Description

The Story of Baseball

Substantial but accessible and entertaining, Big League Baseball – A History, Volume 1: 1871-1893 leads off author Paul DeFonzo’s inimitable journey to chronicle the entire history of Big League Baseball, season by season. With chronological chapters dedicated to one full season each, Paul brilliantly highlights the best players, by position, for every season, offensively and defensively; recounts memorable pennant races, the evolution of post-season play, the progress of the Negro Leagues, and important rule changes; and even employs some innovative but engaging statistical analysis along the way.

Lavishly Illustrated

The book’s eighty full-color illustrations are 19th century photographic cards, cabinets, and cartes de visite reimagined in design and color by renowned artist Jesse Loving. While the book presents a history of baseball in prose, Jesse’s artwork also renders it a history of baseball cards in art.

With a Fascinating Prehistory

The Introduction recounts the enthralling story of how baseball evolved from an unremarkable children’s folk game with scant written record into America’s first homegrown professional sports entertainment industry – within a single generation! Surely, baseball’s path to professionalism is an incredible and uniquely American story without which the history of Big League Baseball would be incomplete.

Don’t miss it!