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By David
Block
Introduction
By Tim Wiles
Sports & Recreation, Baseball, History
Bison Books
Paperback, 352 pages, Illustrated
March
2006
$16.95
0803262558
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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.
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.
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