This week Craig and Rex begin a two-part series on the Miracle Braves of 1914.

The early 20th Century was not kind to the Boston Braves (previously, the Beaneaters, the Doves and the Rustlers). Mired in the second division for years with frequent ownership changes, an outdated ballpark and few prospects, Boston entered the 1914 season with second year manager George Stallings, some promising new ballplayers and faint hopes to crack the National League's first division. However, after being swept in July 4th double header, the Braves were back in familiar territory - deep in last place, 15 games behind the mighty New York Giants.

What happened next resulted in baseball's greatest come from behind story ever. The Braves caught fire and made a mockery of the National League West, wining by 10 games over the Giants, the league's three-time defending champions. Part One of this two-part series looks at the Braves remarkable season and sets the stage for the World Series against the American League powerhouse Philadelphia Athletics.

You can support Hooks & Runs by purchasing books, including books featured in this episode, through our store at Bookshop.org. Here's the link. https://bookshop.org/shop/hooksandruns

Hooks & Runs - www.hooksandruns.com
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Hosts Emeriti:
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Music: "Warrior of Light" by ikolics (via Premium Beat)    
This podcast and this episode are copyright Craig Estlinbaum, 2025. 

Rex and I are taking two weeks to recover from the holidays and holiday travel and will be back January 16 with the first episode of Season Six. Here are the show notes from our Episode 106:
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This week Professor Peter Dreier (Occidental College) joins Hooks & Runs to discuss his new book, "Baseball Rebels: The Players, People and Social Movements That Shook Up the Game and Changed America" (Univ. Nebraska Press, 2022), co-authored with Prof. Robert Elias. The conversation covers not only well known names in baseball history like Bill Veeck and Larry Doby but also little known players almost forgotten by history. You'll hear amazing stories about people like Octavius Catto, Sam Nahem, Jackie Mitchell and more. This is a highly recommended book.

Dreier and Elias, incidentally, also released a companion book, "Major League Rebels: Baseball Battles Over Workers' Rights and American Empire" (Rowman & Littlefield, 2022).

"Previously on Hooks & Runs" - Professor Jeremi Duru on Curt Flood (Ep. 104).

Check It Out:
Prof. Dreier  recommends The History Channel's documentary, "After Jackie"
Rex recommends the new single from Megadeth, "We'll Be Back."
Andrew recommends "Operation Mincemeat," starring Colin Firth and available on Netflix.
Craig recommends the new album from a reunited Porcupine Tree, "Closure/Continuation." This is "Of the New Day."

You can support Hooks & Runs by purchasing books, including books featured in this episode, through our store at Bookshop.org. Here's the link. https://bookshop.org/shop/hooksandruns

Hooks & Runs - www.hooksandruns.com
Email: [email protected]
Hooks & Runs on Twitter
Craig on Bluesky (@craigest.bsky.social)
Rex (Krazy Karl's Music Emporium) on Facebook
https://www.facebook.com/people/Krazy-Karlz-Music-Emporium/100063801500293/
Hosts Emeriti:
Andrew on Tik Tok
Eric on Facebook
Opening and closing music, "Caroline" by Craig Estlinbaum. All rights reserved. 
This podcast and this episode are copyright Craig Estlinbaum, 2022, 2025, all rights reserved. 

Craig and Rex are taking two weeks off so we reached into the vault this week to present two segments from shows past.

The first segment is our January 2021 interview with Larry Lester, baseball historian and co-founder of the Negro League Baseball Museum in Kansas City, Missouri. This interview took place just a few short weeks after MLB officially recognized seven leading Negro Leagues from 1920 to 1948 as Major League Baseball. We talked about the process for researching and certifying Negro League statistics and snapshots of Negro League stars like Josh Gibson and Cool Papa Bell.

In the second segment, Eric and Craig presented their favorite and least favorite Super Bowl half-time performances. This segment ran in February 2021, just after The Weeknd's performance at Super Bowl LV in Tampa.

You can support Hooks & Runs by purchasing books, including books featured in this episode, through our store at Bookshop.org. Here's the link. https://bookshop.org/shop/hooksandruns

Hooks & Runs - www.hooksandruns.com
Email: [email protected]
Hooks & Runs on Twitter
Craig on Bluesky (@craigest.bsky.social)
Rex (Krazy Karl's Music Emporium) on Facebook
https://www.facebook.com/people/Krazy-Karlz-Music-Emporium/100063801500293/
Hosts Emeriti:
Andrew on Tik Tok
Eric on Facebook
Music: "Warrior of Light" by ikolics (via Premium Beat)    
This podcast and this episode are copyright Craig Estlinbaum, 2025. 

Len Ferman's new book, The 1973 Mets - You've Got to Believe, is a day to day saga about a Mets team that that rallied from last place with a 61-71 record on August 31 to win the National League East with an 82-79 record. The Eastern Division race that year saw five teams still in the hunt for the title in the season's final week. In the end, the Mets won the title outright on the season's final day with just 5 games separating the champs from the fifth place Chicago Cubs.

