Baseball - George Vecsey

"Football is force and fanatics, basketball is beauty and bounce. Baseball is everything:
action, grace, the seasons of our lives. George Vecsey's book proves it, without
wasting a word."-Lee Eisenberg, author of The Number

In Baseball, one of the great
bards of America's Grand Old Game gives a rousing account of the sport, from its
pre-Republic roots to the present day. George Vecsey casts a fresh eye on the game,
illuminates its foibles and triumphs, and performs a marvelous feat: making a classic
story seem refreshingly new.

Baseball is a narrative of America's can-do spirit,
in which stalwart immigrants such as Henry Chadwick could transplant cricket and
rounders into the fertile American culture and in which die-hard unionist baseballers
such as Charles Comiskey and Connie Mack could eventually become the tightfisted
avatars of the game's big-money establishment. It's a celebration of such underdogs
as a rag-armed catcher turned owner named Branch Rickey and a sure-handed fielder
named Curt Flood, both of whom flourished as true great men of history. But most
of all, Baseball is a testament to the unbreakable bond between our nation's pastime
and the fans, who've remained loyal through the fifty-year-long interdict on black
athletes, the Black Sox scandal, franchise relocation, and the use of performance-enhancing
drugs by some major stars.

Reverent, playful, and filled with Vecsey's charm, Baseball begs to be read in the span of a rain-delayed doubleheader, and so enjoyable that,
like a favorite team's championship run, one hopes it never ends.

"Vecsey possesses
a journalist's eye for detail and a historian's feel for the sweep of action. His
research is scrupulous and his writing crisp. This book is an instant classic-a highly readable guide to America's great enduring pastime."-The Louisville Courier
Journal