Focusing on the extraordinary 1926 baseball season, Baseball in the Roaring Twenties shows how baseball was inextricably linked with Prohibition, the Jazz Age, and the rise of sports gambling during the twenties.
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 entertainmentjazz, 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 Ruths mysterious illness and dismal 1925 season convinced many observers that Ruth was finishedover 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 Fosters Chicago American Giants winning the Colored World Series of 1926. One of Americas most ardent fans cheered from the White Housenot 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 lifeProhibition, the Jazz Age, and the rise of sports gamblingconverged that year.
