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Smoky Joe Wood: The Biography of a Baseball Legend
WINNER OF THE 2014 SEYMOUR MEDAL sponsored by the Society for American Baseball Research and finalist for 2014 SABR Larry Ritter Award
Though his pitching career lasted only a few seasons, Howard Ellsworth “Smoky Joe” Wood was one of the most dominating figures in baseball history—a man many consider the best baseball player who is not in the Hall of Fame. About his fastball, Hall of Fame pitcher Walter Johnson once “Listen, mister, no man alive can throw harder than Smoky Joe Wood.”
Smoky Joe Wood chronicles the singular life befitting such a baseball legend. Wood got his start impersonating a female on the National Bloomer Girls team. A natural athlete, he pitched for the Boston Red Sox at eighteen, won twenty-one games and threw a no-hitter at twenty-one, and had a 34-5 record plus three wins in the 1912 World Series, for a 1.91 ERA, when he was just twenty-two. Then in 1913 Wood suffered devastating injuries to his right hand and shoulder that forced him to pitch in pain for two more years. After sitting out the 1916 season, he came back as a converted outfielder and played another five years for the Cleveland Indians before retiring to coach the Yale University baseball team.
With details culled from interviews and family archives, this biography, the first of this rugged player of the Deadball Era, brings to life one of the genuine characters of baseball history.
Though his pitching career lasted only a few seasons, Howard Ellsworth “Smoky Joe” Wood was one of the most dominating figures in baseball history—a man many consider the best baseball player who is not in the Hall of Fame. About his fastball, Hall of Fame pitcher Walter Johnson once “Listen, mister, no man alive can throw harder than Smoky Joe Wood.”
Smoky Joe Wood chronicles the singular life befitting such a baseball legend. Wood got his start impersonating a female on the National Bloomer Girls team. A natural athlete, he pitched for the Boston Red Sox at eighteen, won twenty-one games and threw a no-hitter at twenty-one, and had a 34-5 record plus three wins in the 1912 World Series, for a 1.91 ERA, when he was just twenty-two. Then in 1913 Wood suffered devastating injuries to his right hand and shoulder that forced him to pitch in pain for two more years. After sitting out the 1916 season, he came back as a converted outfielder and played another five years for the Cleveland Indians before retiring to coach the Yale University baseball team.
With details culled from interviews and family archives, this biography, the first of this rugged player of the Deadball Era, brings to life one of the genuine characters of baseball history.
386 pages, Hardcover
First published April 1, 2013
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
December 11, 2021
pros: an exceptional biography that goes far beyond the compelling sketch you get in ritter's "the glory of their times." makes the case that wood and his 40 war (in a truncated career extended by wood's prowess as a hitter) warrant enshrinement in the hall of fame. gerald wood (no relation to joe wood's family, as he explains at the end of the book), a prof at carson-newman college, delivers the goods in the sections of these baseball bios that are typically afterthoughts, gathering vast amounts of original primary source material about joe wood's boyhood in kansas and colorado, stint as a "female" baseball player, and later years as yale baseball coach and then as a deadball-era legend who simply won't die (he died at age 95). if there were literary references to joe wood made anywhere - in "you can call me al," "the celebrant," or some joe e. brown movie from the 30s - rest assured that gerald wood has documented them. the level of research undertaken here was impressive, to say the least (trips to multiple archives, including the big sports one at Notre Dame, loads of interviews conducted solely for this book, &c.)
cons: owing to wood's relatively brief MLB career, about 100 pages of this book, including material related to his time in the minor leagues, consists of game summaries. although wood is a very careful compiler of this material, this is the stuff of conventional early-2oth century baseball bios ( and not particularly interesting. it was the reason i put this book down in 2015 after reading the first 100 pages. after i picked up the book again on dec. 10, i decided to skim that material, focusing on insights/quotes related to his playing days. as a result, i quickly reached the more interesting material about his time at yale, his long retirement, and his legacy (hardly a throwaway chapter; perhaps the best section in the book, with quotes from wood i'd have incorporated earlier to invigorate the fairly dry game summaries).
cons: owing to wood's relatively brief MLB career, about 100 pages of this book, including material related to his time in the minor leagues, consists of game summaries. although wood is a very careful compiler of this material, this is the stuff of conventional early-2oth century baseball bios ( and not particularly interesting. it was the reason i put this book down in 2015 after reading the first 100 pages. after i picked up the book again on dec. 10, i decided to skim that material, focusing on insights/quotes related to his playing days. as a result, i quickly reached the more interesting material about his time at yale, his long retirement, and his legacy (hardly a throwaway chapter; perhaps the best section in the book, with quotes from wood i'd have incorporated earlier to invigorate the fairly dry game summaries).
March 21, 2020
Author interviewed in Baseball by the Book 022420
March 17, 2015
Excellent biography of one of the forgotten stars of the deadball era. The author exhaustively researched Joe Wood, relying on much information provided by Joe's son. This book will stand as the definitive authority on Joe Wood and corrects several errors reported over the years in other publications. Clearly a labor of love, the book still treats subjects evenly and with little prejudice. One of the better baseball biographies that I have ever read.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews