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William A. Cook is a prolific writer and dedicated "Americanist." As a historian, Cook has a reputation as being objective and detailed in his writing. Cook was born in Cincinnati, Ohio. He is a former public administrator having served in the nation's health care and social service systems in several states. For the past 35 years he has resided in New Jersey. He served one-term as a township councilman in North Brunswick, NJ (1991-1993). Currently he lives in Manalapan, NJ. Prior to coming to the east coast, Cook lived, attended graduate school and worked in Chicago and Minneapolis. His educational experience includes holding an MA, University of Illinois at Chicago, BS, AA, University of Cincinnati. A widower, he was married for 14 years.
Cook's writing is diverse and respected. His book Jim Thorpe - A Biography, published by McFarland & Co.in 2011, received a review in the American Indian Culture and Research Journal published by UCLA. In addition, three times various works of Cook's have recognized by the OHIOANA LIBRARY ASSOCIATION as significant to Ohio history.
In January 2022 Cook's latest work Gabe Paul - The Long Road to the Bronx Zoo was published by Sunbury Press. The work chronicles the 60-year career of Gabe Paul in baseball, and it is the first timed that Paul's complete baseball story has been told Paul served as a bat boy, press-agent, traveling secretary, general manager, vice-president, president and part owner for several teams during his career, Cincinnati Reds, Houston Colt 45s, Cleveland Indians and New York Yankees. It is Gabe Paul that saved major league baseball in Cleveland. In the early 1970s Paul joined the group formed by George Steinbrenner that bought the struggling New York Yankees from CBS. Paul then rebuilt the franchise into one that won three straight AL pennants from 1976 to 1978. Twice Paul was named Executive of the Year by The Sporting News (1956 Reds & 1974 Yankees). He is only the fifth executive to win the award more than once since it was started in 1936.
Cook's much-anticipated book America and the Automobile was published by Sunbury Press in 2020. This extraordinary work traces the history of the automobile and its effect on the culture of America through the rise of the Big Three, Ford, General Motors and Chrysler and their primary founders Henry Ford, Walter Chrysler and Albert P. Sloan. Every aspect of the evolution of the automobile is presented from running boards to V8 engines, fins, to the rise of organized labor to the auto's symbiotic relationship with rock n' roll and the invasion of Japanese cars on the American market. Just be advised to fasten your seat belt before you start reading this epic.
Cook's "Collision Course - The Basketball Lives of Bob Cousy and Oscar Robertson and the Fall of the Cincinnati Royals was published by Sunbury Press in May 2019. The book explores how the brilliant careers of basketball hall of fame players Cousy and Robertson eventually clashed with their personalities in a player-coach relationship in Cincinnati and destroyed the Royals franchise. The book also examines in detail the early days of the NBA and Bob Cousy's contributions to establishing the NBA. The book has been well received and is sparking a lively debate among Cousy fans and Robertson fans alike.
Cook's exciting and fast paced, King of the Bootleggers - a Biography of George Remus, published by McFarland in 2008, is more than just interesting and well documented. It is by far one of the best works about the prohibition era published in recent years. As one reviewer stated, Cook has the ability in his writing to take historical facts and make them read like a novel. Although the book was published fourteen years ago it remains very popular as new readers continue to discover it. Recently other authors have written and published Remus books, but the fact is they are expanded versions of Cook's work and would not have been as well received if they didn't have the benefit in their research being derived from Cook's earlier extensive labor and detailed research on the subject.
Meanwhile Cook's 2014 book "The Lindbergh Baby Kidnapping" published by Sunbury Press is captivating readers with its laser like account of the crime of the 20th Century. The book also contains a lot of new information relative to the investigation not previously published.
One of William A. Cook's books that has for unknown reasons failed to find a readership is his work published in 2015 "Lady Moguls - A History of Women Who Have Owned Major League Teams continues to amaze readers with stories of how many women have owned major league teams. While women have been part of the national game for over a hundred years this is a work that features an exclusive group of women in the game's history who controlled major league teams and called the shots in an era when women were shunned by the traditional "good ole boys" club that ran major league baseball. His chronicles in the anthology of such economically privileged women owners as Joan Payson (New York Mets) and Jean Yawkey (Boston Red Sox) are intriguing as well as entertaining, while his story of Marge Schott (Cincinnati Reds) is a bit of a sad story of a lady who could have been a role model for women in business but instead is characterized historically as a person suffering from intolerable racial insensitivity.
Cook's game by game chronicle of the 1919 World Series is still causing a stir with the baseball historians. The book published by McFarland & Co. in 2001 reignited the dormant dialogue among historians on the facts of baseball's most notorious event, spawning more than ten new titles on the subject within a few years of its publication and also creating a few self-appointed new experts on the matter. Nonetheless the book is considered the ultimate "handbook" on the series." Cook's thesis in his book is eye-opening in that he asserts that no matter how the World Series was played, fair, fixed, or otherwise, the Chicago White Sox were not going to win. The 1919 Cincinnati Reds were simply a better team. His research supports his thesis very well and so far no one has disputed Cook's findings by applying SABERMETRICS to his assertion of the Reds being a superior team to the White Sox. The fact is that modern analytics when applied to the comparison of the two teams support Cook's assertion. This fact is a bit embarrassing to a lot of historians who have bought into the White Sox superiority myth without performing due diligence. on the matter.
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