Yankee Doodles - First Edition - Signed - Milton Gross - Bauman Rare Books

Yankee Doodles

Milton GROSS

Item#: 85064 We're sorry, this item has been sold

Yankee Doodles

Yankee Doodles

“A LITTLE GEM OF A BOOK!”: SIGNED BY 23 OF THE 1947 WORLD CHAMPION YANKEES

GROSS, Milton. Yankee Doodles… With and Introduction by Stanley “Bucky” Harris, Manager of the New York Yankees, Illustrated by Dinty Dugan. Boston: House of Kent, 1948. Octavo, original gray paper boards, original dust jacket. Housed in a custom clamshell box.

First edition of this “important contribution… to the understanding of the workings of a ball player’s mind,” signed on the verso of the last page by 23 championship Yankees, including Phil Rizzuto, Tommy Henrich, Joe Page, Yogi Berra and Joe DiMaggio, with a foreword by Yankees manager Bucky Harris (who unbelievably was fired the following year, after falling just a game short of winning the pennant).

The 1947 World Series pitted the New York Yankees against the cross-town Brooklyn Dodgers, with the Yankees winning the Series in seven games, garnering their 11th championship in team history. This “little gem of a book” (Marty Appel) is a collection of player biographies by Milton Gross, baseball reporter for the New York Post, who was “one of the first to portray the human aspect of athletes… [and to show] empathy with black athletes” (Sam Goldaper). The 1947 Series was the first to involve a black player, Jackie Robinson. “I always admired the way Gross got off his duff and worked,” praised Times reporter Red Smith. “It wasn’t luck that he was there when something big happened.” In Yankee Doodles, Gross presents the human side of 19 ballplayers, starting with Joe DiMaggio, whom he characterizes as “setting the pace for the Yankees. When he goes well, they do too. When he slumps, they slump… DiMag lives a most peculiar life. For one thing, he takes most of his meals in Toots Shor’s Restaurant.” Of star reliever Joe Page, Gross reveals that “Joe has 18 suits… and 11 pairs of shoes… His rayon undershorts are loud.” Each anecdotal biography is accompanied by a sketch of the player by Boston Post political cartoonist, Dinty Dugan. Grobani 7-22.

Text fine, considerable edge-wear to original paper-covered boards. Some wear to extremities of dust jacket with a two-inch closed tear to back panel. A very good copy, multiply signed.

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Aquatint Copperplate process by which the plate is “bitten” by exposure to acid. By changing the areas of the plate that are exposed and the length of time the plate is submerged in the acid bath, the engraver can obtain fine and varying shades of gray that closely resemble watercolor washes. Although the name contains the word “tint”, this is a black-and-white printing process; aquatint plates can often be hand colored, however.
Armorial Used to describe a binding bearing the coat of arms of the original owner, or with bookplates incorporating the owner’s arms.
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Boards Hard front and rear covers of a bound book which are covered in cloth, leather or paper. “Original boards” refers to cardboard-like front and back boards, from about 1700 to 1840, used as temporary protection for books before their purchasers would have them bound. Of particular value to collectors as evidence of a very early form of the book.
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Doublure Pastedowns made not of paper but of leather, for decorative purposes.
Duodecimo (12MO) Smaller than an octavo, typically less than six inches tall; smaller formats, such as 24mo and 32mo, are uncommon.
Edition Print-run from a single setting of type without substantial change. Depending on demand, any number of printings can be made from a setting of type For example, a first printing might consist of 1000 copies, followed by a second printing of 2500 copies; in which case the book would have a first edition, first printing of 1000 copies, and a first edition, second printing of 2500 copies.
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Japanese Vellum Expensive handmade paper often used in deluxe editions.
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Wood-Engraving Engraving made with the graver or burin on the cross-section of a piece of boxwood; the harder wood and finer tools allow for more delicate, finely detailed images, while the block can still be set in the page alongside text and printed on the same stock as the text. While much older, wood engravings enjoyed an important renaissance in the late eighteenth century through Thomas Bewick and continued in popularity thorugh the nineteenth century.
Wormhole Tiny pinhole-sized trails left by bookworms as they eat through a text block. Much more common in older books printed on handmade papers with a high rag content than in books printed on manufactured papers made from wood pulp with a higher acidic content.
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