Customer Reviews

Baseball before We Knew It: A Search for the Roots of the Game

5 star:		(16)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I was initially not going to write a review of this book, as there are already many justly praising it. The one negative review, however, saying that this book has little in it not in Harold Peterson's "The Man Who Invented Baseball" (published over thirty years ago) gave me pause. On one level it is clearly true. I remember as a boy my father telling me about Alexander Cartwright and the New York Knickerbockers, and dismissing the Abner Doubleday story. I don't know that he read Peterson's book, but the timing is right and Peterson did popularize the Cartwright story. This provoked me to dig out my out copy of Peterson and read it for the first time in many years. I can now definitively assure you that David Block is most certainly not just recycling Peterson's book.

They agree that there were earlier versions of ball-and-stick games, which they discuss, and that the version of the game that has come down to us as modern baseball was standardized by the Knickerbocker club.

That may make it look like they have similar theses, but they really do not. Peterson's thesis is right there in his title: someone invented baseball and he knows who it was. Earlier versions were fundamentally different from the Knickerbocker game, and the Knickerbocker game was the product one man's flash of genius. Earlier games are discussed, but they don't really matter, since the Knickerbocker game is taken as being so different. The discussions of earlier games mostly are there to discredit the Doubleday story, which typically has predecessor games being even more primitive than in the Cartwright story

Block's goal is also named in his title: he is seeking baseball's roots. The Knickerbocker game is part of a story that began centuries earlier. Earlier versions aren't a distraction, they are the story. Only by knowing what came before can we see what the Knickerbockers did and didn't do: what parts of their game were selections from an existing menu of options and what parts were true innovations. It turns out to be far more interesting than any myth of a heroic lone genius.

Why should we believe Block rather than Peterson? Peterson's is a book with no footnotes, but with detailed descriptions of events down to quoted conversations. Even if the events were found in histories that actually cited sources, we would know that this is fiction. Peterson probably considered it putting a human face on the story. I consider it making stuff up. He does that a lot. The chapters on early ball-and-stick games are a mish-mash of solid data, poorly understood facts, and utter fiction. So it is that he can, on adjacent pages, give two contradictory accounts of the origin of cricket. He has a story to tell and he isn't going to let facts get in the way. Block's book started out as an annotated bibliography of early baseball sources and Block is meticulous about documentation. When he is forced to interpret beyond the actual evidence he tells us this. You come away knowing exactly what is really known and what is educated guesswork. It is honest history.

I rarely give five stars in my reviews, but I have no qualms about doing so here. The book is quite simply the important book on the subject published in my lifetime. It may be surpassed some day, but that day isn't likely to be soon. For the foreseeable future this is the one book to own if you have any interest in the origins of baseball.

Baseball is a "what have you done for me lately?" kind of game, which in part may explain how little has been written about the game's earliest origins. Add that to the facts that many baseball fans are satisfied to believe the false myth (discredited almost from the point that it was first put forward) that Abner Doubleday invented baseball out of whole clothe in Cooperstown, New York, and that some fans are only interested in baseball history that can be explained through statistics, and you begin to understand why the game's true origins have been so widely ignored.
David Block steps into this breach with a well researched, fascinating book that examines the history of our National pastime from its earliest origins through its evolution into the modern game. His original intent was simply to compile a bibliography of all the books and sources that touch on this subject, and indeed, nearly half the length of `Baseball Before We Knew It' is taken up with his bibliography and various appendices. He spends several chapters debunking not only the already thoroughly debunked Doubleday myth, but also challenging the more widely accepted theory that baseball evolved from the English game of rounders, and even calling into question how important Alexander Cartwright actually was in formulating the earliest rules of the official American game.
The most fascinating part of Block's book is his delving into the early European origins of Baseball. Much of his research here is not original, but he does have some interesting original interpretations of the scant evidence that can be gleaned from these early references to games that seem to have a family resemblance to baseball. In his last chapter he presents a theoretical flowchart of baseball's evolution from the Medieval European ball game called Longball, complete with all the various ball games that seemed to influence it and branch off from it on its way to becoming our modern game of American Baseball.
Block admits that his book is far from the last word on the subject, but hopes that it will reinvigorate fans interest in the often overlooked history of the game's origins. His extensive bibliography provides many clues for continued reading on the subject, though many of the cited sources are obviously rare and hard to find. `Baseball Before We Knew It' is a great contribution to the literature of the history of a game which is uniquely tied to the culture and history of the United States, and should be appreciated not only by the serious baseball fan, but by all of those with an interest in American cultural history.

Theo Logos

As soon as I began reading "Baseball Before We Knew It", I felt as though I were on a runaway horse--I kept exclaiming "Whoa, Whoa." Baseball is "America's pastime", but David Block becomes an international historical sleuth to uncover its true roots. Forget everything you have been led to believe about the origin of baseball and be prepared for the ultimate "who dunnit". Mr. Block even sheds new and intense light on the Abner Doubleday myth, not just dispelling it (again), but revealing perhaps a more nefarious agenda by Albert Spaulding, the baseball magnate who could not accept that, just maybe, baseball did not originate in America. Meticulously researched and documented, Mr. Block introduces us to all of baseball's possible ancestors. His conclusion is surprising but satisfying. This is not just "another history of baseball book", but the definitive work that will be defered to and refered to for a long time to come. And for the detail wonks, he provides footnotes, appendices and a bibliography which in and of itself is an example of thorough research. An absolute MUST READ. And a great gift to baseball-loving friends also.

