Baseball fever : early baseball in Michigan / Peter Morris.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Morris, Peter, 1962-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Baseball--Michigan--History--19th century.

Baseball.

History.

Michigan.

Physical Description:

x, 390 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm

Place of Publication:

Ann Arbor : University of Michigan Press, [2003]

Summary:

Like no other book before it, Baseball Fever describes nineteenth-century baseball as it was played in the Midwest. Historian Peter Morris shows us how baseball first invaded the country's heartland and truly became the national game. Morris challenges accepted ideas about the first all-professional club, the origins of gloves, the influence of the Civil War, and many other elements of early baseball. Drawing on personal memoirs, period photographs, and an extensive, often hilarious variety of newspaper accounts, Baseball Fever paints a vivid portrait of a game that was widely -- if erratically -- played well before the Civil War, and matured from informal amusement to serious sport.

Contents:

1. "The Good Old Days When the Result Was Merely a Question of Physical Endurance and Light" 5

2. "The New Way Must Be an Improvement over the Old": Michigan's First Regulation Baseball Club 19

3. "Gentlemen of Respectability and Standing": Michigan's First Baseball Matches 33

4. "Have a Good Time, Boys, but Don't Hurt the Trees": Baseball Spreads 45

5. "Adapted to the Wants of Young Men Generally" 54

6. "Their Ranks Became So Thinned That Disruption Followed": Baseball during the Civil War 62

7. "The Squabbles of Rival Clubs" 74

8. "The Patience of Hope": The Postwar Boom 90

9. "Almost Perfect": The Detroit Base Ball Club Looks Further Afield 107

10. "A Perfect Frenzy of Ball-Playing": The Geographic Expansion of the Game in 1866 120

11. "Too Much Talking on Both Sides": Growing Pains 128

12. "Not the Detroit First Nine": A Season of Change 144

13. "One Hears Little Else on the Street" 161

14. Breaking "Fingers and the Third Commandment": How Muffin Games Helped Renew a Sense of Belonging 179

15. "Ability and Intelligence Should Be Recognized First and Last": Women and African Americans in Early Baseball 195

16. "Left in the Hands of a Few of Questionable Industry" 207

17. "Principally Confined to the Young Americans" 228

18. "Base Ball Is Popular Again" 244

19. "What Use Is All This Straining of Muscle" 262

20. "Where Are Our Base Ballists?" 273

21. "Playing in Our Own Shoes and Undershirts" 285

22. "The Resurrection of This Noble American Game" 301

23. "More for Instruction Than Anything Else" 316

24. "A Game Which Has Become Peculiarly American" 332

25. "Each Side Has Its Own Story" 342

26. "The Phenix-like Performances of the Pastime" 357.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 369-375) and indexes.

ISBN:

0472098268

OCLC:

51060248