Baseball in the Garden of Eden
The Secret History of the Early Game
by John Thorn
Mem. Ed. $17.99
Pub. Ed. $26.00
You pay $0.25
Baseball in the Garden of Eden
The story of Abner Doubleday inventing baseball is now recognized as untrue. But, did baseball even have an inventor? In Baseball in the Garden of Eden, John Thorn, baseball’s preeminent historian, dissects the creation story of the game, separating myth from fact in an entertaining history of how baseball began, and how the game became our national pastime.
From its earliest days baseball was a vehicle for gambling, invigorated if ultimately corrupted by gamblers, hustlers and entrepreneurs. It was also a proxy form of class warfare. Thorn shows how the sport’s increasing popularity in the early decades of the 19th century mirrored the migration of young men from farms and small towns to cities. He charts the rise of secret professionalism and the origin of the “reserve clause,” essential innovations for gamblers and capitalists. And he introduces us to a host of early baseball stars, from Candy Cummings, the pitcher who claimed to have invented the curveball, to Cap Anson, the first man to record three thousand hits.
Full of heroes, scoundrels and scandals, Baseball in the Garden of Eden is more than the story of a game. It is the saga of 19th-century America in microcosm.
Hardcover : 384 pages
Publisher: Simon & Schuster ( March 15, 2011 )
Item #: 13-370284
ISBN: 9780743294034
Product Dimensions: 6.125 x 9.25 x 0.86inches
Product Weight: 18.0 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
Copyright © Bookspan. BOMC® / Book-of-the-Month® /Book-of-the-Month Club® are registered trademarks of Bookspan. Unauthorized use prohibited. All rights reserved.
13307201205ADFL
Card Security Code
The card security code is an added safeguard for your credit/debit card purchases. Depending on the type of card you use, it is either a three- or four-digit number printed on the back or front of your credit/debit card, separate from your credit/debit card number. To make shopping at Book-of-the-Month Club®
even more secure, we require that you enter this number each time you make a credit/debit card purchase. Please note that your security code will not be stored with us even if you have saved your credit/debit card information.