The scope and depth of Block's research is staggering. Yet, his organization and style of writing are clear and engaging. Both his research and his writing make this a great work of integrity; the integrity to delve so far and wide, the integrity to personally view each source (of which there are hundreds), the integrity to correct the mistakes of previous findings even when it subtracted support for the author's own findings, and most of all, the integrity to resist conjecture.

The book's bibliography of nearly 60 pages is in itself a book, containing hundreds of literary and other references to baseball between the years 1450 and 1861. The author not only provides informative notes on the baseball related content of the individual sources, but often makes engaging comments on the rarity, location or visual aspects of the source such as illustrations, diagrams and other characteristics of particular works.

There is even a chapter which the author, generously and wisely, included that was contributed by his brother Philip. If you think that it is enough to know that the Abner Doubleday-Inventor of Baseball is just a worn out myth, think again. This chapter sheds a whole new light on the whole affair, and gives additional insight into this portion of our National Pastime's "history."

David is more than just kind to those who's shoulders he admittingly stood upon. He not only is quick to acknowledge their pioneering work, but when his own work effectively nullifies the work of those who labored before him, he is quick to offer additional insights into how erroneous conclusions may have been reached and is just as quick to point out that his predecessors did not have the modern technological research tools available to him.

This book belongs on the shelves of a wide variety of readers; from researchers and scholars to plain old baseball fans (who are sometimes also researchers and scholars). No serious discussion or writing about the early origins of baseball for the next hundred years will omit David Block's, "Baseball before We Knew It."

I have just read a number of rave reviews for Baseball Before We Knew It, so I won't try to outdo them. But I am a member of SABR and interested in tracing the development of 19th century uniforms and caps. I had email contact with Mr. Block before he finished his book, so my anticipation was high, and now I can say my expectations were more than met. From a practical and special point of view, I can now hang my "uniforms" on Block's chronological reconstruction, knowing that not every issue is settled, but that wide new vistas have been opened for my own research. His chronological flow chart toward the back is most helpful for the historian. Now we need to watch a good documentary movie on the Discovery Channel, so we can "see" what a game of ball looked in the Middle Ages. Would Kevin Kostner be interested?
Great job, David Block!
Jim "Batman" Battenfield of California

The author seems to be primarily engaged in trying to debunk three myths: (1) that Gen. Abner Doubleday invented the game, (2) that the real inventor was Alexander J. Cartwright of the Knickerbocker Base Ball Club, and (3) that the game developed from the English game of rounders.

For the first, there has already been so much evidence that Doubleday had nothing in particular to do with baseball, so it would seem there was little more that could be said, except that, in fact, the author finds out some interesting evidence that he believes to be the main reason that A. G. Spalding might have favored Doubleday's claim-- that Spalding and Doubleday were both adherents of the same religious cult!

Regarding the Cartwright claim, the author has much less to say. He accepts that the Knickerbocker Rules were an important step in the development of baseball, but in addition he states that there is evidence that Cartwright's role in developing those rules was less significant than has been believed. And he shows that organized baseball games occured before the adoption of the Knickerbocker Rules.

It is in debunking the third "myth," I think, where the author strains to do something undeserved. So the name "rounders" does not seem to have been used prior to the nineteenth century. But the author admits that "rounders" was simply a name that has come to be assigned to an earlier English game, and that baseball developed from that game. The difference between that and the "myth" he is trying to debunk is minimal. If you really think it makes a difference between saying "baseball developed from rounders" and "baseball evolved from a number of games, but the most important was the game now known in England as 'rounders,'" you can accept this book's argument. I don't see it that way; to me "developed from rounders" and "developed from the game now known as rounders" are not significantly different.

But the book is interesting. It should be in your possession if you're interested in baseball, and especially in its history.

As a child I learned of Abner Doubleday and his "invention" of baseball. Then I heard about Alexander Cartwright. Then I heard about rounders. I learned about Henry Chadwick.

But this book explores all of those "creation myths" of baseball and you learn that baseball is a game that did not spring up fully formed. It's roots are all over Europe and North America. For centuries, people have been hitting balls with sticks and running. And in many unexpected places.

Block does a wonderful job of examining texts from many eras to present another valuable lesson in learning just how America's National Pastime came to be.

This book is an amazing work of scholarship.

Like others who have been reading and reviewing David Block's book, I regard this as a major milestone in the published history of baseball. It is not just that he disposes of many conventional errors in previous accounts nor that he has uncovered many previously unknown details. He has done so in a manner that reads like a good mystery story--slowly revealing not the villain but the hero of his search: the true progenitor of modern baseball. Meanwhile, his list and use of sources is unparalleled, his discoveries of the byways and footnotes to the standard history are fascinating, his treatment of those who have written before him is generous. From now on, anyone who has the slightest interest in the history of baseball will have to have read Block!

This book makes all the other books on baseball's origins obsolete. Not only meticulously researched and - more importantly - referenced, "Baseball Before We Knew It" cuts through the confusion, usually involving inaccurate references and / or researchers who had already made their mind up before doing the research. No other book charts baseball's origins so completely and without assumption and preconception. Anyone interested in the subject should read it.

I highly recommend this very information and entertaining book about the origins, the very roots, of the game that is, as Walt Whitman said, "Our Game...America's Game". For those interested in baseball and it's history, this is simply the best book written on the topic in the last fifty years. Best yet, it is not ponderous but an easy read that the casual fan as well as the hard core historian will love. I could tell you all of the little nuggets you will learn, but, I suggest you simply go out and buy one! After all, Opening Day is just around the corner!!