Ed Delahanty in the Emerald Age of Baseball

The Tampa Tribune, February 29, 2004
"... this book presents an interesting picture of the early days of baseball."

Sports Book Review
". . . a winner."

Sacramento Bee, April 11, 2004
Casway’s biography is ... a well-researched social history of Irish involvement in the national pastime.

Ron Berthel, Associated Press Writer, April 8, 2004
Casway’s biography of the 19th-century batting star whose .346 lifetime average is fourth-best also examines Delahanty’s mysterious death at 36.

Ron Berthel, Associated Press Writer, April 8, 2004
"…Casway’s biography of the 19th-century batting star whose .346 lifetime average is fourth-best also examines Delahanty’s mysterious death at 36."

Book Description
Jerrold Casway’s fascinating biography of legendary baseball player Ed Delahanty (1867–1903) offers a compelling examination of the first "King of Swatsville’s" life and career, including the enigma surrounding his tragic and untimely death. Through Delahanty’s story, Casway traces the evolving character of major league baseball and its effect on the lives and ambitions of its athletes. Delahanty’s career spanned the last decades of the nineteenth century during a time when the sons of post-famine Irish refugees dominated the sport and changed the playing style of America’s national pastime. In this "Emerald Age" of baseball, Irish-American players comprised from 30 to 50 percent of all players, managers, and team captains. Baseball for Delahanty and other young Irishmen was a ticket out of poverty and into a life of fame and fortune. The allure and promise of celebrity and wealth, however, were disastrous for Delahanty. He found himself enmeshed in desperate contract dealings and a gambling addiction that drove him to alcohol abuse. The owner of the fourth highest lifetime batting average, Delahanty mysteriously disappeared and was found at the bottom of Niagara’s Horseshoe Falls. This rich biography, which relies on previously unavailable family papers and court transcripts, as well as the colorful sports reporting of the period, will appeal to anyone interested in baseball, sports, or Irish history.

About the Author
JERROLD CASWAY is professor of history and chair of the Social Sciences/Teacher Education Division at Howard Community College in Columbia, Maryland. He specializes in early modern Irish history and nineteenth-century baseball.


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Jerrold Casway's fascinating biography of legendary baseball player Ed Delahanty (1867-1903) offers a compelling examination of the first "King of Swatsville's" life and career, including the enigma surrounding his tragic and untimely death. Through Delahanty's story, Casway traces the evolving character of major league baseball and its effect on the lives and ambitions of its athletes. Delahanty's career spanned the last decades of the nineteenth century during a time when the sons of post-famine Irish refugees dominated the sport and changed the playing style of America's national pastime. In this "Emerald Age" of baseball, Irish-American players comprised from 30 to 50 percent of all players, managers, and team captains. Baseball for Delahanty and other young Irishmen was a ticket out of poverty and into a life of fame and fortune. The allure and promise of celebrity and wealth, however, were disastrous for Delahanty. He found himself enmeshed in desperate contract dealings and a gambling addiction that drove him to alcohol abuse. The owner of the fourth highest lifetime batting average, Delahanty mysteriously disappeared and was found at the bottom of Niagara's Horseshoe Falls. This rich biography, which relies on previously unavailable family papers and court transcripts, as well as the colorful sports reporting of the period, will appeal to anyone interested in baseball, sports, or Irish history.


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