Baseball in New England, Past & Present

Baseball was a rough sport in the nineteenth century and no one played the game with more vigor (and often violence) than Hall of Famers Hugh Duffy and Tommy McCarthy, dubbed "The Heavenly Twins." This book details their professional history playing for Boston Beaneaters teams and personal experiences with baseball, faith, and legendary Boston baseball scribe Tim Murnane. The book also traces their minor league careers and post-professional baseball activities.

This is the first full-length biography of Kid Nichols (1869-1953), who won 30 or more games a record seven times and was the youngest pitcher to reach 300 career victories. Much new light is shed on Nichols' early life in Madison, Wisconsin, along with important influences and experiences as a teenager living in Kansas City. Nichols' professional career is documented by drawing heavily from publications of the era and his own words.

In The DiMaggios, acclaimed sportswriter Tom Clavin reveals the untold Great American Story of three brothers, Joltin’ Joe, Dom, and Vince DiMaggio, and the Great American Game—baseball—that would consume their lives. A vivid portrait of a family and the ways in which their shifting fortunes and status shaped their relationships, The DiMaggios is a exploration of an era and a culture.

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. 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.

Before the onset of professional baseball, there existed a myriad of teams and players going back to the 1840s. The early years centered around an organization known as the National Association of Base Ball Players. This group governed the world of baseball until the formation of the first all-pro league in 1871. This book is the definitive statistical reference to that organization, has including introductory essays for each year, team statistics, game scores, and individual batting and pitching statistics for all players.

The League That Failed cuts through the haze that surrounds 19th-century baseball history, and portrays a classic, colorful era when baseball was chaotic, struggled over by players, coaches, sportswriters, fans, and owners. It recounts the stormy atmosphere after the Inter-League Wars of 1890 and 1891, when the victorious National League made a bald-faced bid to monopolize major league baseball in the United States, succeeding for eight years with the self-styled "Big League.”

Chris von der Ahe knew next to nothing about baseball when he risked his life's savings to found the franchise that would become the St. Louis Cardinals. Then he helped gather a group of ragtag professional clubs together to create a new league that would fight the haughty National League, reinventing big-league baseball to attract Americans of all classes. In this book the author re-creates this wondrous and hilarious world of cunning, competition, and boozing, set amidst a rapidly transforming America.

How a rogue league changed major league baseball forever.

The 1889 baseball season is unique in the history of baseball. Both leagues-the veteran National League and the upstart American Association-featured thrilling pennant races that were not decided until the final day of the season. There was excitement off the field as well; the players' union (known then as "the Brotherhood") sowed the seeds of the most ambitious player revolt in baseball history. This work presents accounts from the major newspapers of each of the four teams' cities to capture the day-by-day excitement of the 1889 pennant race and the passion that the press and public had for baseball.

Not only was it probably the most cutthroat pennant race in baseball history; it was also a struggle to define how baseball would be played. This book re-creates the rowdy, season-long 1897 battle between the Baltimore Orioles and the Boston Beaneaters.