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 enlarge | Author: Peter Morris
Publisher: Ivan R. Dee, Publisher
Category: Book
List Price: $27.50
Buy New: $14.20
You Save: $13.30 (48%)
New (26) Used (10) from $14.20
Avg. Customer Rating:  7 reviews
Sales Rank: 138983
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 304
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.2
Dimensions (in): 8.8 x 5.8 x 1.2
ISBN: 1566637481
Dewey Decimal Number: 796.357097309034
EAN: 9781566637480
ASIN: 1566637481
Publication Date: March 25, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Customer Reviews:
| Showing reviews 6-7 of 7 | | « PREV | | |
 But Didn't We Have Fun April 28, 2008
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
For a baseball fan, especially for one interested in the history of the game, this anecdotal history is informative as well as great fun. The author is to be congratulated. It is a great addition to any baseball library.
J Paul Muxworthy
 A modern history of early baseball March 7, 2008
15 out of 17 found this review helpful
The study of early baseball has made great strides the past couple of decades. Our knowledge is both broader and deeper than before. There has been a steady trickle of work by academic historians, a flow of work by amateurs (some of it excellent) and a community of researchers gathered under the aspices of the Society for American Baseball Research and its 19th century committee.
By the nature of things it takes a while for such knowledge to work its way from specialists to books for the general reader. There have books published quite recently that could have been written forty years ago.
There are numerous possible examples illustrating this point. Perhaps the best is the anachronistic expectation that early baseball players and organizations were motivated pretty much like modern baseball players and organizations. We often see sniggering condescension at the early Knickerbockers for wasting their time on banquets when they should have been practicing. The implicit assumption is that their motivation was to win games, but they kept getting distracted; or if this wasn't their motivation, it should have been. This is a hopeless way to approach history, and utterly commonplace. If we are to understand the Knickerbockers we need to understand their motivations, not impose our modern expectations on them.
It is a great pleasure to see in Peter Morris's new book. He makes available recent work, combined with his knack for ferretting out an impressive collection of old accounts. He puts the familiar events into context, and allows us to approach the early players on their own terms. This is a modern history of early baseball.
This isn't to say that there are no points to disagree on. There certainly are interpretations that can be disputed. This isn't the final word on the subject, but that isn't the point. This is part of an ongoing conversation, now made available to anyone interested.
As always, Morris's writing is admirably readable. Early baseball geeks will keep a bookmark to refer to the endnotes nearly every page, but there is no need for the less obsessive to notice them.
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