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The man who invented baseball

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More irritating than calling 2000 the start of the next millenium, is the widespread, mistaken belief that Abner Doubleday invented the game of baseball. Doubleday, a Civil War officer who may never have attended a game, was used by a sporting goods company's phony flag-waving sales campaign. Alexander Cartwright, a New York bank clerk, not only designed the first diamond, wrote most of the rules still used today, organized and captained the first game, and sewed the first baseball -- he also became the young sport's Johnny Appleseed, popularizing it from New England to Hawaii and Japan. Author Peterson picks up Cartwright's trail a century later. He even chills his non-fiction readers with a surprise ending. The Man Who Invented Baseball is a treasure for lovers of American history and American baseball. Alexander Cartwright, by the way, is in the Hall of Fame. Guess who isn't?

this book stinks! it cannot decide if it is a very dull storie or an exciting encyclopedia. at first it tries to sell itself as a history, but then turns into a soap opera style plot.