**"Football is force and fanatics, basketball is beauty and bounce.
Baseball is everything: action, grace, the seasons of our lives. George
Vecsey's book proves it, without wasting a word."--Lee Eisenberg, author
of The Number
**
In Baseball, one of the great bards of America's Grand Old Game
gives a rousing account of the sport, from its pre-Republic roots to the
present day. George Vecsey casts a fresh eye on the game, illuminates
its foibles and triumphs, and performs a marvelous feat: making a
classic story seem refreshingly new.
Baseball is a narrative of America's can-do spirit, in which stalwart
immigrants such as Henry Chadwick could transplant cricket and rounders
into the fertile American culture and in which die-hard unionist
baseballers such as Charles Comiskey and Connie Mack could eventually
become the tightfisted avatars of the game's big-money establishment.
It's a celebration of such underdogs as a rag-armed catcher turned owner
named Branch Rickey and a sure-handed fielder named Curt Flood, both of
whom flourished as true great men of history. But most of all,
Baseball is a testament to the unbreakable bond between our nation's
pastime and the fans, who've remained loyal through the fifty-year-long
interdict on black athletes, the Black Sox scandal, franchise
relocation, and the use of performance-enhancing drugs by some major
stars.
Reverent, playful, and filled with Vecsey's charm, Baseball begs to be
read in the span of a rain-delayed doubleheader, and so enjoyable that,
like a favorite team's championship run, one hopes it never ends.
**
"Vecsey possesses a journalist's eye for detail and a historian's feel
for the sweep of action. His research is scrupulous and his writing
crisp. This book is an instant classic--a highly readable guide to
America's great enduring pastime."--***The Louisville Courier
Journal
*
