Full Description
This history recaptures a colorful era in early baseball when club owners quarreled, players berated umpires, sportswriters criticized and ridiculed both owners and players, and the game made halting progress toward the sport and business it became. The two seasons saw the formation in 1890 of the Players League by the Brotherhood of Professional Ball Players, America's first sports union; the failure of the players' efforts to stand up to the owners; the collapse of a new National Agreement between the National League and the American Association; and the eventual amalgamation of four Association franchises into the National League, creating a decade of relative peace. This title is now available as a paperback and ebook exclusively from McFarland.
Contents
Table of Contents
Preface ix
1. 1889: The National Game 1
2. 1890: "Seven Stories with a Mansard Roof" 27
3. 1890: "Trying for Years to Get into a First-class League" 53
4. 1890: "Rotting as Fast as Nature Will Let Them" 77
5. 1890-91: "Lunkheads of the First Water" 105
6. 1891: "Mad Clean Through" 119
7. 1891: "I Should Expect to Be Hanged" 153
8. 1891-92: "Men of Money Have About Come to Their Senses" 187
Appendix: Some Lives Afterward 199
Bibliography 211
Index 217
