The National Association of Base Ball Players, 1857-1870 [Paperback]

Marshall D. Wright (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 2000

Before the onset of professional baseball, there existed a myriad of teams and players going back to the 1840s. The early years centered around an organization known as the National Association of Base Ball Players. This group, the antecedents of which date to 1857, governed the world of baseball until the formation of the first all-professional league in 1871. This book is the definitive statistical reference to that organization, from its humble beginnings through its explosive growth after the Civil War, culminating with its coast-to-coast inclusion of several hundred amateur and professional clubs. Relying for the most part on primary sources, the author has included introductory essays for each year, complete team statistics, every game score, and individual batting and pitching statistics for all players.

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

Professional baseball as we know it today began in 1871 with 10 teams forming the National Association of Professional Base Ball Players. But U.S. baseball had a rich tradition prior to this date. From 1857 to 1870 there were amateur teams organized as the National Association. In 1858 there were 25 teams, which grew to more than 80 by 1860. Play was curtailed during the Civil War, but by 1869 there were nearly 1,000 amateur teams in the association. This volume details the history of those teams.Each chapter covers one year and includes an introduction to baseball events for that year. Following the overview are statistics that the author compiled from a variety of historical sources. Each team is listed with dates of each game, score, and whether the game was a win, loss, or tie (a possible outcome during this point in baseball's development). Also included is a listing of players and such individual information as position(s) played, games played, hands lost (otherwise known as outs), average and over, and runs with average and over. The "average and over" statistics are holdovers from the game of cricket. Beginning in 1868, hits and total bases are added, and statistics are presented in decimal form, familiar to modern fans. Beginning in 1869 and 1870, pitching totals are available, including innings pitched, hits or runs allowed, and average hits or runs per inning. At the end of each chapter are team totals with games played, wins, losses, ties, winning percentage, runs scored, and runs scored against. The later years have more detailed individual statistics than the early years, and as rules changed the game, so did they change the type of statistics that were reported in the newspapers and guides of the time.This well-researched, if specialized, book on America's favorite pastime in its earliest years is recommended for large reference collections. RBB
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

About the Author

Marshall D. Wright, a certified archivist, is a sports statistician and has developed, marketed, and sold a baseball game of his own invention. His book on The International League was winner of The Sporting News-SABR Baseball Research Award for 1998. A resident of Quincy, Massachusetts, he is also the author of The American Association (1997, $45) and Nineteenth Century Baseball (1996, $37.50).

Product Details

• Paperback: 388 pages
• Publisher: Mcfarland & Co Inc Pub (April 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0786407794
• ISBN-13: 978-0786407798
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 5.9 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,991,822 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars You know if you want this one., September 14, 2002

By 

Richard Hershberger (Maryland) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The National Association of Base Ball Players, 1857-1870 (Paperback)

There are two types of people: One cannot imagine why any sane person would ever waste time or money on a book with data such as the record of the Atlantics of Brooklyn in 1861 or the Buckeyes of Cincinatti in 1868. The other starts to salivate at the mere mention of such a book. The first group is vastly larger, but you know if you are in the second. If so, you desperately need this!

I have only two complaints (hence four stars instead of five). One is that this really should be in a library binding. Marshall Wright's other books are published this way. It is inexplicable that the publisher went with paperback for this. The quality of the paper and binding is find, but this is a reference work to be used repeatedly.

The second, more serious complaint is the organization of the data. There is a chapter for each year, with the statistics following a short introduction. So far so good. The stats are by team, but the order of the teams is peculiar. They are in order of winning/losing/tie records. Presumably the idea is to run from best to worst teams, but this forces the reader to refer to the index constantly. So to find the record of the Buckeyes in 1868 we first need to note that the chapter on 1868 runs from pages 186 to 237. We can then go to the index and eliminate from consideration any pages outside that range. This still, however, leaves every citation of the Buckeyes as the opposing team in an entry, so we have to sift through these to finally find, on page 195, the section devoted to them. See now why I wish this had a better binding? The shame is that these problems could have easily been avoided. The appropriate index entries could have been in bold type, or each year could have its own index of entries, or there could have been extensive cross referencing.

The person who wants this book at all will be willing to work around this problem, but it is a shame.

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fantastic Composition of Stats, May 3, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: The National Association of Base Ball Players, 1857-1870 (Paperback)

This book contains an amazing and thorough collection of facts about the National Association. The plethora of statistics and numbers within makes it a must-have for any fan of baseball history.

3 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars NATIONAL ASSOCIATION? START ELSEWHERE., January 11, 2004

By A Customer

This review is from: The National Association of Base Ball Players, 1857-1870 (Paperback)

Although this book is written on a fairly obscure topic, if you are looking to gain a better understanding of the National Association, I would suggest you begin elsewhere. Of the 329 pages, 70% of the material is of line-scores and box-scores. I was disappointed with the lack of insight and was left with a regurgitation of numbers. I think the author loses the historical context of the league by writing a book purely on numbers. If you are interested in the National Association, I suggest you start with Daniel Ginsburgs The Fix Is In. Scandal and the National Association go hand in hand. Not only do you see how the league functioned, but also why it soon failed. I would also recommend William Ryczeks book on the National Association. I found more substance in both cases than with Wright's book. Unless you are a stat fanatic...I would not buy this book.