Cap Anson 2 : The Theatrical and Kingly Mike Kelly: U. S. Team Sport's First Media Sensation and Baseball's Original Casey at the Bat

by Rosenberg, Howard W.

• ISBN13: 9780972557412
• ISBN10: 0972557415
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2004-05-31
• Publisher: Tile Books

Summary

This is the definitive biography of the Hall of Fame player, Mike Kelly, who was the most likely model, if any single player was, for the title character in Ernest Thayer's 1888 poem ''Casey at the Bat." A year earlier, Kelly became famous when Chicago sold him to Boston for a then-record price of $10,000, about $200,000 today. Until the final year of his life, 1894, he drew exceptionally colorful and informative coverage. In May 2005, the San Diego Union-Tribune called Kelly's 86-page 1888 book one of the ten most influential baseball books of all time (http://www.signonsandiego.com/sports/baseball/20050516-9999-lz1s16books.html). Cap Anson 2 fleshes out those aspects of the 1888 book that provide significant insights into Kelly (the 1888 book was ghostwritten and Cap Anson 2 fully accounts for his ghostwriter's writing elsewhere about Kelly). A 1996 Kelly biography by Scarecrow Press credited Kelly's book to the wrong ghostwriter. Cap Anson 2 also closely integrates Kelly with the one other player with as unusual a personality up to 1900, Cap Anson, his captain-manager for seven seasons and the first player to 3,000 hits. Also detailed are their similar interests off the field, including in acting, hunting and playing billiards. Kelly acted, literally and figuratively, through close associations with members of the Boston Elks, a fraternal group with theatrical ties well into the twentieth century. Kelly was exceptionally colorful (a main nickname, ''The $10,000 Beauty,'' derived from an actress who won a $10,000 beauty contest offered by circus owner Adam Forepaugh) and his funny mannerisms on the field were legendary in Boston until "market-driven journalism'' took hold, leading the Boston Globe and Boston Herald to extinguish their own rich past on Kelly in favor of subscriber- and advertiser-friendly figures such as Ted Williams. More than just an ode to a single player dressed up around already exhausted eras such as the 1940s and 1950s, Cap Anson 2 also the definitive biography of the actors and musicians most interesting to relate to the national pastime up to 1900: comic actors Nat Goodwin, De Wolf Hopper, Digby Bell and Maurice Barrymore (Drew's great-grandfather); Shakespearean actors Edwin Booth, Lawrence Barrett and Alexander Salvini; playwright Charles Hoyt; lyricist William "Billy'' Jerome; theatrical agent George W. Floyd; and composer John Philip Sousa.The book's lone appendix, betting on baseball up to 1900 and featuring Hall of Famer Anson, was the most important new historical compliment to Pete Rose's 2004 biography. Praise for Cap Anson 2: "Quirky and immensely readable, Mr. Rosenberg's book is a refreshing alternative to most that deal with Red Sox history and players. For one thing, there's not a single mention of the Yankees."--Allen Barra, the New York Sun

Table of Contents

Introduction: Reverse Discriminators: The Modern Sports Media

1. Casey and Kelly

2. "The Only'' and "King''

3. Humble Beginnings

4. Anson and Kelly: Playing, Hunting and Trap Shooting

5. Anson and Kelly: Acting

6. De Wolf Hopper, Digby Bell and Other Actor Fans

7. Backing up Big Injun Anson (1884-86)

8. $10,000 Beauty

9. Boston, the Athens of America (1887)

10. An Alleged Account of his Life (1888)

11. Kelly's Bar and the 1888-89 World Tour

12. Imitating the Mushy-Mouthed Actors (1889)

13. Cottage Kelly (1890)

14. Only Two of Us Left, Me and Edwin Booth (1891)

15. Give Boston Writers the Laugh and Quit the Town (1892)

16. With Billy Jerome and Johnny Ward (1893)

17. With Mark Murphy and Albert L. Johnson (1894)

18. Moments with Anson

19. Drinking and Other Habits

Appendix: Betting on Baseball

Kelly's Statistics

Kelly and Conant