Death sells

<p>The recent death of St. Louis Cardinals pitcher Josh Hancock brings to mind other tragic incidents of ballplayers dying before their time.<br />Books about such players who died during the baseball season include <em><span class=”bigger”>Ed Delehanty in the Emerald<a onclick=”window.open(this.href, ‘_blank’, ‘width=240,height=240,scrollbars=no,resizable=no,toolbar=no,directories=no,location=no,menubar=no,status=no,left=0,top=0’); return false” href=”http://baseballbookshelf.mlblogs.com/.shared/image.html?/photos/uncategorized/00dela.jpg”><img width=”125″ height=”125″ border=”0″ src=”http://baseballbookshelf.mlblogs.com/my_weblog/images/00dela.jpg” title=”00dela” alt=”00dela” style=”margin: 0px 5px 5px 0px; float: left;” /></a>
Age of Baseball</span></em> <a href=”http://baseballbookshelf.mlblogs.com/my_weblog/2007/03/a_st_patricks_d.html”>(see a previously posted review</a>) and <em><span class=”sans”>July 2, 1903: The Mysterious Death of Hall-Of-Famer Big Ed
Delahanty,</span></em><span class=”sans”> the latter written by Mike Sowell, who might get something of a morbid reputation: he also wrote </span><em>The Pitch That Killed</em>, a biography about Ray Chapman ( d. Aug. 17, 1920), the only on-field fatality. <br />Yankees cather Thurman Munson was killed in a plance crash on Aug. 2, 1979. His story is told in <em>Thurman Munson: A Baseball Biography</em>. I was working at a
sleepaway camp in Quebec when I heard the news that fateful day. Information was hard to come by in those
pre-wired days, but as the only person from the U.S., I received a lot
of commiseration. Ironically, Munson’s autobiography, written with
Marty Appel, was released that year.<a onclick=”window.open(this.href, ‘_blank’, ‘width=240,height=240,scrollbars=no,resizable=no,toolbar=no,directories=no,location=no,menubar=no,status=no,left=0,top=0’); return false” href=”http://baseballbookshelf.mlblogs.com/.shared/image.html?/photos/uncategorized/00_nec.jpg”><img width=”125″ height=”125″ border=”0″ src=”http://baseballbookshelf.mlblogs.com/my_weblog/images/00_nec.jpg” title=”00_nec” alt=”00_nec” style=”margin: 0px 0px 5px 5px; float: right;” /></a><br />
Other players have succumbed during the regular season, including Lyman Bostock (Sept. 23, 1978)
and Willard Hershberger (Aug. 3, 1940), but no books have been devoted strictly&nbsp; to them. There stories, and those of&nbsp; other ballplayers, have been collected in <em><span class=”sans”>The Baseball Necrology: The Post-Baseball Lives and Deaths of over
7,600 Major League Players and Others</span></em>, published in 2003 by&nbsp; McFarland.</p>