Baseball: A History of America's Favorite Game

Baseball: A History of America's Favorite Game

by George Vecsey
Baseball: A History of America's Favorite Game

Baseball: A History of America's Favorite Game

by George Vecsey

Paperback(Reprint)

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Overview

“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

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780812978704
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Publication date: 03/11/2008
Series: Modern Library Chronicles , #25
Edition description: Reprint
Pages: 272
Sales rank: 622,555
Product dimensions: 5.15(w) x 7.99(h) x 0.55(d)

About the Author

George Vecsey, a sports columnist for The New York Times, has written about such events as the FIFA World Cup and the Olympics but considers baseball, the sport he’s covered since 1960, his favorite game. He is the author of more than a dozen books, including Loretta Lynn: Coal Miner’s Daughter (with Loretta Lynn), which was made into an Academy Award—winning film. He has also served as a national and religion reporter for The New York Times, interviewing the Dalai Lama, Tony Blair, Billy Graham, and a host of other noteworthy figures. He lives in New York with his wife, an artist.

Read an Excerpt

I SIX DEGREES
(Continues…)



Excerpted from "Baseball"
by .
Copyright © 2008 George Vecsey.
Excerpted by permission of Random House Publishing Group.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

Table of Contents

Prologue     xi
Six Degrees     1
Berbers with Bats     15
The First Entrepreneur     27
Columbus, Pocahontas, and Doubleday     39
Growing Pains     49
The Black Sox     57
The Babe     65
Mr. Rickey     75
The Negro Leagues     85
Radio Days     95
War     107
Jackie Robinson     117
Baseball Hits the Interstate     129
Free Agency Arrives     139
Why the Yankees Exist     149
The World Catches Up     161
Same Game, Yuppified     175
Who's in Charge?     189
Four Scandals     199
October Exorcisms     213
Epilogue     221
Acknowledgments     223
Bibliography     225
Notes     229
Index     243
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