The Tour to End All Tours: The Story of Major League Baseball's 1913-1914 World Tour

David Q. Voigt, author of Baseball: An Illustrated History
"Capture the flavor of big league baseball as staged in 1913—just before two wars combined to transform the game."

Kate Buford, author of Burt Lancaster: An American Life
"The forgotten story of a unique event in American sports history. . . . A must for all baseball history fans."

David Hurst Thomas, curator of anthropology at the American Museum of Natural History
"James Elfers has unearthed the long-forgotten records of this bizarre, audacious round-the-world tour that promoted American baseball."

Book Description
During the winter of 1913 and the spring of 1914 the New York Giants and the Chicago White Sox took a trip around the world. Organized by crusty John McGraw of the Giants and the White Sox’s Charles Comiskey, it was a trip of epic proportions—a tour to end all tours recreated here in all its monumental sweep and comical detail. This book follows the two teams, whose members include Christy Mathewson, Jim Thorpe, and half a dozen other future Hall-of-Famers, as they barnstorm across the United States and sail the seas to Asia, the Middle East, and Europe, finishing with a game before twenty thousand fans and King George V. Along the way, baseball’s envoys meet such dignitaries as Pope Pius X, tea magnate Thomas Lipton, and the last khedive of Egypt. They play the tables of Monaco, survive a near-shipwreck, and cram a lifetime’s worth of adventures into six months. Their story, told here for the first time, gives readers a glimpse into baseball history and the innocence and spirit of a long-gone era. James E. Elfers is a library analyst at the University of Delaware.


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Delaware, writes about the world tour made during winter 1913 and spring 1914 by the Chicago White Sox and New York Giants. Legendary baseball figures such as John McGraw, Christy Mathewson, and Jim Thorpe barnstormed around the world, and the stories told in this volume are both revealing and humorous. Elfers depicts a sport and a world that was to change radically with the onset of World War I. For comprehensive collections. Copyright 2003 Cahners Business Information.


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