MISFITS! Baseball's Worst Ever Team: 1899 Cleveland Spiders - Paperback

by Michael D. Arnold (Illustrator), J. Thomas Hetrick (Author)

The tragicomic story of the 1899 Cleveland Spiders, baseball's futility leaders and winners of only 20 out of 154 games that season. Meet some of the most colorful men ever to wear a major league uniform. Follow their unfortunate train-travel odyssey through the National League and straight into obscurity. Marvel at the real desperation of a team forced to turn a cigar store clerk into a starting pitcher. Anecdotes galore. Reviewed in the 1999 Cleveland Indians Yearbook. Illustrations, appendices, sordid statistics, bibliography, and index.

Author Biography

J. Thomas Hetrick has written two books about 19th century baseball-MISFITS! Baseball's Worst Ever Team and Chris Von der Ahe and the St. Louis Browns. The latter book was a Finalist for the Seymour Medal, a peer award given for the best book of baseball history or biography in a year. A member of the Society for American Baseball Research (SABR), Hetrick has indexed Ball Four (Jim Bouton), Minnesotans in Baseball, and Baseball in 1889: Players vs. Owners (Daniel Pearson) for the organization. On occasion, he's presented his research at chapter and SABR National meetings in St. Louis, Boston, and Pittsburgh. In 2001, Hetrick spoke at the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York. Hetrick also owns and operates Pocol Press, a small press publisher located in Northern Virginia. He can be reached at info@pocolpress.com.