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The Emerald Diamond: How the Irish Transformed America's Greatest Pastime
“The Emerald Diamond is a must read. It is a remarkable story about the achievements of the Irish throughout the history of baseball in America.” -Jay P. Dolan New York Times bestselling sportswriter Charley Rosen, author of The Bullpen Diaries and More than Just a Game , delivers a one-of-a-kind instant classic perfect “for anyone who is Irish and loves baseball.”
The history of the Irish in baseball is much richer than anyone realizes. From early discrimination to later domination, from Mike Kelly, a society star in the 1880s, to the managerial fame of Connie Mack (né McGillicuddy), early Irish players and managers helped shape the game of baseball in every way. From the first curveball to the first players' unions, Irishmen took America's national pastime and made it their own, turning it into the glorious game we know today, as more recent players have kept alive the Irish tradition of setting records. A wild, fun, fact-filled celebration of the Irish in baseball, The Emerald Diamond intersperses interviews with current players with tales of such players as Dan Brouthers, who at 6'2" and well over 200 pounds, was the game's home-run king until Babe Ruth came along; and includes lively anecdotes about such colorfully nicknamed ballplayers. Just a few of the great Irish athletes featured as well are Mickey Cochrane (for whom Mickey Mantle was named); Charles Comiskey; Ed Walsh, the last pitcher to win 40 games in a single season; and Ed Delahanty, whose prodigious life and mysterious death continue to be a source of intrigue. With decade-by-decade profiles of exciting Irish figures on the field and off, The Emerald Diamond also offers important discussion on cultural and political themes relevant to their times.
The history of the Irish in baseball is much richer than anyone realizes. From early discrimination to later domination, from Mike Kelly, a society star in the 1880s, to the managerial fame of Connie Mack (né McGillicuddy), early Irish players and managers helped shape the game of baseball in every way. From the first curveball to the first players' unions, Irishmen took America's national pastime and made it their own, turning it into the glorious game we know today, as more recent players have kept alive the Irish tradition of setting records. A wild, fun, fact-filled celebration of the Irish in baseball, The Emerald Diamond intersperses interviews with current players with tales of such players as Dan Brouthers, who at 6'2" and well over 200 pounds, was the game's home-run king until Babe Ruth came along; and includes lively anecdotes about such colorfully nicknamed ballplayers. Just a few of the great Irish athletes featured as well are Mickey Cochrane (for whom Mickey Mantle was named); Charles Comiskey; Ed Walsh, the last pitcher to win 40 games in a single season; and Ed Delahanty, whose prodigious life and mysterious death continue to be a source of intrigue. With decade-by-decade profiles of exciting Irish figures on the field and off, The Emerald Diamond also offers important discussion on cultural and political themes relevant to their times.
- GenresBaseballSportsNonfiction
320 pages, Hardcover
First published February 28, 2012
9 people are currently reading
59 people want to read
About the author
Charley Rosen
32 books8 followersCharles Elliot Rosen is an American author and former basketball player and basketball coach. Rosen has been selected for induction into the NYC Basketball Hall of Fame with the Class of 2024.
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Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
July 7, 2012
I enjoyed reading this book of history and anecdotes about the Irish heritage of baseball. Particularly interesting were the sections covering the early history of baseball, how the rules evolved, and how the Irish became disproportionately involved in the sport. If you enjoy reading about this topic, The Emerald Diamond will undoubtedly be a fun read and will add to your knowledge of baseball.
I do have a few minor nits to pick. Rosen uses a chronological approach for the book, and that sometimes makes it hard to follow each individual's story. It's a trade-off, and I don't fault him for this approach.
However, I do fault him for sometimes failing to provide a little extra information that would help the reader place information in context. A frequent example is that he too often fails to identify the team a player played for at the time of the accomplishment being described. Sometimes, he doesn't identify the team at all. Other times, he might say St. Louis, Chicago, Boston, etc., without identifying WHICH team in those cities he refers to.
