Good evening.

Welcome to another edition of Inside the Cover right here on PBS Kansas.

Tonight's book is Dea Beats, Dead Balls and the 1914 Boston Braves by Doctor Martin H. Bush.

It is now time to go inside the cover.

During the celebration of the 25th anniversar of the founding of the Ulrich, I had the opportunit to spend time with Doctor Bush, who had returned to Wichit from New York.

During that time, he mentioned to me, with some excitement and anticipation, that he was working on a book about baseball.

I am pleased to note tha this book has come to fruition, and it was certainly worth the wait.

If you appreciate the game of baseball if you enjoy American history, or if you have a plac in your heart for the underdog, I think you will enjoy this book.

This book is clearly a labor of love for Doctor Bush.

His 1996 purchase of the Photo Archive of Baseball magazine introduced him to the 1914 Boston Braves.

The Braves franchise left Boston for Milwaukee in 1953, and then on to Atlanta in 1966, where they remain today.

Wanting to know more, he studied Boston newspapers of the era in the microfilm roo of the New York Public Library, and found the team to be ‘strangely likable, ordinary, and wonderful.

They demanded attention.

An historian by training, Bush spent ten years researching the 1914 Boston Braves.

He studied thousands of inches of newspaper reports, magazine articles, interviews court records, and the clipping files of the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown.

He visited the cities an ballparks that the team played in, and visited the hotels the players stayed in.

First person players accounts enabled him to write scenes with immediac and suggest dialogue, that gives currency and feeling to the book.

With a world war loomin in the background, Bush writes about the game of baseball as it was in 1914, and while the 1914 Boston Braves are in the spotlight, owners, umpires, newspaper reporters, fans, managers and players from throughou baseball are an important part of this story.

The 1914 Boston Braves were struggling in last place in the National League on July 4th.

There were eight teams in the National League, eight teams in the American League, and eight teams in the new Federal League.

With the leadership of their manager George Stallings and the team captain, Johnny Evers.

Yes, the Evers, as in Tinker to Evers to Chance.

The Brave stormed back to win the pennant and advance on to the 1914 World Series.

During the series, the Miracle Braves defeated the American League Philadelphia Athletics, who had won three of their previou four World Series championships.

Bush's knowledge, research, and dedication to sharing this remarkable season allows the readers to experience the ups and downs of a major League Baseball season, as if in real time.

This is primarily a book about baseball.

And clearly the game ha a special place in Bush's heart.

However this book is about so much more.

It is a book about leadership, human interaction, failure, motivation, struggle, success, and change.

Bush's exhaustive research and focused writing takes the reader back in time, when the United States was still finding his place in the world.

I enjoyed this book for multiple reasons, and I'm happy to recommend i to viewers of Inside the Cover.

And I am happy that the journe that Doctor Bush began in 1996, and which he and I discussed in 1999, has been successfully and happily completed.

That's our show.

Tonight's book has been Dead Beats, Dead Balls and the 1914 Boston Braves by Doctor Martin H. Bush.

It's a great book.

I'm happy to recommend it to you.

And I want to thank my friend Eric for getting the book into my hands.

Good night.

See you next time.

Until then, keep reading, keep thinking, and be well.