Edward Achorn, baseball historian/author, 'Fifty-nine in '84'

Baseball historian Edward Achorn remembers the greatest pitcher of them all in ‘Fifty-nine in ’84’

Edward Achorn, a Pulitzer Prize finalist for Distinguished Commentary, is the deputy editorial pages editor of The Providence Journal.

In 1884, Providence Grays pitcher Charles “Old Hoss” Radbourn won an astonishing fifty-nine games – more than anyone in major-league history ever had before, or ever will again. Then he went on to win all three games of baseball’s first World Series.

Achorn’s book, Fifty-nine in ’84 tells not only the dramatic story of that amazing feat of grit, but also the tale of big-league baseball two decades after the Civil War—a brutal, bloody sport played barehanded, the profession of ill-educated, hard-drinking men who thought little of cheating outrageously or maiming an opponent to win.

A diehard Red Sox fan descended from generations of baseball cranks, Achorn grew up in Westborough, Massachusetts. As a child, Achorn was astonished to discover that the nearby city of Worcester once had a major-league baseball team. Thus began a lifelong quest to learn more about 19th century baseball—to put flesh on the strange names and statistics found in the Baseball Encyclopedia, none more incredible than Radbourn’s 59 wins in one season. He quickly found there was much more to the story than has yet appeared in books. His search took him to the Library of Congress, the Baseball Hall of Fame Library, and numerous other institutions.

For more original interviews with your favorite sportswriters, please visit Mr. Media Radio.