This Never Happened - J. B. Manheim

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Résumé :
It seems so simple, so pure. But behind the green grass and iconic heroes, professional baseball has always been driven by greed, ambition, a thirst for fame, a lust for power, and a ceaseless conflict of motives that go far beyond winning and losing. Peel back the veneer with The Deadball Files. This critically acclaimed series features present-day mysteries and legal dramas grounded in events and personalities from the early days of baseball. The series opens with a genuine mystery. History tells us that baseball legends Christy Mathewson and Ty Cobb volunteered as Captains in the World War I Chemical Warfare Service (CWS). After the 1918 baseball season ended, both shipped out for France where they were exposed to poison gas during a training exercise. Mathewson got the worst of it and died in 1925 of tuberculosis brought on by his exposure. History has it wrong. According to recently discovered military records, Cobb, Mathewson, and other future Hall of Famers were together in June 1918, training on chemical weapons as part of a show unit - a propaganda unit designed to attract young men into the CWS. But the unit disbanded early, and news accounts, even in the local press, make no mention of it. A propaganda unit, but no propaganda? A recruiting tool, but no recruiting? Something happened that was not in the script, something that has been the subject of an elaborate coverup for more than a century. But what? Discover the history as you unravel the mystery....

Sommaire:
JB Manheim is Professor Emeritus at The George Washington University, where he developed the world's first degree-granting program in political communication and was later founding director of the School of Media & Public Affairs. In 1995 he was named Professor of the Year for the District of Columbia. He learned his love of baseball watching Dizzy Dean broadcast the Game of the Week and huddling with his grandfather for warmth on July nights at The Mistake By The Lake, AKA, Cleveland Municipal Stadium, and renewed it when the National Pastime finally returned to the Nation's Capital. Manheim brings to life his expertise in propaganda and strategic communication through his fictional stories of baseball behind the scenes. His writing will lead you to question whether what you think you know about the history of the game and about the powers who control it is real, or whether it's just a carefully nurtured product of lies, deceptions, misdirection, and propaganda. JB Manheim is a member of the Society for American Baseball Research and the Internet Baseball Writers Association of America....