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"This lavishly illustrated narrative of Walter Johnson's life is the definitive work on the subject and is likely to remain so." - Lawrence S. Ritter, 'Oldtyme Baseball News'. "Henry Thomas's biography of Walter Johnson is carefully researched, thoroughly documented, and, best of all, a pleasure to read." - 'Spitball'. "Does justice to Johnson's extraordinary on-field accomplishments, and it also emphasizes his decency, humility, and self-effacing humor." - 'Booklist'. "Belongs in the very top ranks of sports biographies." - 'Washington Times'. "One of the most comprehensive biographies ever written about an athlete. Incredibly detailed, filled with fascinating stories about arguably the greatest pitcher of all time." - Tim Kurkjian, senior writer for 'Sports Illustrated'. "Delights the soul." - 'Sports Collectors Digest'. Henry W. Thomas, the grandson of Walter Johnson, lives in Arlington, Virginia. He is currently editing, for audio release, the interviews taped by Lawrence Ritter for his classic "The Glory of Their Times". Shirley Povich died in 1998 at the age of 92 after seventy-five years as an award-winning sportswriter for the 'Washington Post'.Amazon.com Review
How good a pitcher was Washington Senator ace Walter Johnson?Babe Ruth, Ty Cobb, and Joe Jackson considered him the best ever. Hiscareer strikeout record lasted for half a century, and no one's evercome close to his mark of 110 shutouts; some of his Senator teams wereso bad, the only way Johnson could win was literally to keep opponentsfrom scoring. Of course, the numbers alone don't tell thestory. Johnson was a towering figure in the first quarter of thebaseball century. One of the most respected--and liked--men in thegame, he was something of an anti-Cobb: straight, honest, and clean,with a life off the field as content as it was accomplished onit. This is an excellent, exhaustive biography, showing clearaffection for Johnson from the first pitch: Thomas is Johnson'sgrandson. Despite the blood tie, Thomas doesn't just go straight downthe middle; he is willing to work the corners of his grandfather'slife, which actually allows his relationship to his subject to add tothe work's significant depth. --Jeff Silverman ... Read more

Customer Reviews (25)

A comprehensive and well written life and history of early baseball
Henry Thomas's bio of his grandfather Walter Johnson is great example of how one can write in great detail about someone's life while keeping it interesting.Johnson's life and career are covered exhaustingly, but the book always flowed to me.Most interesting was his thorough account of Johnson's career in the western minor leagues before his major league career.

I do find Thomas's discussion of whether Johnson was "the greatest" to be superfluous.Just lay out the facts and let the readers draw their conclusion.Readers would have also benefited from a discussion about the dead ball era, during which Johnson played for the bulk of his career.The style of play was different, and knowing how pitching differed between today and that era would have added a different dimension, although some aspects come through in discussions about pitchers being expected to pitch AT LEAST 9 innings a game.

Still, a very thoroughly researched and well written contribution to baseball literature.

The Big Train
One cannot live in Washington, DC and be interested in baseball without being interested in the greatest of tghe local players, Walter Johnson. There's even a local high school named for him. (Will there be any Barry Bonds schools?) This is the story of his life, focusing of course on his baseball career.

By any standard Johnson is one of the all-time great pitchers. Reading about his life tells the reader much about how the business of baseball operated early in the 20th century, as well as detailing his exploits to those of us far too young ever to have seen him play. The accounts of him pitching in the World Series alone are worth the price of the book for their human interest.

An Okay Biography
I found this book to be a fairly enjoyable, easy read. It is, however, nothing more than that.

IMHO, the book has two shortcomings: First, it gets repetitive. As eash season is briefly summarized, I began to feel the story really wasn't going in a new, interesting direction. Second shortcoming, Walter Johnson was likeable, and while being likeable is good, perhaps Johnson was too likeable to be an interesting central character. Unlike Babe Ruth or Jack Dempsey, Johnson had no flaws - at least in this book - that made him more human, more like someone I could identify with. Furthermore, in the book Johnson never struggled to overcome anything - a pitching or character defect, for example - on his road to baseball greatness. This book, therefore, is not inspiring.

Perhaps Mr. Thomas, Walter Johnson's grandson, is too biased to see flaws in Johnson. Perhaps not.

