Blackguards and Red Stockings
Blackguards and Red Stockings

Author: William J. Ryczek

Publisher: McFarland

Published: 2016-03-11

Total Pages: 281

ISBN-13: 1476625522

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It was a novel experiment as baseball's leading men formed the National Association, bringing order to the hodgepodge of professional and amateur clubs that made up the sport from the end of the Civil War through 1870. It was an imperfect beginning to organized professional sports in America--the league was plagued by gambling, contract jumping and rumors of dishonest play--but it laid the groundwork for the multi-billion-dollar enterprises of the 21st century. Like most sporting endeavors, it was entertaining, with the best players in the world displaying their talents throughout the northeastern and mid-western United States and, in 1874, during a ground-breaking journey to England. The present volume covers all the action--both on and off the field--of the NA's five years, providing the definitive history of the first professional sports league in the U.S.

Before They Were the Cubs
Before They Were the Cubs

Author: Jack Bales

Publisher: McFarland

Published: 2019-03-19

Total Pages: 263

ISBN-13: 1476674671

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Founded in 1869, the Chicago Cubs are a charter member of the National League and the last remaining of the eight original league clubs still playing in the city in which the franchise started. Drawing on newspaper articles, books and archival records, the author chronicles the team's early years. He describes the club's planning stages of 1868; covers the decades when the ballplayers were variously called White Stockings, Colts, and Orphans; and relates how a sportswriter first referred to the young players as Cubs in the March 27, 1902, issue of the Chicago Daily News. Reprinted selections from firsthand accounts provide a colorful narrative of baseball in 19th-century America, as well as a documentary history of the Chicago team and its members before they were the Cubs.

Players and Teams of the National Association, 1871-1875
Players and Teams of the National Association, 1871-1875

Author: Paul Batesel

Publisher: McFarland

Published: 2012-10-06

Total Pages: 237

ISBN-13: 0786490764

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This reference work is in two parts. The first is a biographical dictionary of the 325 men who played in the National Association between 1871 and 1875, with their playing record, together with what we know of their other baseball experience and their lives beyond baseball. The book also contains a dictionary of the 25 clubs who participated in the league, showing their history, their management, their uniforms and logos, their home grounds, and their performance in the league. About 150 player photographs are included and each club entry has two or three supporting images (18 are historical maps). Bibliography and index.

Base Ball in Philadelphia
Base Ball in Philadelphia

Author: John Shiffert

Publisher: McFarland

Published: 2006-10-11

Total Pages: 299

ISBN-13: 0786427957

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This work starts with the formation of the first baseball club in America, the Olympic Town Ball Club, and concludes with the final year of the National League's monopoly. Also included: the early Philadelphia club teams, including the first great African-American team, the Pythians; Philadelphia's part in the National Association of Base Ball Players; and the golden days of the national champion Philadelphia Athletic Club from 1860 through the National Association years.

The Haymakers, Unions and Trojans of Troy, New York
The Haymakers, Unions and Trojans of Troy, New York

Author: Jeffrey Michael Laing

Publisher: McFarland

Published: 2015-08-11

Total Pages: 239

ISBN-13: 078649493X

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The Troy Haymakers were a pioneer baseball team legendary for exploits on and off the field. Formed in 1860 in Troy, New York--a rapidly growing industrial city--the team was embraced by the tough-minded Trojans as emblematic of their vigorous boomtown, rivaling larger, better established cities. The Haymakers were a strong amateur club before becoming a charter member of baseball's first major league, the National Association, and subsequently gaining a franchise in the National League. The team rosters were filled with characters and scalawags along with talented players, including four future Hall of Famers. After losing its National League franchise in 1882, Troy fielded minor league teams for 34 years--with a wistful eye to Haymaker history.

Play It Again
Play It Again

Author: Jim Bresnahan

Publisher: McFarland

Published: 2015-01-28

Total Pages: 259

ISBN-13: 1476606889

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What if Ty Cobb and Shoeless Joe Jackson had stood side by side in Cleveland's outfield? What if integration had taken place in the major leagues before 1947? Who would have won the World Series had a strike not shortened the 1994 season? In this compilation of fantasy scenarios, the history of baseball from 1869 to the controversial 2003 playoffs is literally rewritten by fifty journalists, historians, authors and former baseball players. Topics include playing for pay, Merkle's Boner, rival leagues, the 1919 Series, Mickey Owens and the dropped strike, and integration. Chronologically organized, the experts take up the major events of each era and speculate on the long-and short-term outcomes had history followed a different, but still likely, course. The book concludes with an appendix in which the panel members hold forth on general-interest topics such as star-crossed players who might have gone on to Hall of Fame careers, the greatest big-game players, and World Series pairings.

Early Exits
Early Exits

Author: Brian McKenna

Publisher: Scarecrow Press

Published: 2007

Total Pages: 310

ISBN-13: 9780810858589

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"Each story contains an overview of the baseball figure, including career-ending details, and many entries contain background information describing the historical significance of the individual and his or her place within the baseball community."--BOOK JACKET.

Bud Fowler
Bud Fowler

Author: Jeffrey Michael Laing

Publisher: McFarland

Published: 2013-04-17

Total Pages: 237

ISBN-13: 1476603774

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This is the biography of Bud Fowler (ne John Jackson), the first African American to play in organized baseball, and the longest tenured at the time that the color line was drawn. In addition to his professional playing career, which lasted more than 25 years, Fowler was a scout, organizer, owner, and promoter of touring black baseball clubs--including the legendary Page Fence Giants--in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Emphasizing the social and cultural contexts for Fowler's accomplishments on and off the baseball diamond, and his prominence within the history and development of the national pastime, the text builds a convincing case for Fowler as one of the great pioneering figures of the early game.

Moments in Baseball History
Moments in Baseball History

Author: Mark R. Brewer

Publisher: Xlibris Corporation

Published: 2022-11-29

Total Pages: 417

ISBN-13: 1669855309

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No other sport can begin to compare to the rich history and statistical record of baseball. It is part of what makes the game so alluring. In “Moments in Baseball History,” Mark R. Brewer examines twenty-two memorable games and the player at the center of that game. It should prove a feast for baseball fans.

Boom and Bust in St. Louis
Boom and Bust in St. Louis

Author: Jon David Cash

Publisher: McFarland

Published: 2020-07-27

Total Pages: 209

ISBN-13: 1476638969

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The St. Louis Cardinals, despite winning more World Series than any Major League franchise except for the New York Yankees, have seen their share of dry spells when they were shut out of the postseason. Like the American economy, the Cardinals have seen their fortunes cycle through prolonged ups and downs, with booms in 1885-1888, 1926-1946, 1964-1968, 1982-1987 and 1996-2011, and busts in 1889-1925, 1947-1963, 1969-1981 and 1988-1995. Drawing on years of research, this book chronicles the Cardinals' periods of success and failure and explains the reasons behind them.