Not only was it probably the most cutthroat pennant race in baseball history; it was also a struggle to define how baseball would be played. This book re-creates the rowdy season-long 1897 battle between the Baltimore Orioles and the Boston Beaneaters. The Orioles had acquired a reputation as the dirtiest team in baseball. Future Hall of Famers John McGraw Wee Willie Keeler and Foxy Ned Hanlon were proven winners--but their nasty tactics met with widespread disapproval among fans. So it was that their pennant race with the comparatively saintly Beaneaters took on a decidedly moralistic air. Bill Felber brings to life the most intensely watched team sporting event in the country s history to that time. His book captures the drama of the final week as the race came down to a three-game series. And finally it conveys the madness of the third and decisive game when thirty thousand fans literally knocked down the gates and walls of a facility designed to hold ten thousand to watch the Beaneaters grind out a win and bring down baseball s first and most notorious evil empire.