Rosen seems to want to identify every Irish player that made a significant contribution to the game. After awhile, it all becomes a blur as many players only get a sentence or two, especially as we get to the more recent decades. At that point, the book reads more like a catalog than a narrative. As a result, overall the final few chapters were somewhat less interesting.
I spotted a couple of errors in the book. The biggest is Rosen's assertion that Don Kelly of the Tigers became the second player in MLB history to play every defensive position during his career when he was put behind the plate for a few innings on July 2, 2011. Rosen named Bert Campaneris as the first to do it in the 1970s. However, as a Cardinal fan, I know Jose Oquendo accomplished the same feat in 1988. Perhaps other players did it, too, that I am unaware of.
Another proofreading-type error occurs when Rosen refers to the A's moving from Baltimore to Kansas City (page 262).
Finally, I am disappointed that this book has no index. This book really needs an index and it is inexcusable that it doesn't have one.
All that aside, I reiterate that the book was fun to read and informative.
I do have a few minor nits to pick. Rosen uses a chronological approach for the book, and that sometimes makes it hard to follow each individual's story. It's a trade-off, and I don't fault him for this approach.
However, I do fault him for sometimes failing to provide a little extra information that would help the reader place information in context. A frequent example is that he too often fails to identify the team a player played for at the time of the accomplishment being described. Sometimes, he doesn't identify the team at all. Other times, he might say St. Louis, Chicago, Boston, etc., without identifying WHICH team in those cities he refers to.
Rosen seems to want to identify every Irish player that made a significant contribution to the game. After awhile, it all becomes a blur as many players only get a sentence or two, especially as we get to the more recent decades. At that point, the book reads more like a catalog than a narrative. As a result, overall the final few chapters were somewhat less interesting.
I spotted a couple of errors in the book. The biggest is Rosen's assertion that Don Kelly of the Tigers became the second player in MLB history to play every defensive position during his career when he was put behind the plate for a few innings on July 2, 2011. Rosen named Bert Campaneris as the first to do it in the 1970s. However, as a Cardinal fan, I know Jose Oquendo accomplished the same feat in 1988. Perhaps other players did it, too, that I am unaware of.
Another proofreading-type error occurs when Rosen refers to the A's moving from Baltimore to Kansas City (page 262).
Finally, I am disappointed that this book has no index. This book really needs an index and it is inexcusable that it doesn't have one.
All that aside, I reiterate that the book was fun to read and informative.
September 6, 2014
Rather than a history of how the Irish have impacted the game of baseball, this book is basically list after list of sometimes but not always interesting facts that are sometimes but not always relevant to the mission.
March 13, 2012
Saturday is St. Patrick's Day, and since spring training is well underway, it's a good time to review Charley Rosen's book The Emerald Diamond: How The Irish Transformed America's Greatest Pastime.
I'm proudly Irish and have been a big baseball fan since childhood, so this book held great appeal for me. I had never really considered the Irish contribution to baseball, and Rosen's book is comprehensive in his thesis.
As the Irish wave of immigration exploded during the potato famine in the 1840s, the author states that
"only four paths of advancement were readily available to young Irish males: politics, police work, the priesthood and sports."
Many sports were out of reach for immigrants- golf, tennis, football, track and field were the purview of the wealthy and college educated. Boxing and baseball appealed to the Irish immigrants. Baseball was their game
"because the basics of the sport involved manipulating a bat (which strongly resembled the ancient Irish war club known as the shillelagh), running fast, and throwing a ball hard and accurately- all skills familiar to traditional sporting pastimes in Ireland. "
Rosen's intertwined history of baseball in America and the Irish immigrants who played the game utterly fascinated me. In the late 1880s, Irish players became valued for their contributions to the game. The Sporting News wrote that the Irish were "distinguished by their ability to quickly devise plans and schemes." The American Press Association said it was due to their "love of a scrap and proficiency in the use of a club."