The Mets shocked the 99-win Cincinnati Reds in the five-game NL Championship series then stretched the Oakland A's, the defending World Series champs, to seven games before coming up short. The team featured the great Willie Mays in his final season and future Hall of Famer Tom Seaver, the 1973 NL Cy Young Award winner.

Len Ferman's The Sports Time TravelerTM website has links to his Substack, podcast, where to buy the book and other resources.
thesportstimetraveler.com

Errata: The Atlanta Braves finished the 1973 season against the Houston Astros for a two-game series in Atlanta. Henry Aaron hit home run No. 713 against Houston's Jerry Reuss in the series opener, but did not homer in the season's final game the next day against Houston's Dave Roberts and Don Wilson. Atlanta's manager in 1973 and for much of 1974 was Aaron's former Atlanta teammate and former Houston Astro, Eddie Matthews. The Pirates lost the final game of the 1973 season to the San Diego Padres 5-3

You can support Hooks & Runs by purchasing books, including books featured in this episode, through our store at Bookshop.org. Here's the link. https://bookshop.org/shop/hooksandruns

Hooks & Runs - www.hooksandruns.com
Email: [email protected]
Hooks & Runs on Twitter
Craig on Bluesky (@craigest.bsky.social)
Rex (Krazy Karl's Music Emporium) on Facebook
https://www.facebook.com/people/Krazy-Karlz-Music-Emporium/100063801500293/
Hosts Emeriti:
Andrew Eckhoff on Tik Tok
Eric on Facebook
Music: "Warrior of Light" by ikolics (via Premium Beat)    
This podcast and this episode are copyright Craig Estlinbaum, 2024.   

Craig & Rex review their favorite albums of 2024 while Craig mourns Kyle Tucker being traded by Houston to the Cubs.

Errata: The MJ Lenderman lyric on "Wristwatch" is " a wristwatch that tells me I'm on my own," not "I'm all alone." Col. Mandrake is a character in Stanley Kubrick's Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb. Bob Hunter, Los Angeles Herald-Examiner, first referred to the Cincinnati Reds as "the Big Red Machine" on July 4, 1969. The moniker stuck as the Reds began the 1970 season 70-30 on their way to the National League pennant.

You can support Hooks & Runs by purchasing books through our store at Bookshop.org. Here's the link. https://bookshop.org/shop/hooksandruns

Hooks & Runs - www.hooksandruns.com
Email: [email protected]
Hooks & Runs on Twitter
Craig on Bluesky (@craigest.bsky.social)
Rex (Krazy Karl's Music Emporium) on Facebook
https://www.facebook.com/people/Krazy-Karlz-Music-Emporium/100063801500293/
Hosts Emeriti:
Andrew Eckhoff on Tik Tok
Eric on Facebook
Music: "Warrior of Light" by ikolics (via Premium Beat)    
This podcast and this episode are copyright Craig Estlinbaum, 2024.  

This week Craig and Rex look at Lou Gehrig's lone Hollywood film, "Rawhide" (1938), filmed in January 1938.

The film stars Gehrig (playing himself) and Texas native Smith Ballew (Palestine), Hollywood's first singing cowboy as the film's protagonists. Evalyn Knapp plays Gehrig's sister (part protagonist) and Ballew's love interest in the film. 

Errata: There is a car shown in the very first scene in Rawhide after all.

This movie is available to view on YouTube at no charge.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0RsQEYIBE9w 

You can support Hooks & Runs by purchasing books through our store at Bookshop.org. Here's the link. https://bookshop.org/shop/hooksandruns

Hooks & Runs - www.hooksandruns.com
Email: [email protected]
Hooks & Runs on Twitter
Craig on Bluesky (@craigest.bsky.social)
Rex (Krazy Karl's Music Emporium) on Facebook
https://www.facebook.com/people/Krazy-Karlz-Music-Emporium/100063801500293/
Hosts Emeriti:
Andrew Eckhoff on Tik Tok
Eric on Facebook
Music: "Warrior of Light" by ikolics (via Premium Beat)    
This podcast and this episode are copyright Craig Estlinbaum, 2024.     

Dr. Bob Luke, author of "Willie Wells: 'El Diablo' of the Negro Leagues," joins us this week as Hooks & Runs begins a new series featuring native Texans that have been inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame. We begin with Willie Wells, "El Diablo," an all-time great shortstop born in Austin in 1905, give or take, and who played and managed in the Negro Leagues, in Cuba, in Canada and in Mexico for over 20 years.

In part 2, Craig and Rex talk about Blake Snell's and Yusei Kikuchi's new contracts, Kyle Finnegan's non-tender, the horrific "Golden At-Bat" gimmick Rob Manfred has proposed, and whether the NCAA needs to get involved to prohibit "planting the flag" and the inevitable scuffles that ensue.

This episode mentions our interviews with Larry Lester (No. 46) and Peter Dreier (No. 106).

