Steve Steinberg is a baseball historian and author of Urban Shocker (Nebraska, 2017), winner of the SABR Baseball Research Award, and The World Series in the Deadball Era. Lyle Spatz is the author of many baseball books and the coauthor (with Steve Steinberg) of The Colonel and Hug (Nebraska, 2015), winner of the SABR Baseball Research Award, and 1921 (Nebraska, 2010), winner of the Seymour Medal. Their most recent book Mike Donlin: A Rough and Rowdy Life from New York Baseball Idol to Stage and Screen was published this month.

In the first decade of the twentieth century, Mike Donlin was one of the greatest and most celebrated athletes in America. In our four Nebraska Press books together, Lyle Spatz and I have loved to write about overlooked figures from the National Pastime, bringing them back to life as real human beings, not simply as repositories of statistics. In my quarter century of baseball research and writing, and Lyle’s half-century of doing so, we have never come across a more fascinating and complex character than Mike Donlin—and as great an overlooked athlete. Even more surprising is that Mike, not his star teammate Christy Mathewson, was the most popular player in New York before Babe Ruth.

While two of his contemporaries, Mathewson and Honus Wagner, have endured in our collective memories, Mike Donlin has been virtually forgotten. His story is a commentary on the evanescence of fame and the fleeting nature of celebrity. Donlin was an alcoholic who spent much of one season in prison for attacking an actress, yet he coupled his ability to play baseball at the highest level with an engaging personality that endeared him to many. And when he married one of the nation’s leading vaudeville actresses, Mabel Hite in 1906, they became a true Power Couple a century before that term existed. A leading critic described her as a “genius” with “an extraordinary sense of the ridiculous.” Yet Mabel, who tragically died before her thirtieth birthday, has faded into obscurity as well.

Mike’s love of Mabel and her support pulled him back from the brink, after a headline-grabbing arrest for pulling a gun on a train porter in 1906 and again after a drinking binge in 1907. He then vowed to give up alcohol and rowdiness, a pledge he kept for the rest of their marriage. After leading the New York Giants to the world championship in 1905 (he batted .356 during the regular season), he led them through the most dramatic pennant race in history in 1908 (he batted .334). Then Mike did something almost unheard of—in that or any other era: He walked away from the game at the height of his career and popularity.

Equally improbable was the next chapter of Mike’s life: He joined Mabel on Broadway and began a second career in a very different entertainment venue. Mabel taught him “the ropes.” A quarter century later humorist Will Rogers recalled their opening night. “In my thirty years in all branches of show business, I never heard such a reception. It’s always lingered in my memory.”

For the next two years, the sports public wondered if Mike would return to baseball. But the lure of money was great ($2,000/week on stage with Mabel, far surpassing his large—for 1908—baseball annual salary of $6,000). Equally if not more powerful was his desire to be with the woman he loved, a lure that had kept him away from the game in 1907 too, before he went on stage. That year he stayed with her in Chicago, where he played for a semipro team and competed against Black star Rube Foster and his Leland Giants. In 1908 Mike returned to the Giants, to a hero’s welcome, as he would do again in 1911.

Orphaned as a youngster (Mike lost his mother in one of the most spectacular train accidents of the nineteenth century) and dealing with a temper that led to many umpire ejections and brawls, as well as his predilection for alcohol, Mike had yet another obstacle to overcome when the love of his life died in 1912.

Yet Mike Donlin endured and even thrived. He married actress Rita Ross in 1914, and she was a stabilizing force for the rest of his life. In 1915 he starred in a feature film of his life story, and he continued to act on stage. He started drinking again, and two of his drinking companions were John Barrymore and Buster Keaton. Mike appeared in a famous movie with each of them and began a long career in films. He became a beloved figure on the back lots of Hollywood, where directors often slotted him in small roles—which they did about one hundred times.

When he became seriously ill in 1927 and lacked the money for possible life-saving treatments at the Mayo Clinic, Barrymore organized a star-studded Los Angeles benefit for Mike. He recovered and returned to appearing in movies, while also becoming a respected consultant for those related to baseball.

In 1930 theater columnist (and future television host) Ed Sullivan saluted Mike for his recent performance on Broadway, “a remarkable tribute to Donlin’s facility in adapting himself to conditions as he finds them.” Throughout his life, Mike adapted and excelled—and in more than one realm.

Mike’s persona on the ballfield was electric and dominant. His arrogant strut to the plate gave him the nickname “Turkey Mike,” and his “bad boy” image endeared him to the youth of America, nowhere more so than in New York. Journalist and playwright Damon Runyon conveyed this when he declared, “ ‘Turkey Mike’ was the most picturesque, colorful baseball player I ever saw. He had more color than the mighty man, George Herman Ruth. It is a sure thing that Mike had the greatest personal acquaintance and following of any player the game has ever known.” Mike missed almost five full seasons at the height of his baseball career: Three with Mabel, one in prison, and another recuperating from a fractured ankle. His .333 career batting average (in more than 1,000 games) is one of baseball’s best, and he finished second or third in the batting race five times (and second or third in OPS four times). Had he played a few more seasons, he likely would have been enshrined in Baseball’s Hall of Fame. Instead, he is a dim memory. Lyle and I hope this book can bring back to life a man who in many ways was larger than life.