I Need A Good Book

[hubkittel]

i posted this question over in arts & literature but maybe this is the place for it.

i'm looking for a good general history of 19th century baseball. any books you guys could recommend?

thxs in advance.

[Brian McKenna]

The Great Encyclopedia of 19th Century Baseball by David Nemec

A Game of Inches by Peter Morris

David Voigt and Harold Seymour have three-volume histories of baseball out there

A History of Early Baseball by Warren Goldstein

Baseball in Blue and Gray by Kirsch

When Johnny Came Sliding Home by Ryczek

The Numbers Game by Alana Schwarz

The Beer and Whisky League by Nemec

Blackguards and Red Stockings by Ryczel

[hubkittel]

thank you, sir. i appreciate it.

[Brian McKenna]

For my money A Game of Inches was the best book of the year. It's not the typical history but it examines the growth of the sports by means of strategy, equipment, etc. changes. A must read.

[runningshoes]

I just picked up Spalding's World Tour: The Epic Adventure that Took Baseball Around the Globe - And Made It America's Game.

Seems really good so far.

And yes, I found it in a really good bookstore here in Manila along with a few other good ones as well, believe it or not. :crazy

[cjb1977]

For my money A Game of Inches was the best book of the year. It's not the typical history but it examines the growth of the sports by means of strategy, equipment, etc. changes. A must read.

I am currently reading it too. I would recommend it to anyone who enjoys baseball history. Another plus is the format, it is broken down by points of interest. For instance if you don't care about something, you can easily skip over it, read the next entry and not skip a beat.

[Brian McKenna]

I just picked up Spalding's World Tour: The Epic Adventure that Took Baseball Around the Globe - And Made It America's Game.

Seems really good so far.

And yes, I found it in a really good bookstore here in Manila along with a few other good ones as well, believe it or not. :crazy

http://www.baseball-fever.com/showthread.php?t=42054&highlight=spalding%27s+world+tour

[hubkittel]

any prefrences between voigt and seymour's three volume histories? they both looked pretty good. while i was looking for something covering 1850-1900 (and between the list bkmckenna gave me and amazon's recomendations i got that covered), i was impressed with both of those and i'm not sure which one to go with.

[Ennui Willie Keeler]

any prefrences between voigt and seymour's three volume histories? they both looked pretty good. while i was looking for something covering 1850-1900 (and between the list bkmckenna gave me and amazon's recomendations i got that covered), i was impressed with both of those and i'm not sure which one to go with.


I was wondering about this myself.

[Brian McKenna]

Peter Morris has a new book that just came out - looks interesting:
http://rksbaseballbookshelf.wordpress.com/2007/11/13/announcement-new-book-by-peter-morris/

[EdTarbusz]

any prefrences between voigt and seymour's three volume histories? they both looked pretty good. while i was looking for something covering 1850-1900 (and between the list bkmckenna gave me and amazon's recomendations i got that covered), i was impressed with both of those and i'm not sure which one to go with.

I've read them both and prefer Seymour's, but his histories only go up to about 1930.

[spark240]

Baseball in Blue and Gray by Kirsch

I was pretty disappointed with this one. It ought to be a great subject, but this isn't a definitive treatment... I trust that remains to be written.

[rrhersh]

Between the Seymour and the Voigt, I would take the Seymour. Both are severely dated, but Seymour had a read gift. I am often surprised when I go back and read him againt at his insights.

As for the Kirsch, the Civil War book is not his best work. The subject is difficult, because despite the traditional account of baseball spreading from soldier to soldier, there really isn't much evidence to back this up. So you end up with the same few stories being recycled, plus an account of civilian play in those years. The trouble is that the war years were comparatively uneventful for New York club play, because of the war. There were really interesting developments the half decade before the war and the half decade after the war, but the war years themselves are a lull. The upshot is that baseball during the war looks like it ought to be a really interesting subject, but isn't really.

Kirsch's other baseball book has been reissued as "Baseball and Cricket: The Creation of American Team Sports, 1838-72". It is showing its age, but it was top material when first released and still well worth reading.

Which leads us to Peter Morris's new book. I am halfway through it. So far, I definitely recommend it. It isn't a definative account of the era, (but neither does it pretend to be), nor do I agree with all of Peter's interpretations. But the real point is that there has been a revolution over the past decade or so in our understanding of early baseball. This sort of thing takes a while to trickle down from wonkish discussions to books for general readers. Morris's book can be taken as being the first modern history of early baseball.

