Johnny Evers: A Baseball Life

by Dennis Snelling

                 

**2015 SEYMOUR MEDAL FINALIST**
**CASEY AWARD FINALIST FOR BEST BASEBALL BOOK OF 2014**
For more than a century Johnny Evers has been conjoined with Chicago Cubs teammates Frank Chance and Joe Tinker, thanks to eight lines of verse penned by a well-known New York columnist. He has been caricatured as a scrawny, sour man who couldn't hit and who owed his fame to that poem. In truth Johnny Evers was more than a part of "Tinker to Evers to Chance." He was a gifted player in all phases of the game, a master strategist, and the heartbeat of one of the greatest teams of the 20th century; he was also the fiercest competitor this side of Ty Cobb. Evers was at the center of one of baseball's greatest controversies, a chance event that cemented his stardom and stole a pennant from John McGraw and the New York Giants in 1908. Four years later, following a stunning set of reversals and tragedies that resulted in his suffering a nervous breakdown, Evers embarked on a comeback that culminated in his leading the 1914 Boston Braves to the most improbable of championships. Spanning the time from his birth in Troy, New York, to his death less than a year after his election to the Hall of Fame, this is the biography of a man who literally wrote the book about playing his position and set the standard for winning baseball.

Genres: Baseball

236 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2014

Reviews

[Josh Avery · Rating 3 out of 5]

Johnny Evers was part of the Tinker to Evers to Chance double play combination in the late 1900's and a member of the baseball hall of fame. He is credited with starting the infielders shifting to match where the pitchers were going to be locating their pitches.

The Good: He was extremely intelligent when it came to fundamental X's and O's baseball and the author does really well with his research. There are a lot of mentions of guys like John Mcgraw, Cy Young, Christy Mathewson, Mordecai Brown, Orval Overall, Honus Wagner, etc. Basically a who's who of early baseball. If you are a Cubs fan or a fan of baseball history, this is a good, quick and entertaining read.

The Bad: Evers was a fierce competitor on the field, Ty Cobb called him "a rotten human between the lines." Ty would know about bad humans. He also failed as a manager because he could not get his players to be as focused and as competitive as he was and they didn't take to him as a manager very well. He went broke twice, lost a daughter to scarlet fever when she was a baby, lost his best friend to a car accident when they were hit by a streetcar while he was driving. (He never drove again afterwards) He also died less than a year before his hall of fame induction.

B-

[Roger Smitter · Rating 3 out of 5]

As a Cub fan (who isn't this year?!?!), I was drawn to learning some history about the (finally) world champs. What we get is a pretty good picture of the life of major league baseball players pre-1930. Lots of fame. Not much money. An uncertain career beyond a player's most recent success.

Too often the book is a summary of box scores and bating states. There's lots of detail but little background for the even most rabid Cubs fan.

Snelling makes references to Evers mental illness. This theme needs more attention, especially when we are currently swamped with news about professional athletes inundated

[Kris Lodwig · Rating 4 out of 5]

Tinker to Evers to Chance. Johnny Evers, Baseball Hall of Fame and a famous Cubbie from the early 1900s. He let everything else in his life take a backseat to his love for the game. Reading this book I have many take aways but my main one is wow, how times have changed. No footage exists of him playing which is unfortunate.

[Jim Saska · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent biography of an important deadball era baseball player

[Kristen · Rating 5 out of 5]

These are the saddest of all words:
"Tinkers to Evers to Chance."
Trio of bear cubs, fleeter than birds
Tinker and Evers and Chance
Ruthlessly pricking our gonfalon bubble
Making a Giant hit into a double---
Words that are heavy with nothing but trouble:
"Tinkers to Evers to Chance."

Like all serious baseball fans, I had heard the refrain from Franklin Pierce Adams' poem "Baseball's Sad Lexicon" many times and knew that the lines were a tribute to one of the celebrated double play combinations of the day, but I didn't really know anything about the men immortalized in verse. "Johnny Evers, A Baseball Life" is the story of the second baseman of the group, but it's also the story of the trio. The author presents the personalities of all three men and shows how their interactions led to the last Cubs teams to win World Series titles (back to back!) in 1907 and 1908.

