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Baseball at the Abyss: The Scandals of 1926, Babe Ruth, and the Unlikely Savior Who Rescued a Tarnished Game
The untold story behind one of baseball’s biggest scandals and the men who saved a tarnished game. In the winter of 1926, Major League Baseball became enveloped in scandal. Two of baseball’s biggest stars, Ty Cobb and Tris Speaker, were accused of fixing and betting on games. Sportswriters called the scandal worse than that of the infamous “Black Sox.” The reputation of baseball was in tatters. In Baseball at the Abyss, Dan Taylor reveals the behind-the-scenes story of how baseball was saved after the banishment of Cobb and Speaker. It was all set in motion by one unlikely individual—Christy Walsh, the business manager for Babe Ruth and baseball’s first player agent. Taylor follows Walsh and Ruth as the agent arranges for the Babe to star in a motion picture and presses for Ruth to hire a fitness guru, change his habits, and train while in Hollywood. The results were astonishing. The scandal was soon forgotten as a reinvigorated Babe Ruth enjoyed his greatest season in 1927, slugging 60 home runs and powering his New York Yankees to heights never seen before. Baseball at the Abyss features fascinating details of the 1926 scandal and the incredible resurgence of the national pastime when it seemed the game was permanently tarnished. It’s the story of a remarkable year in baseball history and the men who restored glory to a troubled game.
220 pages, Hardcover
Published April 12, 2023
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Dan Taylor
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
December 3, 2022
Baseball at the Abyss by Dan Taylor looks at the baseball off-season of 1926 and the record breaking 1927 season. Taylor chronicles the scandal which involved all time greats Ty Cobb and Tris Speaker and engulfed the whole sport in finger pointing over illegal gambling. I had never heard of this and as a baseball fan it was surprising what happened and how it all turned out. Taylor also looks at the life of Babe Ruth around this time and the rise of the sports agent when Christy Walsh enters the Babe's life. The home run competition between Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig finishes out the narrative.
This book has me stuck as a reviewer. In pieces, everything I mentioned above is interesting and Taylor writes very well. Each episode flows cleanly and Taylor has an eye for the interesting bits people want to hear. There is a lot to like here.
However, this is a short book with way too many stories, ultimately. For instance, there is a large section on Ruth's foray into a Hollywood movie. The story is interesting by itself, but it feels like a tangent from the main story which is about baseball. You could drop the entire Hollywood movie anecdote from the narrative and not lose anything. Chapters sometime feel like they are from a different book just a bit too often, even if they are fun to read.
If you are baseball fanatic, I think you will like this regardless. Swing away.
(This book was provided as an advance copy by Netgalley and Rowman & Littlefield.)
This book has me stuck as a reviewer. In pieces, everything I mentioned above is interesting and Taylor writes very well. Each episode flows cleanly and Taylor has an eye for the interesting bits people want to hear. There is a lot to like here.
However, this is a short book with way too many stories, ultimately. For instance, there is a large section on Ruth's foray into a Hollywood movie. The story is interesting by itself, but it feels like a tangent from the main story which is about baseball. You could drop the entire Hollywood movie anecdote from the narrative and not lose anything. Chapters sometime feel like they are from a different book just a bit too often, even if they are fun to read.
If you are baseball fanatic, I think you will like this regardless. Swing away.
(This book was provided as an advance copy by Netgalley and Rowman & Littlefield.)
September 16, 2023
A book like "Baseball at the Abyss" will probably just appeal to hard-core baseball history fanatics. But for that crowd, it will provide some new thought material on topics that even seasoned Dead Ball or thereabouts era scholars may not have been previously privy to.
For a very basic overview, author Dan Taylor posits in "Abyss" that Babe Ruth's 60-homer 1927 season may have saved baseball from betting/gambling scandals propagated by Ty Cobb, Tris Speaker, and Rogers Hornsby. Just a few years after the 1919 "Black Sox" World Series debacle, another round of gambling discourse could have proven lethal to the sport's popularity were it not for the larger-than-life Ruth pushing aside all negativity as he stampeded his way up the home run record charts.