If you are going to read two books on the subject, I would suggest the Seymour, as a general survey and giving the traditional version of things, and the Morris, as presenting the fruits of recent work.

Richard Hershberger

[BillOK]

A little known book titled " The History of baseball" printed in 1958 has a lot of great info not contained anywhere else I have found. You can find a place to buy it on the net.
Bill:cap:

[spark240]

It appears that A Game of Inches is becoming a series? I find both A Game of Inches...The Game Behind the Scenes (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1566637058/ref=wl_it_dp?ie=UTF8&coliid=I32E7NYJ5S2GTK&colid=2FZ8HPGKWGR0C), not yet reviewed on Amazon, and also A Game of Inches...Volume 1: The Game on the Field (http://www.amazon.com/Game-Inches-Stories-Innovations-Baseball/dp/1566636779/ref=pd_sim_b_title_7), reviewed by Richard among others.

[rrhersh]

It appears that A Game of Inches is becoming a series? I find both A Game of Inches...The Game Behind the Scenes (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1566637058/ref=wl_it_dp?ie=UTF8&coliid=I32E7NYJ5S2GTK&colid=2FZ8HPGKWGR0C), not yet reviewed on Amazon, and also A Game of Inches...Volume 1: The Game on the Field (http://www.amazon.com/Game-Inches-Stories-Innovations-Baseball/dp/1566636779/ref=pd_sim_b_title_7), reviewed by Richard among others.

So far as I know, the two volumes are it. My understanding is that this is how Peter planned it all along.

I didn't review the second volume, but I do recommend it. I think the format works a bit better with the subject matter of the first volume, but this is a small matter. I am a huge fan of Peter's. Even when I disagree with him, it is constructive disagreement.

While we are in Peter Morris love-fest mode, his first book, on early baseball in Michigan, is also worth looking at. It is a more specialized topic, as Michigan was something of a backwater in early baseball. But that in a way is a strength: it stands in for backwaters everywhere.

Richard

[hubkittel]

I ordered Peter Morris' new book the other day (let the love fest continue) as well as A Tale of Four Cities and Al Spalding's America's National Game. I don't really know what to expect from Spalding's book but I thought it would be interesting to read his view of the history of the game.

The funny thing is that there is only one review of A Tale of Four Cities at Amazon.com and it's negative. The reviewer takes the author to task for doing nothing more than compiling newspaper accounts from the 1889 season. The fact that the book contains almost nothing but primary source material and first hand accounts of the season is really the reason I purchased it. One man's trash is another man's treasure I guess.

[rrhersh]

I ordered Peter Morris' new book the other day (let the love fest continue) as well as A Tale of Four Cities and Al Spalding's America's National Game. I don't really know what to expect from Spalding's book but I thought it would be interesting to read his view of the history of the game.

Spalding's book is vastly important in baseball historiography. It is probably the single biggest influence in forming the traditional account of early baseball history. This traditional account, in turn, has served as the basis for revision as we learn more. Frankly, this is a problem. The traditional account is such a botch that we would do better to start from scratch. But in any case, when you see some piece of received wisdom that doesn't quite make sense or match the facts, you can often go back to Spalding and find it there.

[TonyK]

Has anyone read 100 Years of Baseball by Lee Allen? Dr. Harold Seymour felt it was the best book about the early years of baseball that he had read.

[timmyj51]

For the 19th century prefer Melville's Early Baseball and the Rise of the National League. A book you can sink your teeth into. Most of these other histories are, when you come down to it, fan mail between hard covers.

[Rube Waddell]

Best 19th century book I've read is:

"But didn't we have fun? An informal history of Baseball's Pionner Era 1843-1870" by Peter Morris

HIGHLY RECOMMANDED

[Beady]

Has anyone read 100 Years of Baseball by Lee Allen? Dr. Harold Seymour felt it was the best book about the early years of baseball that he had read.

Well, of course, Seymour wrote this about half a century ago, and Seymour himself was to a considerable extentat the forefront of a revolution in the writing of sports history that made the old journalistic books by people like Allen largely obsolete.

That said, Allen was a lively writer and a tireless researcher in the days when research was done without a lot of the advantages we have today. You could do a lot worse than to start with his books as an enjoyable way of learning the general plot line of 19th century baseball, but I wouldn't stop there.

I think Voigt and Seymour are both worthwhile but Seymour is better and remains the most thorough general history of 19th century game, although dated in some respects. As for Melville, my hat is off to anyone who can get through his dense and somewhat clumsily written book, and I would suggest that if you're reading him it helps to have a sharp appreciation of his book's very great virtues and a careful eye for its very large flaws. It's not the book I would start with by any means.

