In its infancy, major league baseball was anyone's game, open to a dizzying array of rogues and scamps, athletic giants and captains of industry, hustlers, managers, and umpires who transformed club-based teams into the first professional federations with formalized rules-and commercial considerations. This two-volume work-with its profiles of every key contributor to the major league game from May 4, 1871, through December 31, 1900-is truly "inside baseball." Volume 2 features Hall of Famers who played in the era, as well as twenty other figures who aren't yet enshrined but arguably should be because of their considerable impact on the game. It also profiles early day baseball's crooks, madcaps, homicide victims, suicides, and missing persons, in addition to the managers, team owners, and umpires who helped give the game its structure and shape. More than a collection of mere facts and statistics, Major League Baseball Profiles provides a unique history of the evolution of major league baseball, from the date of the first major league game in 1871 through the 1900 season, which marked not only the close of a century but also the unofficial end of what many believe to be the formative period of the game.
David Nemec is the author of twenty-three baseball books, including Great Encyclopedia of 19th-Century Major League Baseball, winner of the Sporting News SABR Baseball Research Award.
Acknowledgments Introduction Explanation of Player Profile Statistics Chapter 1: The Hall of FamersChapter 2: 20 for the Hall of Fame Chapter 3: The Managers Chapter 4: The Front Office Chapter 5: The Umpires Chapter 6: Baseball's Most Wanted Chapter 7: Rogues GalleryChapter 8: The Louisville ScandalChapter 9: Death on the Diamond Chapter 10: Famous Firsts & LastsChapter 11: Early Day Ethnics Chapter 12: Hustlers and MountebanksChapter 13: Clubhouse LawyersChapter 14: Homicides and SuicidesChapter 15: Notable One GamersChapter 16: One Year WondersChapter 17: Rugged Room RoomiesChapter 18: Minor League MaestrosChapter 19: Life after Baseball BibliographyList of ContributorsAuthor's Previous Works Index
Provides a unique history of the evolution of Major League baseball
"Whether you are a newcomer to the wonderful world of nineteenth-century baseball or consider yourself to be an expert, you will learn much in this wonderful collection of biographical sketches. While other books have focused on the great pennant races or teams of the era, no book has so vividly presented the colourful stories of so many players as these two volumes do. You will be entertained and you will be smarter, once you spend some time with these books." Mark Armour, author of Joe Cronin: A Life in Baseball "David Nemec belongs in the Hall of Fame of early baseball research. Here, he uses a wealth of fascinating details to breathe life back into many little-known nineteenth-century ballplayers whose exploits and, at times, sheer grit are well worth remembering and celebrating." Edward Achorn, author of Fifty-Nine in '84: Old Hoss Radbourn, Barehanded Baseball, and the Greatest Season a Pitcher Ever Had
