Baseball: A History of America's Game
'Baseball: A History of America's Game' by Benjamin G. Rader
Walt Whitman called it “America’s game,” recognizing that baseball was fast becoming the national pastime. New editions of a pair of definitive studies are out in time for the new season. Both are well researched and readable.
Benjamin G. Rader traces the arc of a game that soon became the pastime of other nations in places diverse as Cuba, Taiwan and Japan. He begins with the early clubs formed in 1830s-‘40s New York and continues through their evolution into the MLB of the present century. As he points out, baseball was the only game in town for the first half of the last century and has long been displaced from the center of attention in any increasingly fragmented culture of distraction, yet the avid fan base continues to grow.
Baseball before We Knew It by David Block
'Baseball before We Knew It: A Search for the Roots of the Game' by David Block
David Block wades more deeply into the origin stories. As historians had already done, he debunks the “immaculate conception” theory of baseball that emerged in an echo chamber of American exceptionalism. Ball and bat games were not invented by industrious Yankees under the watchful gaze of the founding fathers. They can be discerned in Egyptian hieroglyphics and were observed among Native Americans. The British brought cricket and other games to these shores that are strands in the knotty roots of the game that Block explores.
Get A History of America's Game at Amazon here.
Get Baseball Before We Knew It at Amazon here.
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