Baseball's Emerald Age

"IRISH-AMERICAN KIDS in the late 19th century looked to baseball like inner-city kids today look to basketball," says Jerrold Casway. "It was both a form of self-expression and a route to the American Dream." Previously known only as a historian of 17th-century Ireland, Casway has just published "Ed Delahanty in the Emerald Age of Baseball" (Notre Dame), a biography of the legendary slugger and outfielder who died under mysterious circumstances in 1903, and a chronicle of the permanent effect the sons of refugees from the Irish potato famine had on America's pastime. Casway, whose book will appear just in time for St. Patrick's Day, spoke with Ideas via telephone from his office at Howard Community College in Columbia, Md.

IDEAS: You coined the term "Emerald Age of Baseball" to describe the latter decades of the 19th century and the first decade of the 20th. Why?

CASWAY: In part because they already had a bat and handball tradition, and partly because there weren't many decent opportunities available to them, by the mid-1880s second-generation Irish-Americans had become the dominant ethnic group in baseball. They comprised between 30 and 50 percent of all players, managers, and team captains at the time. They not only dominated the sport but changed its very character.

IDEAS: How so?

CASWAY: Baseball was formerly a very methodical game, where the rules were set and people played by them. The Irish popularized a style of play that was daring, spontaneous -- and also rowdy and confrontational. Teams like Ned Hanlon's Baltimore Orioles created a more fluid, open, and competitive game by combining intelligent and coercive playing. They got men on base by any means, unnerved opponents and umpires, and capitalized on game situations. They transformed the sport with innovative tactics like hit-and-run plays, double steals, and bunting for a hit -- as well as with stunts like cutting corners when they ran the bases, tripping base runners, even grabbing runners by their belts or pants. Watching a ballgame in those days was like open-air vaudeville theater.

IDEAS: Ed Delahanty, owner of the 4th highest lifetime batting average, certainly seems like a crowd-pleasing showman.

CASWAY: Delahanty, the premier batter of the 1890s, was the last of his kind -- the "Casey at the bat" Irishman, the explosive Irish power-hitter. In his prime, there was no better all-around outfielder and dominating athlete in baseball. But like so many athletes today, he was an overgrown adolescent. He was accused of playing for records and being a disruptive presence. And he was addicted to gambling, and deeply in debt. When his body turned up at the bottom of Niagara's Horseshoe Falls, there was talk of suicide. After studying the matter closely, however, I firmly believe it was an accident -- he fell into the river while drunk.

IDEAS: What happened to baseball in the post-Delahanty years?

CASWAY: Baseball settled down, for a number of reasons. Pro baseball was played by a greater number of athletes from middle-class backgrounds in the decades after Delahanty's death. The ball itself was redesigned with a cork center -- it was hit for distance, which meant less excitement in the infield. And perhaps most importantly, other economic opportunities opened up to Irish-American kids, and the proportion of Irish players declined. But their legacy remains.