Evers was a highly driven, skilled, and innovative second baseman. He literally wrote the book on playing second base in the early 20th century. He was also the author of the famous "Merkle's Boner" play that cost the Giants the 2008 pennant. After leaving the Cubs, he was the league MVP and lead the 1914 Boston Braves to an amazing World Series Championship. The team was in last place on July 4th, but rose to first in two months and won the pennant by 10 1/2 games, again victimizing the Giants.

Dennis Snelling captures the excitement of those feats though his meticulously researched and detailed recreation of the games and seasons. He follows Evers through each season of his professional career as well as the somewhat sad post playing years. The book is an enjoyable easy read that takes you back to a different era and brings to life a historic line of prose: Tinkers to Evers to Chance.

I also wanted to add, be sure to read the end notes. They contain some interesting anecdotes as Snelling expands on incidents that he mentions in passing in the main body. Also, there are a couple of dozen photos scattered throughout the book of Evers and his contemporaries.

Side note:
Another reviewer mentioned Wrigley Field, but Wrigley wasn't built until 1914 and was then called Weeghman Park. The Cubs didn't play there until 2016, by which time Evers had moved on to the Boston Braves. The ballpark featured in this book is Westside Park.

[Dani Shuping · Rating 4 out of 5]

ARC provided by LibraryThing

Johnny Evers. One of the greatest ballplayers and competitors that has ever lived. Sadly though he is remembered by many only thanks to a poem with the line “Tinkers to Evers to Chance.” In fact those three names are so linked that the three were featured in a biography together by author Gil Bogen who wrote "Tinker, Evers, and Chance--A Triple Biography" in 2003. He couldn’t even get his own biography...til now. In this book Dennis Snelling tells the story and life of Johnny Evers, one of the fiercest competitors ever and the heartbeat of the teams that he played on. Although he has become known as a sourman who couldn’t hit and who only was famous thanks to the poem, Snelling reveals just how great of a player, and teammate, that Evers was. Also make sure that you read the endnotes as they contain some interesting additional stories and pay attention to the wonderful photos scattered throughout the book of Evers, his teammates, and other contemporaries.

Snelling gives us an indepth look at how Evers played the game and defined his position for years to come. Snelling shows us the pressures that Evers applied to himself to winning, his attempts to keep his business afloat, his broken marriage, the death of his young daughter, and the loss of his best friend in a car that he was driving. Its no wonder that Evers was often described as a crabby man after all of that. Snelling brings Evers to life so that we have a better understanding of the man, and the player, that he was.

If all you know about Evers is that poem, do yourself a favor and pick up this book and learn just how great of a player he was. You won’t regret it. Four out of five stars.

[Louis · Rating 4 out of 5]

Johnny Evers is mainly known today (if at all) as part of a baseball poem. Tinker to Evers to Chance, the great double play combination of the Chicago Cubs in the early 1900s. Dennis Snelling's short but thorough biography tells the rest of the story of the man who was probably baseball's first great second baseman. Although Evers life is occasionally compelling (an unhappy marriage and the loss of a child), it is in the details of baseball as the dead ball era comes to an end that really drives the story. In the current excitement over the 2015 Cubs it's fun to learn of a time in which baseball's lovable losers were one of its dominant teams. For me, the best sections of the book deal with the dramatic 1908 National League pennant chase between the Cubs and John McGraw's New York Giants and the 1914 Boston Braves. Evers, a fiery competitor, had just left the Windy City for the sad-sack Braves. He led the team to an amazing finish and the team's first World Series championship. For anyone familiar with the Miracle Mets of 1969, the story of Evers' Braves will be enjoyable. Weighing in at an efficient 201 pages, Snelling's book brings back to life a time when baseball and its players were America's greatest heroes.

[Debbie Maskus · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book presented the Cubs and Wrigley Field better than A Nice Little Place on the North Side, even though the emphasis in this book centered on a baseball player. Snelling shows the perils of baseball in the early 1900's when baseball was a sport that played very little. A good player might earn $2800 in the 1900's. The game evolved into better rules and better players with better equipment. Johnny Evers loved baseball and sought methods of improving the game and providing the fans with excitement. Snelling conveys that love of baseball into the story.

[Daniel · Rating 5 out of 5]

I had heard the famous Tinker to Evers to Chance line, but never knew who Johnny Evers was. Snelling has meticulously researched newspapers, box scores and elsewhere to weave a fascinating story of the baseball life of the feisty man who developed much of the way second base is played to this day. A must read for fans of the history of the American Pastime and especially for Cubs fans.