In The Year St. Louis Became a Baseball Town, St. Louis native, Terry Lemons transports readers back a century to hear a roaring twenties tale of how the baseball team of a Midwestern burg of 800,000 -- the St. Louis Cardinals -- bested the mighty New York Yankees, representing a city of 8 million, and won the World Series of 1926. Many of the names are familiar -- Babe Ruth & Lou Gehrig from the Yankees and Rogers Hornsby from the Cardinals, but Lemons' story includes numerous less well known players. Especially interesting is the story of Cardinals pitcher Grover Cleveland Alexander contrasting the pathos of his real life and the version provided to the public by Hollywood, with Ronald Reagan starring as the pitcher. Lemons weaves the accomplishments of the era -- St. Louis Aviator Charles Lindbergh's solo flight from New York to Paris into the story. A century ago, those who couldn't attend in person heard it on the radio, read the results in the papers, or followed the game on scoreboards posted outside various news establishments. Players race to games on 20-hour railroad rides, fans crowd stadiums, and St. Louis civic leaders try to organize peaceful events to recognize their teams, not always successfully. For anyone interested in baseball, but more than that, for anyone interested in what America was like 100 years ago, be prepared to be entertained by this book.