Until reading this book, I had never heard about the Cobb/Speaker/Hornsby scandals of 1926 despite being a prolific reader of baseball history. So, it was interesting to experience what the '27 season might have felt like through that "primary source" lens. Though not as widely known because nothing was even proven in a court of law, this second round of "is baseball on the level?" questioning was just as pressing as the 1919 conversation. So I learned something completely new in that regard.
Also, some information about Ruth--such as his relationship with agent/promoter Christy Walsh and his experiences filming a Hollywood motion picture before the '27 campaign--was also new to me, and that's a tough thing to provide on such a well-documented figure. I'm always impressed any time an author can spin the legend/facts of Ruth into a fresh and new narrative.
Like I said, "Baseball at the Abyss" isn't going to have mass appeal--it is a little too focused and dry for that. But the intended audience will likely be sucked into some new aspects of the topics heretofore not covered in baseball literature.
For a very basic overview, author Dan Taylor posits in "Abyss" that Babe Ruth's 60-homer 1927 season may have saved baseball from betting/gambling scandals propagated by Ty Cobb, Tris Speaker, and Rogers Hornsby. Just a few years after the 1919 "Black Sox" World Series debacle, another round of gambling discourse could have proven lethal to the sport's popularity were it not for the larger-than-life Ruth pushing aside all negativity as he stampeded his way up the home run record charts.
Until reading this book, I had never heard about the Cobb/Speaker/Hornsby scandals of 1926 despite being a prolific reader of baseball history. So, it was interesting to experience what the '27 season might have felt like through that "primary source" lens. Though not as widely known because nothing was even proven in a court of law, this second round of "is baseball on the level?" questioning was just as pressing as the 1919 conversation. So I learned something completely new in that regard.
Also, some information about Ruth--such as his relationship with agent/promoter Christy Walsh and his experiences filming a Hollywood motion picture before the '27 campaign--was also new to me, and that's a tough thing to provide on such a well-documented figure. I'm always impressed any time an author can spin the legend/facts of Ruth into a fresh and new narrative.
Like I said, "Baseball at the Abyss" isn't going to have mass appeal--it is a little too focused and dry for that. But the intended audience will likely be sucked into some new aspects of the topics heretofore not covered in baseball literature.
October 28, 2023
Sometimes you take a flyer on a book and it pans out. Other times it turns out to be waste.
This is one of those other times.
I thought “Baseball at the Abyss” would be as much about Ty Cobb, Tris Speaker, and gambling in the mid-1920s as it would be about Babe Ruth. But the former fade away once the book gets rolling, and the latter half is essentially about Ruth and the 1927 season, a tale much told.
Oh, I learned a few things: the importance of Babe’s manager Christy Walsh (who deserves his own book), the impact on the box office by Ruth and the Yanks at a time that was the primary source of money, a few tidbits here and there. But the material is thin, and worse, Taylor repeats things as if he forgot he’d said them a chapter ago. (Nobody has editors anymore.)
His style also grated, particularly his own ay of leading off chapters with big windups and small payoffs.
This would have been a nice SABR article. As a book, it’s limp.
This is one of those other times.
I thought “Baseball at the Abyss” would be as much about Ty Cobb, Tris Speaker, and gambling in the mid-1920s as it would be about Babe Ruth. But the former fade away once the book gets rolling, and the latter half is essentially about Ruth and the 1927 season, a tale much told.
Oh, I learned a few things: the importance of Babe’s manager Christy Walsh (who deserves his own book), the impact on the box office by Ruth and the Yanks at a time that was the primary source of money, a few tidbits here and there. But the material is thin, and worse, Taylor repeats things as if he forgot he’d said them a chapter ago. (Nobody has editors anymore.)
His style also grated, particularly his own ay of leading off chapters with big windups and small payoffs.
This would have been a nice SABR article. As a book, it’s limp.
October 25, 2023
Excellent baseball book, even if it pretty much lets Ty Cobb, Tris Speaker, and Smoky Joe Wood off the hook for fixing and betting on the outcome of games at the end of their careers. The evidence was incontrovertible. The rise of Babe Ruth in these pages is wonderfully rendered.
May 15, 2023
Good summary of the baseball scandal at the end of 1926 and the impact of Babe Ruth's 1927 season on turning the public's focus away from the scandal.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews