Keurajian: Another SABR gem: ‘Detroit The Unconquerable’
From SABR member Ron Keurajian at Sports Collectors Digest on March 28, 2016:
It has been 81 years since the Detroit Tigers captured its first world crown. The decades have gone by and the players have all since passed on, but to this day Detroit baseball bugs still talk of Mickey Cochrane, the G-Men and the fabled Tigers of 1935.
Material associated with Cochrane’s team is in high demand with the collector’s set. A signed 1935 Tiger team baseball is easily worth $1,250.
Through the years, the Society for American Baseball Research (SABR) has issued countless publications for the casual fan, as well as the serious student of the game. SABR books are well researched and have proven to be an indispensible record of the game’s history. Their new book does not disappoint. Detroit – The Unconquerable is a detailed account of Detroit baseball during the pennant-winning years of 1934 and 1935. Edited by Scott Ferkovich, the book contains in-depth bios on all the players, as well as longtime owner Frank Navin. I particularly like the bios of the more obscure players. Hall of Famers Hank Greenberg and Goose Goslin get a lot of ink, but so do Vic Sorrell, Heinie Schuble and Flea Clifton, names mostly forgotten by the contemporary Tigers fan.
One of my favorite chapters is titled “The Sleeping Giant, Detroit in the 1930s,” authored by Gary Gillette. I have always been a history nut and know a lot about the history of the Motor City, especially from the Prohibition era through the Great Depression. This chapter takes you back in time to Henry Ford and his beloved Ford Motor Co., Woodward Avenue, J. L. Hudson’s (the premier department store in Detroit for many decades) and FDR’s nemesis, Father Charles Coughlin and his Hour of Power radio program on WJR.
Read the full article here: http://www.sportscollectorsdigest.com/features/another-sabr-gem-detroit-the-unconquerable
Originally published: April 6, 2016. Last Updated: April 6, 2016.