Customer Reviews

The National Game, Second Edition (Writing Baseball)

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Al Spink (of the *Sporting News* Spinks) wrote this pioneering history of baseball in 1910 and updated it the next year. Because Organized Baseball was so young, Spink was able to write the kind of encyclopedic overview which would fill a six-volume set today.

Spink discusses EVERY significant event in the history of baseball to 1910: not just famous players, but also owners, umpires, mid-19th century teams, even early baseball writers. He draws on his personal knowledge of these men to relate long-forgotten anecdotes, and to convey a perspective which no modern writer could match without spending five years at a microfilm reader.

I can't imagine any serious baseball fan with an interest in pre-1910 baseball not learning a lot from this book. Even the illustrations are many cuts above the images in most modern books about this era.

The baseball reissue of the year!

The 1910 equivalent of the Baseball Encyclopedia or Total Baseball and the first really comprehensive baseball reference book. Hundreds of biographical sketches, photographs (portraits), detailed club histories, statistics (almost quaint in its early-1900's point of view : pitching leaders by winning pct., for example; no discussion of e.r.a., home run records, etc.). Plenty of boxscores from important games dating back to the 1830's and every "world series" from the 1880's on. An absolutely essential addition to the library of any fan of early baseball.

While this book by the long-time Sporting News editor is a excellent re-issue for its historic value, Sporting News (the new foreword is by Sporting News research director Stephen Getscher) should have taken the time to correct the numerous errors it contains.