Rosenberg, Howard W. 1965-

PERSONAL:

Born April 21, 1965, in New Hyde Park, NY; son of Melvin (a yarn warehouse executive) and Sydell (an insurance and travel agent) Rosenberg. Ethnicity: "Caucasian." Education: Cornell University, B.S., 1987. Religion: Jewish.

ADDRESSES:

Home—Arlington, VA. Office—U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, 451 7th St. S.W., Washington, DC 20410. E-mail—howieanson@yahoo.com.

CAREER:

Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Washington, DC, reporter, 1987-92; National Indian Policy Center, Washington, DC, staff writer, 1993-94; U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, Washington, DC, editor, 2004—.

MEMBER:

Cornell Club of Washington.

AWARDS, HONORS:

Public Service Award, League of Women Voters, 1983.

WRITINGS:

Cap Anson 1: When Captaining a Team Meant Something; Leadership in Baseball's Early Years, Tile Books (Arlington, VA), 2003.

Cap Anson 2: The Theatrical and Kingly Mike Kelly; U.S. Team Sport's First Media Sensation and Baseball's Original Casey at the Bat, Tile Books (Arlington, VA), 2004.

Cap Anson 3: Muggsy John McGraw and the Tricksters; Baseball's Fun Age of Rule Bending, Tile Books (Arlington, VA), 2005.

Cap Anson 4: Bigger Than Babe Ruth: Captain Anson of Chicago, Tile Books (Arlington, VA), 2006.

SIDELIGHTS:

Howard W. Rosenberg told CA: "The ‘Cap Anson’ book series is one of the most exhaustive book-length studies to date of any U.S. professional team athlete. Anson was a longtime player captain-manager of the Chicago National League baseball team from 1879 to 1897, in an era when baseball teams tended to be led, during games, by players (and not by a nonplaying manager). Anson was the lone player to play enough seasons through 1900 to attain 3,000 hits before the start of the twentieth century, and he is also the player most often blamed for the advent of the sport's color line in the 1880s.

"All of the books in the series have full endnotes, and the last three are extensively illustrated, especially the fourth, which contains a possible record number of graphics for a baseball Hall of Famer's definitive biography: 180. The books are the definitive works on a range of topics, including ties between famous actors and baseball through 1900; the division of labor in early baseball between captains, bench managers, and nonplaying managers; the extent of tricky and dirty play on the field through 1900; and the definitive biographies of fellow Hall of Famers Mike ‘King’ Kelly and Anson who, besides colorful careers on the diamond, also achieved fame on the theatrical stage.

"My methodology was to read through the overwhelming majority of the surviving microfilm and bound newspapers that exist for nineteenth-century baseball. I live near the Library of Congress, which has the largest collection of such materials. I liberally supplemented the library's holdings by making many visits to out-of-town libraries and borrowing microfilm on interlibrary loan.

"Because the books are self-published, more straightforward than narrative, and mainly about an era modern sports fans have relatively little taste for, the nineteenth century, there have been a limited number of articles about the books as of this writing. It may be worth noting that relative to other lengthy baseball books, the production of the series was exceptional, as they were printed by some of the most prestigious ones in the country, and I liberally placed more than one hundred graphics in three of the four books—on a page to which each relates."