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

 
WINNER 2007 - New York Public Library Books for the Teen Age

 
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.