Download or read book The Celebrant written by Eric Rolfe Greenberg and published by U of Nebraska Press. This book was released on 1993-01-01 with total page 276 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The first two decades of the twentieth century were a time of promise and innocence in America. Hardworking immigrants could achieve the American dream; heroes were truly heroic. Eric Rolfe Greenberg brilliantly and authentically chronicles the real-life saga of the first national baseball hero, Christy Mathewson, and the fictional story of a Jewish immigrant family of jewelers. In these pages Mathewson and other great players like John McGraw, Honus Wagner, and Connie Mack discover the realities behind the shining illusions: the burdens of being a hero and the temptations that taint success.