[timmyj51]

"It's not the book I would start with by any means."



That you wouldn't. Its appeal becomes even more evident after
you've gone through all the fan mail histories.

[WolfSpear]

Hi there, I was just curious if any of you have read Marshall Wright's National Association of Base Ball Players 1857-1870. I had been looking into purchasing it but wanted a reader's thoughts on it. I know most of it is just stats but is does it talk any about how the league functioned?

[rrhersh]

Hi there, I was just curious if any of you have read Marshall Wright's National Association of Base Ball Players 1857-1870. I had been looking into purchasing it but wanted a reader's thoughts on it. I know most of it is just stats but is does it talk any about how the league functioned?

It has some introductory material at the beginning. The main section goes year by year, each year introduced by two or three pages of text. By far the bulk is statistical. It is not an adequate source for information about how the NABBP functioned.

I wrote an Amazon review several years ago praising it. I would be less laudatory now, as I have become increasingly aware of its gaps. The stats are extremely New York-centric, and Marshall used a fairly narrow range of sources. So even taking it on its own terms, it is flawed.

The other issue is that the NABBP wasn't a league in any sense. It didn't organize anything like a "regular season". With modern organizations we expect a record book to include regular and post-season games, but not pre-season or other exhibition games. This model doesn't work with the NABBP. In particular, there was no generally recognized distinction between games between NABBP member clubs being in any way more important that games including non-members. Which clubs did or did not send delegates to the national convention was at most only loosely connected to any competitive sense. Marshall ignores games including non-member clubs. This makes superficial sense, as the book is about the NABBP, but it doesn't actually make sense in the context of the time.

So what we end up with is an incomplete record of games, covering fairly well games between New York-area member clubs, less well games involving member clubs from outside the New York area, and not at all the numerous clubs which did not send delegates.

It is still useful as a resource. It is still the largest compilation of game records for that era. But it does not stand up well on its own. I don't know of any book that covers the NABBP specifically. As is so often the case, Harold Seymour's Baseball: The Early Years might still be your best bet. Keep in mind that it was written a half century ago. Seymour was an insightful observer, but it is nonetheless far from current.

Richard Hershberger

[Beady]

I agree with the recommendation of Seymour as a still useful though dated starting point. However, I would also suggest William Ryczek's "When Johnny Came Marching Home," which provides a readable narrative of the few years between the Civil War and the creation of the professional association in 1871. Ryczek discusses individual clubs and teams and also the institutional history of the National Association in much greater detail than Seymour. "When Johnny" doesn't go back farther than 1865, but Ryczek has now published a prequel that I believe goes back to the Knickerbockers and I would presume goes up to 1865. I haven't seen it yet, however.

[hubkittel]

Has anybody had a chance to read Ryczek's new book yet? I have it on my wish list at Amazon and every couple of days I think about buying it but haven't read any reviews yet. I have this love/hate relationship with Ryczek's books and I'm not sure if I want to invest anymore money in his work.

The other book I'm really looking forward to reading (but haven't gotten around to yet) is James Brunson's The Early Image of Black Baseball: Race and Representation in the Popular Press, 1871-1890.

Edit: Found a good review (http://phillies.scout.com/2/867658.html) of Ryczek's book. Looks like I'm going to have to break down and get it (as I knew I always would).

[Beady]

What's the matter with Ryczek, Jeff?

[hubkittel]

Personally, I find him unreadable. This, I know, is rather uncharitable to say but his prose literally puts me to sleep. So my problem is with his writing style rather than anything to do with the content of the work. And it's a shame because I obviously love the subject matter and want to like his books but I struggled to finish both Blackguards and Red Stockings and When Johnny Came Sliding Home. Every time I pick up one of those books and read a chapter or two it reminds me of when I was in college and had to read Eric Hobsbawn's The Age of Capital. Then I rest the open book on my chest and take a nap. :sleepy:

[MLB4LYF]

I just got through reading "But Didn't We Have Fun?" by Peter Morris, and I thought it was a great book, I'm now reading "A Game Of Inches" also by Peter Morris, and it looks like it's going to be just as good if not better.

[Rube Waddell]

May I recommend:

"But didn't we had fun" by Peter Morris.

Excellent book about baseball's origins.

[doctor_gogol]

Cool! Thanks for posting all this great info. I was jsut going to ask the same question!