Summary of Luke Epplin's Our Team

Everest Media

Description

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book.
Sample Book Insights:
#1 Bob Feller’s ascent from the cow pastures of Iowa to national prominence was as baffling as it was astonishing. He was a figure straight out of a dime-store novel, an adolescent dream come to life. In his first start with the Cleveland Indians, he tied the American League record of fifteen strikeouts in a single game.
#2 The color line between Feller and Paige was entrenched since the end of the nineteenth century, when white players like Adrian Cap Anson objected to playing against interracial competition. Eventually, owners in the major and minor leagues forged a gentlemen’s agreement not to sign Black players.
#3 Bob Feller’s legend was rooted in his family’s barn, which was an archetypal dark-red wooden structure a few miles northeast of Van Meter. He helped his father milk the cows, muck the barn, and lug water from the Raccoon River.
#4 In 1932, Bob’s father built a baseball field on the family farm. It was called Oak View Park, and it became the site of many games played by local American Legion teams. In 1934, Bob started playing baseball for the Oak Views.

Sujets

• Sports
• Béisbol
• Recreation
• History
• Baseball

Informations

• Publié par: Everest Media LLC
• Date de parution: 03 juillet 2022
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9798822543058
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

Insights on Luke Epplin's Our Team
Contents Insights from Chapter 1 Insights from Chapter 2 Insights from Chapter 3
Insights from Chapter 1

#1

Bob Feller’s ascent from the cow pastures of Iowa to national prominence was as baffling as it was astonishing. He was a figure straight out of a dime-store novel, an adolescent dream come to life. In his first start with the Cleveland Indians, he tied the American League record of fifteen strikeouts in a single game.

#2

The color line between Feller and Paige was entrenched since the end of the nineteenth century, when white players like Adrian Cap Anson objected to playing against interracial competition. Eventually, owners in the major and minor leagues forged a gentlemen’s agreement not to sign Black players.

#3

Bob Feller’s legend was rooted in his family’s barn, which was an archetypal dark-red wooden structure a few miles northeast of Van Meter. He helped his father milk the cows, muck the barn, and lug water from the Raccoon River.

#4

In 1932, Bob’s father built a baseball field on the family farm. It was called Oak View Park, and it became the site of many games played by local American Legion teams. In 1934, Bob started playing baseball for the Oak Views.

#5

In 1936, Bob strained his pitching arm. Because of the injury, Slapnicka instructed Bob to skip Fargo-Moorhead and report to Cleveland for rehabilitation after his junior year of high school concluded. On the day of his departure, Bob and his father strolled past the barn and over to dormant Oak View Park, where they paced around the bases in silence.

#6

Feller’s first start was against the St. Louis Browns on August 23, and he struck out ten batters through five innings. His fastball looked like a white streak, and his curveball broke over the plate like a rabbit turning a sudden corner.

#7

Feller’s outing was unprecedented, and he was quickly hailed as the sport’s next icon. For Black audiences, it confirmed what they already knew: that major-league clubs would rather roll the dice on a white adolescent with no professional experience than sign a Black star.

#8

For decades, major league organizations had spent significant resources on scouting white sandlots for prospects. They poured money into farm systems and hired ex-players to drill fundamentals into rookies with little chance of ever blossoming into stars.

#9

Paige was signed by the Chattanooga White Sox in the Negro Southern League in 1926. He was a man on the run, jumping from Chattanooga to Birmingham to Cleveland to Pittsburgh to North Dakota and wherever else he could boost his bottom line.

#10

During off-season, the Crawfords would hire Paige to play for semiprofessional clubs struggling to stay afloat. The Negro League players routinely defeated their competition, which helped shape the public perception of them as entertainers rather than athletes.

#11

The well-publicized exploits of Paige versus the major league stars, perhaps more than anything else, awakened fans, sportswriters, and baseball officials to the potential of Black ballplayers.

#12

Feller’s performance that night was yet another example of his immense talent. However, it wasn’t enough to win the game, as Paige’s team beat Feller’s by a 4-2 margin.

#13

Bob Feller was born into a baseball family. His father, David, had staked a reputation as one of the top players on the Black semiprofessional circuits across central South Carolina. His mother, Etta Doby, recalled how Larry would look for his father after games.

#14

The Black Bottom district in Camden, South Carolina, was a different world altogether. It was flood-prone and mosquito-ridden, and it lacked basic services like plumbing and electricity. But it was where Larry Doby grew up.

#15

As a teenager, Jackie Doby was extremely quiet. He was the only Black student in his class at Paterson’s Eastside High School, and he often felt the racial injustices that came with it.

#16

Doby was a sensation in high school, and he was known from Cape May to Hoboken. He was the only one who had moves. No one could touch him on the basketball hardwood.

#17

Doby’s athletic abilities were noted by the local press, and he was named MVP of his high school basketball team, as well as the baseball team. But his teammates, who were mostly white, felt sorry for him because he wanted to be a professional baseball player, and there was no one in Major League Baseball who looked like him.

#18

In 1942, an umpire from the Negro League team the Paterson team the Newark Eagles tipped off Abe and Effa Manley, the owners of the team, about a raw eighteen-year-old phenom tearing through the high school and semiprofessional baseball circuits.

#19

In the 1930s, white Americans began looking to the preindustrial past for comfort. Bob Feller, who epitomized this nostalgia, became the nation’s new idol.

#20

Feller was a prodigy who became America’s top box-office draw. He was both a homespun boy and a sophisticated performer, and he learned how to maximize his earnings.

#21

Feller was a single-minded devotee of physical fitness and his craft, and he sharply reduced his learning curve. He had a princely salary, sponsorships with the likes of Wheaties and Wilson, and even a candy bar that bore his likeness.