Review - Baseball in the Roaring Twenties by Thomas Wolf

Title: Baseball in the Roaring Twenties: The Yankees, the Cardinals, and the Captivating 1926 Season* 

Author: Thomas Wolf

Rating: 3 stars / 5 stars

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Favorite Quote: “Before things settled down, fans joined in, leaving their seats and climbing over railings to take part in the melee. The Yankees retreated to their locker room. While nearly a thousand fans battled the police and Tigers security forces, the umpires declared the Yankees winners by forfeit.” Wolf, Thomas. Baseball in the Roaring Twenties: The Yankees, the Cardinals, and the Captivating 1926 Season. University of Nebraska Press, 2025, e-book ed.

Review: Thank you to the Netgalley platform and the publisher, University of Nebraska Press, for the free e-ARC I received in exchange for this honest review.

This book follows (at times tangentially) the 1926 baseball season, leading up to a World Series between the Yankees and the Cardinals. 

Here’s what’s working: Wolf’s descriptions of the chaos surrounding baseball (see fav quote) at the time, and some of the historical context provided creates a fascinating picture of sports in the era of mobsters and gamblers operating behind the scenes.

Wolf also does a fantastic job capturing the personalities of the various players (Babe Ruth was…a lot) and by outlining the various non-baseball shenanigans, Wolf paints a picture of the “Wild West” of baseball back in the 20s. This historical perspective also gives readers an insight look into how modern baseball developed, such as how certain pitches came to be banned, and how baseball came to be governed by a single commissioner. 

Finally, I really appreciated how Wolf incorporated the parallel history of the Negro League. While not the focus of the book, this was an important and valuable part of baseball history, and rather than whitewashing the history of baseball, Wolf includes the racism, as well as the incredible talent from the Black players during that time. 

So what’s not working? My biggest complaint is that, while much of the history mentioned in the book does pertain to the history of baseball, there do appear to be some parts that just ramble about the history of the time in general - mostly mentions of the president at the time, who Wolf specifically notes wasn’t interested in baseball. These detours took away from the cohesiveness of the narrative.

About that Quote: As mentioned, Wolf shines when describing the absolutely bonkers events that could and did occur during baseball games and practices (there’s another tale of alligators hanging out on the spring training field). 

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