The schemes that some of the Irish players devised are recounted with great humor and admiration here. Mike "King" Kelly frequently took advantage of the fact that when there was only one umpire who had to watch the play at first, he would take a "shortcut" while rounding third to get home, eliminating 20 feet or so.
Kelly also would hide an extra ball in his uniform shirt and if it was dark out and a fly ball went over the fence, he would pull the ball from shirt and claim to have caught it for an out. There are many clever and funny tales like this that had me giggling, because I know a few coaches who would love to pull some stunts like that.
Some of the greatest managers in the game were Irish; Joe McCarthy, John McGraw, Casey Stengel and Connie Mack brought many innovations to the game that still exist today. When Mack was a catcher, he one was one of the first who would attempt to throw out the trailing runner in a double steal. He was also the first catcher who would physically block the plate when the runner attempted to score.
I'm from Auburn, NY and one of the interesting tidbits in the book concerns McGraw who, at the end of every season, donated the Giants used uniforms to the Auburn Prison baseball team. I had never heard that bit of lore.
Each chapter begins with a quote, and my favorite is from George Bernard Shaw- "People who say it cannot be done should not interrupt those who are doing it." I think I'll put that one on my family's coat of arms.
The book profiles Irish players, coaches, and even umpires, from every era and gives their stats. I grew up loving baseball and being proud of being Irish, yet I never thought about the important contributions the Irish made to the great game of baseball.
This is a wonderful book to give to the Irish sports fan in your life; it makes the perfect St. Patrick's Day or Easter gift, just in time for opening day in April.
I'm proudly Irish and have been a big baseball fan since childhood, so this book held great appeal for me. I had never really considered the Irish contribution to baseball, and Rosen's book is comprehensive in his thesis.
As the Irish wave of immigration exploded during the potato famine in the 1840s, the author states that
"only four paths of advancement were readily available to young Irish males: politics, police work, the priesthood and sports."
Many sports were out of reach for immigrants- golf, tennis, football, track and field were the purview of the wealthy and college educated. Boxing and baseball appealed to the Irish immigrants. Baseball was their game
"because the basics of the sport involved manipulating a bat (which strongly resembled the ancient Irish war club known as the shillelagh), running fast, and throwing a ball hard and accurately- all skills familiar to traditional sporting pastimes in Ireland. "
Rosen's intertwined history of baseball in America and the Irish immigrants who played the game utterly fascinated me. In the late 1880s, Irish players became valued for their contributions to the game. The Sporting News wrote that the Irish were "distinguished by their ability to quickly devise plans and schemes." The American Press Association said it was due to their "love of a scrap and proficiency in the use of a club."
The schemes that some of the Irish players devised are recounted with great humor and admiration here. Mike "King" Kelly frequently took advantage of the fact that when there was only one umpire who had to watch the play at first, he would take a "shortcut" while rounding third to get home, eliminating 20 feet or so.
Kelly also would hide an extra ball in his uniform shirt and if it was dark out and a fly ball went over the fence, he would pull the ball from shirt and claim to have caught it for an out. There are many clever and funny tales like this that had me giggling, because I know a few coaches who would love to pull some stunts like that.
Some of the greatest managers in the game were Irish; Joe McCarthy, John McGraw, Casey Stengel and Connie Mack brought many innovations to the game that still exist today. When Mack was a catcher, he one was one of the first who would attempt to throw out the trailing runner in a double steal. He was also the first catcher who would physically block the plate when the runner attempted to score.
I'm from Auburn, NY and one of the interesting tidbits in the book concerns McGraw who, at the end of every season, donated the Giants used uniforms to the Auburn Prison baseball team. I had never heard that bit of lore.
Each chapter begins with a quote, and my favorite is from George Bernard Shaw- "People who say it cannot be done should not interrupt those who are doing it." I think I'll put that one on my family's coat of arms.
