Product Description
by Phil S. Dixon (Author)
Philadelphia's African-American Giants were organized in 1902 by Harry A. Smith and H. Walter Schlichter. Smith, a former baseball player and writer for the Philadelphia Tribune, had conceived the idea of organizing a team and approached Schlichter, the sports editor of the Philadelphia Evening Item, for financial backing. Veteran player/manager Solomon 'Sol' White was hired as captain of the newly organized Giants and immediately placed in charge of player recruitment. By continually fazing out the old ballplayers and introducing new ones, Smith, Schlichter and White built the Philadelphia Giants into one of the strongest baseball teams in the country. Their record of games won was unparalleled. In 1904 this same Philadelphia Giants team defeated the Cuban X Giants to claim their first Worlds Championship, a title that they held for many years. As an independent organization, one that was totally seperated from National and American League connections, the Philadelphia Giants operated with the utmost of integrity and sportsmanship from 1902-1910. In honor of the 1905 Philadelphia Giants' contribution to our American pastime, Dixon's American Baseball chronicles has compiled statistics and game notes from the entire championship season of 1905. This series, the first of its kind, is a unique offering of an in-depth series of publications about the greatest baseball teams in African-American sports history. What makes this work unique is it's easy to read format and depth of information. Included within the book are written accounts for every game from the Philadelphia Giants' entire 1905 schedule of nearly 158 contest, with scores, attendance figures and other seldom revealed information. The work includes aditional information on more than 300 additional games played by the Cuban X Giants, Chicago Leland Giants, Brooklyn Royal Giants and other African-American teams in operation during that same 1905 season, as well as additional historic information as it related to the National and American baseball Leagues. The comparative scores and their related histories are a resourceful and entertaining aid for further analysis and assessment on the participation of African-American athletes in baseball as best represented from the perspective of a single Championship season.
