Smoky Joe Wood: The Biography of a Baseball Legend
Howard Ellsworth Smoky Joe Wood has been called the best player not in the Hall of Fame. He was one of the game’s most dominant pitchers in the years leading up to WWI. In 1912, he won 34 games and lost only 5 for the Boston Red Sox. Injuries plagued him thereafter, and following retirement in 1922, he became the head baseball coach at Yale. Author Wood (no relation) exhaustively researched Wood’s early life. He includes detailed accounts of Wood’s exploits in dozens of amateur games while he was helping support his family. Wood even played as a female for a bit on the National Bloomers Girls baseball team. There are great baseball anecdotes here and sparkling details of Wood’s years as a standout pitcher with the Red Sox as well as his agonizing struggle to recover his pitching form post-injury and his determined return to the majors as a position player. Wood was a great ballplayer and an even more fascinating man. Excellent reading. --Wes Lukowsky