Hugh Casey was one of the most colorful members of the iconic Brooklyn Dodgers of the 1940s, a team that took part in four great pennant races, the first National League playoff series, and two exciting World Series over the course of Casey's career. That famed team included many outsized personalities, including executives Larry MacPhail and Branch Rickey, manager Leo Durocher, and players like Jackie Robinson, Pee Wee Reese, Dixie Walker, Joe Medwick, and Pete Reiser.
In Hugh Casey: The Triumphs and Tragedies of a Brooklyn Dodger, Lyle Spatz details Casey's life and career, from his birth in Atlanta to his suicide in that same city thirty-seven years later. Spatz includes such moments as Casey's famous "pitch that got away" in Game Four of the 1941 World Series, the numerous brawls and beanball wars in which Casey was frequently involved, and the Southern-born Casey's reaction to Jackie Robinson joining the Dodgers. Spatz also reveals how Casey helped to redefine the role of the relief pitcher, twice leading the National League in saves and twice finishing second—if saves had been an official statistic during his lifetime.
While this book focuses on Casey's baseball career in Brooklyn, Spatz also covers Casey's often-tragic personal life. He not only ran into trouble with the IRS, he also got into a fistfight with Ernest Hemingway and was charged in a paternity suit that was decided against him. Featuring personal interviews with Casey's son and with former teammate Carl Erskine, this bookwill fascinate and inform fans of the Brooklyn Dodgers and baseball historians alike.
- 338 pages
- English
- PDF
- Available on iOS & Android
eBook - PDF
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Edition
1Table of contents
- Contents
- Photographs
- Foreword
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- 1 The Blood of the Old South
- 2 A Sense That Good Times Were Coming to Brooklyn
- 3 Brooklyn’s Best Pitcher
- 4 A Legitimate Pennant Contender
- 5 Beanballs, Spikings, and Rhubarbs
- 6 Casey Fuels a Feud with the Cubs
- 7 Building a Champion
- 8 Casey the Workhorse
- 9 National League Champions
- 10 A Dramatic World Series Ends a Memorable Season
- 11 The Pitch That Got Away
- 12 A Memorable Night with Ernest Hemingway
- 13 Becoming a Full-Time Relief Pitcher
- 14 You’re in the Navy Now
- 15 Baseball Enters a New Era
- 16 The Return of Peace Brings the Return of Wars with St. Louis and Chicago
- 17 A Restaurant Launched and a Pennant Lost
- 18 A History-Making Addition
- 19 Burt Shotton Replaces Leo Durocher
- 20 The Hugh Casey Theory of Relief Pitching
- 21 Holding Off the Cardinals
- 22 The Mainstay of the 1947 World Series
- 23 A World Series Hero and a Successful Restaurateur
- 24 Falling, Literally and Figuratively
- 25 Casey and the Dodgers Part Ways
- 26 The Pirates and the Yankees
- 27 A Pennant and a Paternity Suit
- 28 A Wonderful Guy Who Never Hurt Anyone—but Himself
- 29 Remembering Hugh Casey
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index
- About the Author