Subjects Freshman Year Reading African American Studies African Studies American Studies Anthropology Art, Film, Music and Architecture Asian Studies Business and Economics Criminology Education Environmental Studies Foreign Language Instructional Materials Gender Studies History Irish Studies Jewish Studies Latin American & Caribbean Studies Law and Legal Studies Literature and Drama Literature in Spanish Media Issues, Journalism and Communication Middle East Studies Native American Studies Philosophy Political Science Psychology Reference Religion Russian and Eastern European Studies Science and Mathematics Sociology Study Aids


E-Newsletters: Click here to be notified of new titles in your field
Click here to request Desk/Exam copies
Freshman Year Reading
View Our Award Winners
Click here to view our Catalogs
Baseball

Baseball

Upgrade to the Flash 9 viewer for enhanced content, including the ability to browse & search through your favorite titles.
Click here to learn more!

Order Exam Copy
E-Mail this Page Print this Page

Written by George VecseyAuthor Alerts: Random House will alert you to new works by George Vecsey

  • Format: Hardcover, 272 pages
  • Publisher: Modern Library
  • On Sale: August 15, 2006
  • Price: $21.95
  • ISBN: 978-0-679-64338-8 (0-679-64338-9)
Also available as an eBook and a trade paperback.
about this book

One of the great bards of America’s Grand Old Game gives a rousing account of baseball, from its pre-Republic roots to the present day. George Vecsey casts a fresh eye on the sport, 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 in the fertile American culture and die-hard unionist baseballers such as Charles Comiskey and Connie Mack could later 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.

Praise for Baseball:

"Vivid, affectionate and clear-eyed, Vecsey's account makes for an engaging sports history." —Publishers Weekly


“George Vecsey in The New York Times is like the counterman at a favorite sandwich shop, serving us lunch and a thousand words of sports wisdom every day. Baseball: A History of America’s Favorite Game is an invitation to his house for Sunday dinner. The pace is more relaxed, the meal much larger, the result as wonderful as you suspected it would be.”
–Leigh Montville, bestselling author of Ted Williams: The Biography of an American Hero and The Big Bam: The Life and Times of Babe Ruth