Baseball before We Knew It: A Search for the Roots of the Game
Autor David Block Cuvânt înainte de Tim Wilesen Limba Engleză Hardback – mar 2005
It may be America’s game, but no one seems to know how or when baseball really started. Theories abound, myths proliferate, but reliable information has been in short supply—until now, when Baseball before We Knew It brings fresh new evidence of baseball’s origins into play. David Block looks into the early history of the game and of the 150-year-old debate about its beginnings. He tackles one stubborn misconception after another, debunking the enduring belief that baseball descended from the English game of rounders and revealing a surprising new explanation for the most notorious myth of all—the Abner Doubleday–Cooperstown story.
Block’s book takes readers on an exhilarating journey through the centuries in search of clues to the evolution of our modern National Pastime. Among his startling discoveries is a set of long-forgotten baseball rules from the 1700s. Block evaluates the originality and historical significance of the Knickerbocker rules of 1845, revisits European studies on the ancestry of baseball which indicate that the game dates back hundreds, if not thousands of years, and assembles a detailed history of games and pastimes from the Middle Ages onward that contributed to baseball’s development. In its thoroughness and reach, and its extensive descriptive bibliography of early baseball sources, this book is a unique and invaluable resource—a comprehensive, reliable, and readable account of baseball before it was America’s game.
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|---|---|---|
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| Hardback (1) | 252.80 lei 3-5 săpt. | |
| Nebraska – mar 2005 | 252.80 lei 3-5 săpt. |
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Specificații
ISBN-13: 9780803213395
ISBN-10: 0803213395
Pagini: 384
Ilustrații: 29 illustrations, 2 maps, index
Dimensiuni: 140 x 216 x 15 mm
Greutate: 0.62 kg
Ediția:New.
Editura: Nebraska
Colecția University of Nebraska Press
Locul publicării:United States
ISBN-10: 0803213395
Pagini: 384
Ilustrații: 29 illustrations, 2 maps, index
Dimensiuni: 140 x 216 x 15 mm
Greutate: 0.62 kg
Ediția:New.
Editura: Nebraska
Colecția University of Nebraska Press
Locul publicării:United States
Notă biografică
David Block is a long-time collector of early baseball books and memorabilia, and is a passionate, lifelong fan of the game and its history.
Recenzii
"Given North American baseball fans' nearly inexhaustible appetite for the arcana of their favourite sport, astonishingly few scholars have ever undertaken the detailed historical and anthropological research to find out where the game actually began. . . . Now, through painstaking bibliographic and archival research, on display in his extensive appendices, Block has established . . . the true forerunner of American baseball. . . . By pushing beyond baseball's reputed origins in an English children's game, David Block has discovered the game's true origins in an even older English game."—Warren Goldstein, Times Literary Supplement
"The suggestion that America's Game might have originated somewhere besides America so 'inflamed passions and patriotism,' writes David Block, that the idea still burns us. . . . Block has produced a deliciously researched feast that lays this controversy to rest. . . . Block has assembled such a rich pile of evidence for the game's European origins that one might wonder why there ever was a controversy. . . . Block's book is a perfect delight. He has unearthed magnificent medieval manuscripts . . . That show that baseball is just the latest in a very long line of stick-and-ball games."—Charles Hirshberg, Sports Illustrated
“Pastime Lost is required reading for anyone interested in learning more about the early origins of baseball.”—Jason Cannon, NINE: A Journal of Baseball History and Culture
"Baseball, Block convincingly argues, was not a product of rounders, and its essential form had already been established by the late 18th century. Where, then, did baseball come from? In search of an answer, Block, a retired systems analyst and an antiquarian book collector, has attacked baseball's literary record with methodical zeal. The result is a joyfully discursive romp through the history of ball sports and a compelling new theory of the game's origins."—New York Times Book Review
"Baseball before We Knew It is a rare piece of historical research that transforms the historical landscape. It is also elegantly written and lightened with a subtle humor. No one who makes any claim to being a baseball historian or a student of the game can go forward without Block's stunning work."—Sports Literature Association
Cuprins
List of Illustrations
Foreword to the New Edition by John Thorn
Foreword by Tim Wiles
Preface to the New Edition
Preface
Acknowledgments for the New Edition
Acknowledgments
Base, as in Baseball
A Pocket(book)ful of Miracles
1. Uncertainty as to the Paternity
2. Rounders, Schmounders
3. Abner and Albert, the Missing Link by Philip Block
Playing Ball at Camp Doubleday
4. Was Abner Graves Telling the Truth?
5. Rules of Baseball: The Prequel
6. How Slick Were the Knicks?
7. In the Beginning
8. Stools, Clubs, Stobs, and Jugs
9. Traps and Cats
10. It’s Starting to Look Familiar
11. Baseball before We Knew It
Early Baseball Bibliography: Roots of the Game in Pre–Civil War Literature
Appendix 1: Constitutions and By-Laws
Appendix 2: Some Comments on Sporting Journals of the 1850s
Appendix 3: “A Place Leavel Enough to Play Ball”: Baseball and Baseball-type Games in the Colonial Era, Revolutionary War, and Early American Republic by Thomas L. Altherr
Appendix 4: The Letters of Abner Graves
Appendix 5: Dr. Adam E. Ford’s Letter to Sporting Life
Appendix 6: Battingball Games by Per Maigaard
Appendix 7: Ten Surviving Descriptions of Baseball-like Games Written and Published before 1845
Notes
Principal Sources Consulted
Index
Foreword to the New Edition by John Thorn
Foreword by Tim Wiles
Preface to the New Edition
Preface
Acknowledgments for the New Edition
Acknowledgments
Base, as in Baseball
A Pocket(book)ful of Miracles
1. Uncertainty as to the Paternity
2. Rounders, Schmounders
3. Abner and Albert, the Missing Link by Philip Block
Playing Ball at Camp Doubleday
4. Was Abner Graves Telling the Truth?
5. Rules of Baseball: The Prequel
6. How Slick Were the Knicks?
7. In the Beginning
8. Stools, Clubs, Stobs, and Jugs
9. Traps and Cats
10. It’s Starting to Look Familiar
11. Baseball before We Knew It
Early Baseball Bibliography: Roots of the Game in Pre–Civil War Literature
Appendix 1: Constitutions and By-Laws
Appendix 2: Some Comments on Sporting Journals of the 1850s
Appendix 3: “A Place Leavel Enough to Play Ball”: Baseball and Baseball-type Games in the Colonial Era, Revolutionary War, and Early American Republic by Thomas L. Altherr
Appendix 4: The Letters of Abner Graves
Appendix 5: Dr. Adam E. Ford’s Letter to Sporting Life
Appendix 6: Battingball Games by Per Maigaard
Appendix 7: Ten Surviving Descriptions of Baseball-like Games Written and Published before 1845
Notes
Principal Sources Consulted
Index
Descriere
Descriere de la o altă ediție sau format:
In its thoroughness and reach, and its extensive descriptive bibliography of early baseball sources, this twentieth anniversary edition of Baseball before We Knew It is a unique and invaluable resource—a comprehensive, reliable, and readable account of baseball before it was America’s game.
In its thoroughness and reach, and its extensive descriptive bibliography of early baseball sources, this twentieth anniversary edition of Baseball before We Knew It is a unique and invaluable resource—a comprehensive, reliable, and readable account of baseball before it was America’s game.