Honus Wagner: The Life of Baseball's "Flying Dutchman"

by Arthur D. Hittner

Regarded by many of his contemporaries as the greatest baseball player of all time, John Peter "Honus" Wagner enjoyed a remarkable career with the Pittsburgh Pirates. His record of 17 consecutive .300-plus seasons is a mark that will probably never be broken. He led the National League eight times in hitting, six times in slugging percentage and five times in stolen bases. Known as the Flying Dutchman, he also excelled in the field, defining the shortstop position for a generation. Though one of the original inductees in the Baseball Hall of Fame, he has often been overlooked by baseball fans and historians. A humble man whose biggest passions were hunting and fishing, the Pirate shortstop lacked the flamboyance of a Ty Cobb or Babe Ruth. He rarely smoked or drank, though sometimes he indulged in a sandlot game with the neighborhood kids. Based on contemporary newspaper accounts, family scrapbooks and correspondence, and Wagner's own vestpocket notebooks, this is the story of baseball's first superstar.

Genres: Baseball

336 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1996

About the author

ARTHUR D. HITTNER, author of the art-related historical novels "Michelangelo of the Midway," "The Caroline Paintings" and "Artist, Soldier, Lover, Muse;" the rambunctious coming-of-age in the Sixties novel, "The Amorous Adventures of Charlie Meyer," and the humorous baseball novel "Four-Finger Singer and His Late Wife, Kate," is also the author of "Honus Wagner: The Life of Baseball's 'Flying Dutchman'" (McFarland, 1996), winner of the Seymour Medal awarded by the Society of American Baseball Research for the best book of baseball history or biography published in 1996; "At the Threshold of Brilliance:The Brief but Splendid Career of Harold J. Rabinovitz" (The Rabinovitz Project, 2014), a biography and catalogue raisonne of a newly rediscovered master of American art of the Depression era; and the irreverent travelogue, "Cross-Country Chronicles: Road Trips Through the Art and Soul of America." Mr. Hittner has also written about fine art subjects for Maine Antique Digest, Fine Art Connoisseur and Antiques & Fine Art and has served as a Trustee of the Danforth Museum of Art and the Tucson Museum of Art. For more information, visit his author website, www.hittnerbooks.com. The author is always available to participate in book club discussions over Zoom upon request (please contact via author website).