You can support Hooks & Runs by purchasing books through our store at Bookshop.org. Here's the link. https://bookshop.org/shop/hooksandruns

Hooks & Runs - www.hooksandruns.com
Email: [email protected]
Hooks & Runs on Twitter
Craig on Bluesky (@craigest.bsky.social)
Rex (Krazy Karl's Music Emporium) on Facebook
https://www.facebook.com/people/Krazy-Karlz-Music-Emporium/100063801500293/
Hosts Emeriti:
Andrew Eckhoff on Tik Tok
Eric on Facebook
Music: "Warrior of Light" by ikolics (via Premium Beat)    
This podcast and this episode are copyright Craig Estlinbaum, 2024.    

Outfielder Sam Rice played 20 seasons in the Major Leagues - all but one with the Washington Nationals (later, the Senators). Rice retired from the game with 2,987 hits, 13 shy of the coveted mark of 3,000, making him the player that came the closest to reaching that milestone. In this episode, we look at Rice's sometimes tragic, often triumphant life.

Selected Sources:
Stephen Able, "Sam Rice," Society for American Baseball Research (sabr.org).
Stanley Milliken, "White Sox Win 6-2," Washington Post, August 8, 1915,
C. Norman Willis, "Washington Senators: All-Time Greats," (Xlibris 2003).
Gregory H. Wolf, "October 10, 1925: Senators Sam Rice makes dazzling catch to preserve victory in Game 3 - or did he?" Society for American Baseball Research (sabr.org).

You can support Hooks & Runs by purchasing books through our store at Bookshop.org. Here's the link. https://bookshop.org/shop/hooksandruns

Hooks & Runs - www.hooksandruns.com
Email: [email protected]
Hooks & Runs on Twitter
Craig on Bluesky (@craigest.bsky.social)
Rex (Krazy Karl's Music Emporium) on Facebook
https://www.facebook.com/people/Krazy-Karlz-Music-Emporium/100063801500293/
Hosts Emeriti:
Andrew Eckhoff on Tik Tok
Eric on Facebook
Music: "Warrior of Light" by ikolics (via Premium Beat)    
This podcast and this episode are copyright Craig Estlinbaum, 2024.    

Rick Reiff is our guest this week to discuss his essay in the Fall 2024 Baseball Research Journal, "Gavy Cravath's Hall-Worthy 200 Home Runs."  Cravath, a late arrival, played 11 seasons in the Major Leagues and led the National League in home runs in six of those seasons, from 1913 to 1919. Cravath also led the Senior Circuit in RBI twice, in on base percentage twice and slugging percentage three times. Despite being the preeminent home run hitter in the Deadball Era, Cravath remains on the outside looking in for Hall of Fame induction. Reiff makes the case to remedy this.

In part 2, Craig and Rex talk about the Rays playing their 2025 regular season at the Yankees' spring training home, the latest billion-dollar boondoggle to return the Houston Astrodome, an aging eyesore, to usefulness and how to turn a juice box to an ice box.

Errata: Craig, its the Donner Party, not the Bonner Party.

You can support Hooks & Runs by purchasing books through our store at Bookshop.org. Here's the link. https://bookshop.org/shop/hooksandruns

Hooks & Runs - www.hooksandruns.com
Email: [email protected]
Hooks & Runs on Twitter
Craig at Bluesky (@craigest.bsky.social)
Rex (Krazy Karl's Music Emporium) on Facebook
https://www.facebook.com/people/Krazy-Karlz-Music-Emporium/100063801500293/
Hosts Emeriti:
Andrew Eckhoff on Tik Tok
Eric on Facebook
Music: "Warrior of Light" by ikolics (via Premium Beat)    
This podcast and this episode are copyright Craig Estlinbaum, 2024.   

This episode was recorded on November 5.

Craig and Rex analyze some of baseball's rarest achievements, ranging from Johnny Vander Meer's back to back no-hitters, Fernando Tatis belting two grand slams in the same inning off the same pitcher. Of course we mention Guy Hecker's 7 runs scored in a 9 innings game, a singular feat that has stood for 138 years.

Also this episode, Gerrit Cole's $144 million dance with free agency after the World Series came to an end plus the Hall of Fame's Classic Era Committee's nominees.

You can support Hooks & Runs by purchasing books through our store at Bookshop.org. Here's the link. https://bookshop.org/shop/hooksandruns

Hooks & Runs - www.hooksandruns.com
Email: [email protected]
Hooks & Runs on Twitter
Craig at Bluesky (@craigest.bsky.social)
Rex (Krazy Karl's Music Emporium) on Facebook
https://www.facebook.com/people/Krazy-Karlz-Music-Emporium/100063801500293/
Hosts Emeriti:
Andrew Eckhoff on Tik Tok
Eric on Facebook
Music: "Warrior of Light" by ikolics (via Premium Beat)    
This podcast and this episode are copyright Craig Estlinbaum, 2024.