Assuming Walter Johnson was so defect-free, what I believe would have improved this biography would have been to placeJohnson against a much more vivid, evolving background of America and the world of professional baseball.

I think a more interesting baseball biography - of a flawed, decent man - is David Falkner's Sadaharu Oh.

how to ruin a great story
Apparently the author was unaware of the word brevity or minutiae. I am major fan of baseball and sports. This read felt like I was reading a daily diary. What a boring book. It was a hard read. I can read Walter Johnson's pitching records in any baseball encyclopedia. The grandson became bogged down in details that didn't move the story along. I didn't need to read about which minor league team had good fly fishing nearby or which had good food.I sure hope that The Big Train wasn't as boring in real life as he was in the book!

Comprehensive, but tedious
Walter Johnson was one of the greatest pitchers in baseball history. He was also an exceedingly nice man -- so nice that he could be described as dull, both on and off the field.This biography, written by his grandson, does a good job of looking at Johnson's career in detail. But it suffers from what must be a congenital family trait: dullness.

The book's style hearkens back to the worst of sportswriting during the first half of the 20th century -- the gee-whiz, rah-rah stuff about how so-and-so was the greatest player ever, and, golly, a great role model, too. Page after page is weighted down by repetitive testimony to Johnson's pitching speed, astounding accuracy, and gentleness and composure on the mound.There are literally entire sections that just list one Johnson game after another, with summaries that say things like, "On May 5, he shut down the Tigers on 5 hits, and he struck out 8 batters. Three days later, he threw another 5-hitter against the White Sox, and with 7 strikeouts this time."Ugh.

I'm not saying that this book should have been turned into a nasty tell-all book.Biographies in the last few years about Ty Cobb, Joe DiMaggio and others have dwelled too strongly on the warts.I like baseball's heroes as much as the next guy.But this book simply doesn't ask interesting questions, nor put Johnson's career into much context in the game of baseball in the early 20th century.With the exception of discussions of Johnson's annual fights with management about his salary, there's nothing to suggest the turmoil of pro baseball during those formative decades, nor of Johnson's role in that period -- even though he was one of the game's dominant stars. This book makes Johnson seem to be the most gentlemanly, grateful, kind, thoughtful, calm, mature baseball player that ever lived.And maybe he was.

However, in my opinion, the author would have been much more effective if he had left a lot of the detail on the cutting floor and had looked at Johnson's career across themes instead of chronologically. Johnson was truly one of the game's spokesman at the time, so it seems likely he had opinions about and influence on things like the violence on and off the field, the exclusion of black players, and the general perception that ballplayers were in a slightly unsavory profession.But we only get small, indirect glimpses of those issues. We get a bronze statue instead of a man.

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A biography of the Hall of Fame baseball player who was deemed the greatest pitcher of his era. ... Read more

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Detailing Kavanagh's award-winning research, this book preserves the legacy of baseball's most extraordinary pitcher in this fascinating and timeless account. ... Read more

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A Sportspage Documentary!
Mr. Kavanaugh does a fantastic job in memorializing the Big Train. While many biographies will tend to go into the intricacies of a man's private life, Jack Kavanaugh seems to only look into these areas when it wouldexplain the on field actions of Johnson. "A Life" reads like abeautifully written column in the sportspage - the cold hard facts of thegame with the eventful games highlighted. Futhermore, "A Life"does something else - it reminds that not all ballplayers were or arespoiled children with no sense of values or morals. I reccommend to all whohold a dear love of baseball and pitching. ... Read more