The book profiles Irish players, coaches, and even umpires, from every era and gives their stats. I grew up loving baseball and being proud of being Irish, yet I never thought about the important contributions the Irish made to the great game of baseball.
This is a wonderful book to give to the Irish sports fan in your life; it makes the perfect St. Patrick's Day or Easter gift, just in time for opening day in April.
July 18, 2014
The Emerald Diamond starts out with a fantastic introduction about the rough-and-tumble world of baseball in the early 20th century. However, the quality in that beginning becomes progressively spottier as the page count grows.
Charley Rosen did a great job at writing the book--I can't and won't take that away from him. However, the book proclaims itself to be about how the Irish changed America's national pastime. While this is true in many respects, I feel that a lot of chapters were shoehorned into the book to try fleshing it out. Simple things like anecdotes from games in 1894 can be interesting, but can wear a reader down if they're too frequent or obscure.
Overall, this book tries to be comprehensive in its view of Irish/American and Irish-American baseball, but goes too far. The book--both organizationally and narratively--would have been much better served if Rosen had narrowed his focus down to a few of the most influential people and events in the game and cut the detritus. As it is, the book has a chapter dedicated to the most famous of the Irish managers--people like John McGraw and Connie Mack, but an entire book could be written on any one of these people. But one chapter? It's better than nothing, but surely at least one of the chapters on Irish records could have been truncated to make room for a more interesting survey of some of these great men.
Charley Rosen did a great job at writing the book--I can't and won't take that away from him. However, the book proclaims itself to be about how the Irish changed America's national pastime. While this is true in many respects, I feel that a lot of chapters were shoehorned into the book to try fleshing it out. Simple things like anecdotes from games in 1894 can be interesting, but can wear a reader down if they're too frequent or obscure.
Overall, this book tries to be comprehensive in its view of Irish/American and Irish-American baseball, but goes too far. The book--both organizationally and narratively--would have been much better served if Rosen had narrowed his focus down to a few of the most influential people and events in the game and cut the detritus. As it is, the book has a chapter dedicated to the most famous of the Irish managers--people like John McGraw and Connie Mack, but an entire book could be written on any one of these people. But one chapter? It's better than nothing, but surely at least one of the chapters on Irish records could have been truncated to make room for a more interesting survey of some of these great men.
April 6, 2016
This is less a narrative than a list of baseball anecdotes and statistics relating to Irish people who had something to do with baseball. There is very little analysis regarding why or how this happened. Rosen only presents the facts as though this is of interest in itself, which makes this book good source material but very interesting reading. If anything the fact that one is Irish and it's baseball seems to be enough to be a source of interest for Rosen. The interest here is merely one of nationalism and ethnic pride than anything deeper or more meaningful. Rosen is presenting an accident of history to be a source of interest, making this another kind of emotional masturbation.
July 15, 2016
Nice history of the game and the Irish contributions, ball players and participation. Easy read, despite a few errors such as Will Clark hitting a home run in the playoffs in 1989 against Mark Prior and calling Joe Magrane, Joe McGrane. Also didn't realize that Gary Ward (Twins, Rangers OF of the 1980s) is Irish. Some of the players included could be considered stretches, such as Nolan Ryan who "considers himself more Texan than Irish." Overall, though, not bad
August 15, 2015
This was a rather long-winded recounting of Irish baseball history, but I enjoyed taking my time to read it. My favorite part was a shout-out to the building Irish amateur leagues, and especially the Belfast Northstars who were gracious enough to allow me to play with them for a double-header a couple summers ago!
June 9, 2012
Aside of a few factual errors that were obviously accident (ie Milwaukee Braves in 1982 instead of Brewers) and few more typos, this is a fun baseball book. It is very entertaining and thus read very quickly.
December 31, 2014
For the last time: Wikipedia is not a primary source....
September 28, 2014
Some of the best tales and facts from the beginning of baseball. A must read for any fan of baseball.
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews