Full Description
During the mid-1950s, an unlikely star stood alongside baseball standouts Mickey Mantle, Henry Aaron and Willie Mays--a slugger with a funny name and muscles so bulging that he had to cut the sleeves off his uniform to swing freely. Ted Kluszewski played little baseball in his youth, making a name for himself instead as a hard-hitting football player at Indiana University before showing potential on the diamond and being signed by the Cincinnati Reds. Between 1953 and 1956, no other player in major league baseball hit more home runs than Kluszewski. If not for a back injury, he might have gone down in major league history as one its greatest players. With detailed statistics from both his football and baseball careers, this biography chronicles the unusual odyssey that took Kluszewski to the big leagues and ultimately made him a ballgame icon in the 1950s.
Contents
Table of Contents
Introduction
1. From Argo to Bloomington
2. Breaking into the Big Leagues
3. A Rising Star
4. Big Klu and the Rajah
5. Kluszewski Becomes a Baseball Icon
6. Kluszewski and the Redlegs Almost Win a Pennant
7. Kluszewski's Aching Back
8. Traded to Pittsburgh
9. World Series Hero in Chicago
10. Career Twilight in L.A.
11. Kluszewski and the Big Red Machine
12. Demoted but Forever Loyal
Appendices:
A: Indiana University/Big Ten Football Records and Data, 1944 and 1945
B: Ted Kluszewski Statistics
C: Other Statistics and Data
Chapter Notes
Bibliography
Index