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Chapters: Orval Grove, Walter Johnson, Johnny Damon, Tony Clark, Ralph Houk, Gene Mauch, Darren Daulton, Andy Laroche, Brian Duensing, Ronn Reynolds, Neil Allen, Brad Ziegler, Bob Horner, Joey Devine, Elden Auker, Nate Robertson, Ray Sadecki, Kyle Farnsworth, Luke French, Bill Russell, Joe Tinker, Tom Sturdivant, David Clyde, Darren Dreifort, Kevin Hooper, Paul Lindblad, Alan Cockrell, Ben Diggins, Larry Cheney, Bobby Henrich, Seth Greisinger, Greg Brummett, Slow Joe Doyle, Don Gutteridge, Travis Metcalf, Ross Grimsley, David Segui, Craig Dingman, Tom Hamilton, Bob Swift, Danny Thompson, Josh Billings, Liz Funk, Enos Cabell, Harry Chapman, Mike Torrez, Paul Edmondson, Beals Becker, Jerry Robertson, Steve Renko, Duff Cooley, Travis Hughes, Bob Cain, Dummy Taylor, Gaylen Pitts, Damian Rolls, Ferrell Anderson, Bob Randall, George Dockins, Rod Kanehl, Willard Schmidt, Mitch Webster, Ed Siever, Dewey Adkins, Bill Burwell, Urbane Pickering, Ken Johnson, Rudy May, Bob Kammeyer, Larry Mcwilliams, Clay Christiansen, Everett Stull, Fred Mcmullin, Chief Hogsett, Don Lock, Joe Wilhoit, Daryl Spencer, Zip Zabel, Pat Meares, Dustin Richardson, Jack Banta, Johnny Butler, Leo Wells, Virgil Barnes, Pete Kilduff, Brian Giles, Art Griggs, Gilly Campbell, Don Dennis, Elmer Stricklett, Jeff Berblinger, Jack Ryan, Roger Slagle, Fay Thomas, Ryan Kohlmeier, Fred Brickell, Monty Basgall, Gail Henley, Fritz Brickell, Butch Nieman, Nate Cornejo, Scott Taylor, Cotton Tierney, Ad Brennan, Larry Miller, Art Weaver, Rick Dehart, Herb Bradley, Roy Sanders, Walt Kinzie, Chuck Oertel, Dale Gear, Herm Merritt, George Aiton, Willie Ramsdell, Lou Mcevoy, Russ Mcginnis, P. J. Forbes, Don Songer, Don O'riley, Andy Rush, William Marriott, Tex Jones, Clarence Heise, John Wells, Bill Phebus, Fred Kipp, Jimmy Whelan, Johnny Hetki, Ted Welch, Jack Killilay, Hy Vandenberg, George Grantham, Lon Ury, Del Lundgren, Duane Wilson, Ray Mueller, Wiley Taylor, Ralph Winegarn...More: http://booksllc.net/?id=10918194 ... Read more

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Purchase includes free access to book updates online and a free trial membership in the publisher's book club where you can select from more than a million books without charge. Excerpt: As Player As Manager Walter Perry Johnson (November 6, 1887December 10, 1946), nicknamed "The Big Train," was a right-handed pitcher in Major League Baseball between 1907 and 1927. One of the most celebrated players in baseball history, Johnson established several pitching records, some of which remained unbroken for nearly a century. Walter Johnson was the second of six children born to Frank and Minnie (Perry) Johnson on a rural farm four miles west of Humboldt, Kansas. Although he was sometimes said to be of Swedish ancestry and referred to by sportwriters as the "The Big Swede", Johnson's ancestors came from the British Isles. Soon after he reached his fourteenth birthday, his family moved to California's Orange County in 1902. The Johnsons settled in the town of Olinda, a small oil boomtown located just east of Brea. In his youth, the young Walter Johnson split his time between playing baseball, working in the nearby oil fields, and going horseback riding. Johnson later attended Fullerton High School where he struck out 27 batters during a 15-inning game against Santa Ana High School. He later moved to Idaho, where he doubled as a telephone company employee and a pitcher for a Weiser-based team in the Idaho State League. Johnson was spotted by a talent scout and signed a contract with the Washington Senators in July 1907 at the age of nineteen. Johnson won renown as the premier power pitcher of his era. Ty Cobb recalled his first encounter with the rookie fastballer: "On August 2, 1907, I encountered the most threatening sight I ever saw in the ball field. He was a rookie, and we licked our lips as we warmed up for the first game of a doubleheader in Washington. Evidently, manager Pongo Joe Cantillon of the Nats had picked a rube out of ... More: http://booksllc.net/?id=220816 ... Read more

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Life Story of Walter Johnson, Ten Great Slugging Feats of Baseball History, Present Day Players, Managers and Coaches, Major League Umpires, Former Stars ... Read more