Ted Sullivan, Barnacle of Baseball: The Life of the Prolific League Founder, Scout, Manager and Unrivaled Huckster

In his day, perhaps no one in baseball was better known than Irish-born Timothy Paul "Ted" Sullivan. For 50 years, America's sportswriters sang his praises, genuflected to his genius and bought his blarney by the barrel. Damon Runyon dubbed him "The Celebrated Carpetbagger of Baseball." Cunning, fast-talking, witty and sober, Sullivan was the game's first player agent, a groundbreaking scout who pulled future Hall of Famers from the bushes, an author, a playwright and a baseball evangelist who promoted the game across five continents. He coined the term "fan" and was among the first to suggest the designated hitter--because pitchers were "a lot of whippoorwill swingers." But he was also a convert to the Jim Crow attitudes of his day--black ballplayers were unimaginable to him. Unearthing thousands of contemporaneous newspaper accounts, this first exhaustive biography of "Hustlin'" Ted Sullivan recounts the life and career of one of the greatest hucksters in the history of the game.

Table of Contents:
Table of Contents Acknowledgments Preface by Pat O’Neill  1. A Long, Long Way from Clare to Here  2. Young Sullivan at Old St. Mary’s: Jesuit Priests, Prairie Fires, and a Freshman Phenom  3. Playing for Peanuts: Ted and Charlie Take Their Game to Dubuque  4. In Fast Company: 1879 Dubuque Rabbits  5. Taking on “The Infidels”  6. A Sorry State of the Union  7. Back to the Bushes  8. Not Milwaukee’s Best  9. Behind the Plate 10. “Senator Sullivan” Goes to Washington 11. Back to the “Auld” Country 12. Things Go South: Chattanooga and “The Dry Grins,” 1892 13. A Tale of Two Sullivans 14. At Home on the Range 15. Ted Herds His Steers North to New Haven 16. Dubuque, Part II 17. “Same Old Trick”: Southern Postscript, 1899 18. A Midwife of the American League 19. The Prodigal Hustler Returns 20. “The Original Gumshoe Man”: Beating the Bushes for Prospects 21. Sullivan’s ­Off-Base Humor 22. Baseball’s Ubiquitous Ambassador 23. Show Him the Money 24. Next Stop: The World 25. Ted’s Magic Lantern Show 26. Sox and Saints: Hall of Famers Slay St. Mary’s 27. Twilight of a Colorful Career 28. Ted’s Last Hurrah 29. The Third Strike Sporting Editor’s Notes Chapter Notes Bibliography Index

About the Author :
Pat O’Neill is a retired publicist and marketing executive and former editor of a Colorado weekly newspaper. He currently is president of the board of the Kansas City Irish Center. Tom Coffman has spent nearly 30 years as a media and government relations practitioner in the solid waste industry. He has worked as a reporter, editor and photographer for a weekly newspaper. He lives in Mission, Kansas.

Review :
“Well researched and an engaging read.”—SABR Deadball Era Committee Newsletter