read for any baseball and/or history lover. It's very interesting and very well researched. The book is about the 1926 season, but it talks about other parts in baseball history, as it is all connected.

Definitely would recommend this book.

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I love this kind of book. Well written interesting account of baseball/life in 1926 and the rivalry between the Yankees and the cardinals. Roger’s Hornsby vs Babe Ruth. Full of colorful detail about individual players, the Negro Leauges and gambling its a good read. And fast paced as well.

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I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book. I will certainly recommend it to others. Thank you to NetGalley and the publishers for the ARC.

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Thank you NetGalley and Thomas Wolf for the opportunity to read this delightful book in return for my honest review.

Just as the 2025 Pennant Races are heating up, Wolf has penned a wonderful book that focuses on the 1926 seasons of both "White" Baseball and "Black" Baseball as well as a colorful cast of characters from the "Babe," Lou Gehrig and Tony Lazerri of the Yankees, to Rogers Hornsby, and Grover Cleveland Alexander of the St. Louis Cardinals who squared off in the World Series. This was also the season when Judge Landis, the Commissioner of Major League Baseball, had to deal with more rumors of fixing games in the 1919 Season, this time involving future Hall of Famers, Ty Cobb and Tris Speaker, among others.

As a long time baseball fan I obviously knew more about the famous "Murders Row" of the NY Yankees and would have liked a little more depth about the Cardinals and their incredible player-manager, Hornsby. Otherwise, I found the details about the events of the day, as well as the historical figures such as Al Capone, Calvin and Grace Coolidge, and Ban Johnson and others to be informative and adding color and context to the story telling.

I also appreciated Wolf's weaving in stories of some of the stalwart players in the various "Negro Leagues" including Rube Foster, who was instrumental in the creation of the Negro National League, as well as Satchel Paige, "Smokey" Joe Williams, Cool Papa Bell and even Rube Foster's brother Bill Foster. I was surprised to learn of some teams that existed in the Philadelphia area, such as the Hilldale Darby Daisies that played in the inaugural, 1924 Colored World Series and lost to the Kansas City Monarchs.

This book is well researched and fun to read for any sports fan, especially one who enjoys the history of the American Pastime, going from the deadball era to the House that Ruth Built. I highly recommend this very enjoyable and fast reading book.

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The 1920s was the period in America’s history where the sport of baseball made a quantum leap in spectator viewing at the nation’s ballparks. The populace enjoyed simultaneously more leisure time, had more disposable income—and parlayed that into hedonistic excess by way of indulging in gambling, jazz night club/movie theater/prize fighting attendance, indulging in alcohol by way of the speakeasy in a period of Prohibition ushered in by 1919—and more.

Baseball, and the colorful personalities of players like Babe Ruth of the Yankees and Rogers Hornsby of the St. Louis Cardinals exemplified the embracement of leisure and the 1926 World Series that the two teams part in was very much an adjunct to the aforementioned leisurely pursuits and baseball spectators reveled in it in almost Romanesque “bread and circuses” fashion.

Author Thomas Wolf brings all of this to light quite handily, providing the reader with copious “play by play” passages on important games by teams leading into the pennant race—as well as the fine details of the Yankees-Cardinals World Series seven game matchup of 1926. I must forewarn that if the reader has only a casual interest/knowledge of detailed inning play, some sections of the book might be deemed tedious.

Wolf does a excellent job in bringing the vibrant personalities of players, owners and managers to light in this fine effort, and I have to laud him for bringing to light a parallel universe of by now increasingly heralded Black ballplayers like Satchel Paige, Rube Foster and many others who lived out their playing careers in segregated leagues.

(My appreciation to Netgalley which provided me with this book in exchange for a candid and honest review).

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