One of the most influential and controversial team owners in professional sports history, Walter O’Malley (1903–79) is best remembered—and still reviled by many—for moving the Dodgers from Brooklyn to Los Angeles. Yet much of the O’Malley story leading up to the Dodgers’ move is unknown or created from myth, and there is substantially more to the man. When he entered the public eye, the self-constructed family background and early life he presented was gilded. Later his personal story was distorted by some New York sportswriters, who hated him for moving the Dodgers. In Mover and Shaker Andy McCue presents for the first time an objective, complete, and nuanced account of O’Malley’s life. He also departs from the overly sentimentalized accounts of O’Malley as either villain or angel and reveals him first and foremost as a rational, hardheaded businessman, who was a major force in baseball for three decades and whose management and marketing practices radically changed the shape of the game.
Format:
CONTRIBUTORS: Andy McCue
EAN: 9780803245082
COUNTRY: United States
PAGES:
WEIGHT: 0 g
HEIGHT: 229 cm
PUBLISHED BY: University of Nebraska Press
DATE PUBLISHED: 2014-05-01
CITY:
GENRE: BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY / Sports, HISTORY / United States / 20th Century, SPORTS & RECREATION / Baseball / History
WIDTH: 152 cm
SPINE:
Book Themes:
United States of America, USA, 20th century, c 1900 to c 1999, Biography: sport, History of the Americas, History of sport, Baseball
“A compelling, detailed and richly nuanced biography, Mover and Shaker shows O’Malley as a shrewd and daring businessman who become a major force behind key changes in the sport. . . . The real insight of Mr. McCue’s book is that O’Malley was a man who embraced risk and adapted well to new situations.”—Paul Dickson, Wall Street Journal , “Andy McCue has written the definitive biography of the fascinating and elusive Walter O’Malley, the man who changed the way a country thinks about its national pastime. Wise and engaging. A must-read for every historian of the game.”—Michael Shapiro, author of The Last Good Season , “One of the best and most important baseball books of the year, and one that’s been a long time comin.’”—Allen Barra, Dallas Morning News , “Outstanding. . . . I really can’t recommend Mover & Shaker highly enough.”—Rob Neyer, FoxSports.com , “McCue covers this with an expert’s hand . . . in this highly readable account of perhaps the most influential baseball owner of the last century.”—Seamheads.com
Andy McCue is the author of Baseball by the Books: The Complete History and Bibliography of Baseball Fiction and is a former president of the Society for American Baseball Research.
