McFarland Historical Baseball Library – serie

Published in 1914, Busting 'Em was the first of three books credited to Ty Cobb the author. Though in fact it was ghostwritten by John N. Wheeler, who also penned Mathewson's Pitching in a Pinch, the book fascinates with its insights into Cobb as a public figure. The reader is presented Cobb's explanation of the beating incident at Hilltop Park, the Baker spiking, and his contentious relationship with teammates. His thoughts--or those he sanctioned--of umpires, his contemporaries, crowds, and strategy are also shared.This book, long out of print and increasingly hard to find, is essential reading for those who would understand Cobb's awareness of and investment in the shape of his public image.

"From time to time fragmentary accounts of the origin and progress of baseball, as it existed in our community, have appeared in the papers and magazines, but it has remained to the writer to present for the first time a full and complete history of the game of baseball from its first organization in our midst until the present day"--from the Preface.Harry Ellard's Base Ball in Cincinnati, published in 1907, is an invaluable resource for those interested in the early years of professional baseball and the city that was its hometown. Ellard was uniquely positioned to write the definitive book on this topic: as a Cincinnati journalist, he knew of and consulted the best photographs and documents relating to the Cincinnati Club, and had the cooperation of several Red Stockings players. Readers will find information on stand-out clubs and games, and many of the important men who were instrumental to early baseball in Cincinnati and so to professional baseball in general.

Richter's History and Records of Base Ball, the American Nation's Chief Sport, originally published in 1914, is the most comprehensive and ambitious among the early books about baseball. "This volume," Richter writes, "is designed to supply the growing need of a concise, yet complete, record of our National Game" and "to serve this purpose in such a form as to make it valuable, possibly indispensable, as a book of special information, of ready reference, and of general interest to all love's and students of the great game."The book is divided into three parts. Part I covers the origins of baseball, the first professional league, the National and American leagues, the American Association, baseball tours, warring leagues, the World Series, and the minor leagues. Part II includes team and individual performance records through 1914, Richter's takes on the great pitchers of early baseball, and brief commentary on two classic poems inspired by the game. Part III includes the history and text of the first National Agreement, the development of baseball playing rules, and information on the pioneering players, owners, executives, and writers.

C.H. Claudy might have trouble finding a publisher for his Battle of Base-ball today. His yoking of baseball to warfare--accounts of ways to "cripple the enemy" and descriptions of managers as "battlefield generals"--to teach the young and inexperienced about the game would not likely be applauded in the age of political correctness. But as Claudy says in his preface, "The points of similarity are actual, not imagined," and he spends most of the book, meant to be both instructional and historical, demonstrating his assertion.Originally published in 1912, this work consists of chapters on batting, running, offensive game planning, the pitcher-catcher battery, fielding, defensive strategy, umpiring, drills (titled "Battlefield and Arms"), major league regulations, and A.G. Spalding's organizational rules. Christy Mathewson's "How I Became a Big-League Pitcher" is also included.

Published in 1910, Base-Ball Ballads was Grantland Rice's first book of poems, and the only one that contained baseball verse exclusively. The book includes some of the best-known poems about baseball ever written, including "Casey's Revenge" (a sometimes-anthologized piece that redeems Ernest Thayer's unlucky slugger), "Mudville's Fate," and the original version of "Game Called" (later revised on the occasion of Babe Ruth's death).An immensely popular writer of sports columns and essays, Rice was also well regarded for his humorous and sometimes touching verse. It is as the author of a couplet, in fact, that Rice may be best remembered: "For when the One Great Scorer comes to mark against your name / He writes--not that you won or lost--but how you played the Game." These lines, so strongly associated with baseball--though in fact they come from a poem about football--find their earliest expression in Base-Ball Ballads, where three poems ("Play Ball," "Game Called," and "The Test") provide different wordings of the same idea.

If Cap Anson was baseball's first star, King Kelly was the first player whose celebrity extended beyond the diamond. The dashing mustachioed Kelly was a favorite of newspapermen, who lionized him as "King of the Diamond" and "The $10,000 Beauty"; of fans, who celebrated his daring in song ("Slide, Kelly, Slide") and his grace in poetry ("Beautiful Mike"); and certainly of the baseball establishment, which was willing to pay outrageous sums for his services. Off the field, he pursued an interest in acting, and played parts in a number of theatrical productions. And in 1888, reacting to what he described as the bookishness of his new baseball home in Boston, Kelly even tried his hand at writing.Play Ball: Stories from the Diamond Field was the first-ever memoir by a player. One of the most popular baseball titles of all time, Play Ball is a casual, often humorous stroll through Kelly's ball-playing past, with chapters on the teams he played for, the men he played alongside, his relationships with baseball figures such as Anson and Albert Spalding, his early involvement with John Ward's Brotherhood, his legendary contract with the Beaneaters, and his barnstorming adventures in the South and West.

This is the first book that includes all of Guy W. Green's baseball writings: A Complete History of the Nebraska Indians Base Ball Team (1903), Fun and Frolic with an Indian Ball Team (1904), and "Experiences with an Indian Ball Team" (1908). The works detail the athletic success and humorous escapades of the most famous American Indian barnstorming baseball team. A substantial introduction provides historical background on the formation of the team; on Green's life, writings, and other ventures; and on the later history and owners of the Nebraska Indians after Green sold the team.

Addie Joss (1880-1911) mowed down batters for the Cleveland Broncos/Naps from 1902 to 1910 before his career was cut short by his tragic death from tubercular meningitis in 1911. With a career ERA of 1.89 and two no-hitters, Joss earned Hall of Fame election despite a career that lasted less than ten years, the only player to do so. In the off-season, Joss also excelled as a sportswriter for the Toledo News-Bee and the Cleveland Press, filling the empty winter months penning stories about the game he knew firsthand. This collection of Joss's newspaper columns and World Series reports is a treasury of the deadball era with intimate first-person observations of the game and its players from the first decade of the American League. Informative annotations, archival photographs, and a brief biography complete the work.

As sports editor for the Detroit News, H.G. Salsinger reported on Tigers great Ty Cobb for 18 seasons, beginning in 1909 when the outfielder won his only Triple Crown. He would go on to write about Cobb's career for decades after. This volume presents for the first time together Salsinger's two books on the Hall of Famer. Part One offers the first authorized biography, Our Ty (1924), while Part Two provides the writer's take on what, more than 25 years later, had become a familiar question, Which Was Greatest: Ty Cobb or Babe Ruth? (1951). Salsinger's close personal relationship with Cobb yields insights into the legend's complex personality, illuminating and sometimes dispelling myths that have risen in the literature since Cobb's death in 1961.