New Century, New Team: The 1901 Boston Americans

The team now known as the Boston Red Sox played its first season in 1901. The city of Boston had a well-established National League team, known at the time as the Beaneaters, but the founders of the American League knew that Boston was a strong baseball market and when they launched the league as a new major league in 1901, they went head-to-head with the N.L. in Chicago, Philadelphia, and Boston. Chicago won the American League pennant and Boston finished second, just four games behind.

The Boston Americans played in a new ballpark -- the Huntington Avenue Grounds -- literally on the other side of the railroad tracks from the Beaneaters and they out-drew the Beaneaters by more than 2-1, in part because they had enticed some of the more popular players -- player/ manager Jimmy Collins, pitcher Cy Young, and slugger Buck Freeman.

This volume represents the collective work of more than 25 members of SABR --the Society for American Baseball Research. It offers individual biographies of the players, team owner Charles Somers, league founder Ban Johnson, and two of the team's most noted fans: Hi Hi Dixwell and Nuf Ced McGreevy. There is also a "biography" of the Huntington Avenue Grounds ballpark and a study of media coverage of Boston baseball in 1901, and a timeline running from the first spring training through that year's postseason games.