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Billy Sunday: The Life and Work of the Baseball Evangelist (Ambassador Classic Biography Series) By Elijah P. Brown (Author) Our Price $ 13.19   Retail Value $ 14.99   You Save $ 1.80  (12%)   Item Number 38501   Buy New Item Quantity: 1              2              3              4              5              6              7 ABOUT TRUST ONLINE

Life and Diary of David Brainerd, The Item: 19638

	Interesting as a Book First Published During Sunday's Evangelical Career, 1913  Nov 24, 2009
Though this book seems to gush too much praise over Billy Sunday, it is equally interesting as being an authentic artifact from Sunday's lifetime, an authorized biography! Billy Sunday was an early baseball professional, playing alongside early baseball Hall of Famers like Cap Anson, who discovered and recruited Billy, but Billy later gave up his baseball career to preach the Gospel and fight the alcohol trade in the days of Prohibition. He preached famously for about 4 decades, into the 1930s, and was sort of like a rowdy rockstar in his onstage preaching delivery, jumping around the stage, picking up chairs as if to throw them at the devil, leaning over the stage and over the crowd. He drew big crowds for his day, VERY big crowds for his day. His tours were well orchestrated and encompassed weeks of community planning and participation, culminating in a week of Billy Sunday live sermons, which were heavily reported in the newspapers of the day, though since forgotten or overshadowed by radio and television era preachers since, like Billy Graham. We can easily say that Billy Sunday was the equivalent of Billy Graham in the public eye of his era. It is interesting to see and read a biography of Billy Sunday which is from this era, receiving Billy's blessing. The dedication page of this book shows Billy Sunday's handwritten note that praises the author, other than that, there is no further information about the author anywhere. There is no copyright date of publication in the opening pages of this informative book about Billy Sunday, but it can be calculated from hints in the text that this book was first published in 1913, putting it about one third of the way into Billy's long and famous preaching career. Page 15 gives his date of birth as November 19, 1862, then page 183 says Billy is 50 years old. Pages 175 and 177 provide similar proofs based upon the children of Billy Sunday. The book has several surprising family photos, reproduced surprisingly well in this book, featuring portraits and photos of Billy's parents -- how about Billy's father, whom Billy never met, wearing his Civil War uniform in a posed photo -- now THAT is rare to me. There are also photos of other family members, as well as photographic documentation of the kind of revival meetings that Billy Sunday was famous for, all in the days before modern PA systems to amplify his voice. There were no microphones used in this 1913 era, just a silent, BIG crowd hanging on every word from the preacher, in a tent especially arranged for his voice to carry in. The book chronicles the main landmarks of Billy's life, starting in his early years when his destitute mother had to give up her two sons to an orphanage, into Billy getting discovered and playing professional baseball, then on into Billy getting Saved and beginning his mission to evangelize the common people of the Midwest. There are many long quotes from newspapers of the day, which get monotonous, but prove that the fame, popularity and influence were for real. The book ends with several sermons by Billy Sunday. These are sometimes inspiring to me, but are filled with too much contemporary talk of the era. Maybe I just don't get the references as well as they did back in 1913. I find Billy Sunday to be interesting regardless of what I think about his sermons, because Sunday is a stepping stone in the line of famous American preachers. He doesn't corrupt Bible teachings, though I feel that he could have done more verse quoting, but he's the famous preacher of his day, not me. If you are curious about Billy Sunday, then this book is well worth reading!

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