Playing for Keeps: A History of Early Baseball

by Warren Goldstein

In the late 1850s organized baseball was a club-based fraternal sport thriving in the cultures of respectable artisans, clerks and shopkeepers, and middle-class sportsmen. Two decades later it had become an entertainment business run by owners and managers, depending on gate receipts and the increasingly disciplined labor of skilled player-employees. Playing for Keeps is an insightful, in-depth account of the game that became America's premier spectator sport for nearly a century. Reconstructing the culture and experience of early baseball through a careful reading of the sporting press, baseball guides, and the correspondence of the player-manager Harry Wright, Warren Goldstein discovers the origins of many modern controversies during the game's earliest decades.

Genres: Baseball, Sports, History, Nonfiction, American History

208 pages, Hardcover

First published December 1, 1989

Reviews

[Roncibio · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of the better works on the early days of the modern game. Although in need of a update and revision, Goldstein's book remains a must for anyone interested in the relationship of the baseball's emergence as the national pastime at a time when tensions across class, race, nativity and gender framed the debates over who and what be defined as American in the post Civil War era.

[Fred Fontz · Rating 4 out of 5]

One note worth making: this book is obviously written for a specific audience. I’m writing a review for that audience. For you to enjoy this book at all, you have to be interested in history and baseball. Anyone can pick up a fiction book and, potentially, enjoy it. But with the niche of this book, if you’re not already interested in the topic, you won’t enjoy it at all.

"Playing for Keeps" by Warren Goldstein is a meticulously researched exploration of baseball's history, offering detailed insights into the game and the culture surrounding it. As someone who loves the history of baseball, I appreciated the level of detail Goldstein included about the baseball life and its evolution.

That said, I’d probably give this book a 3.5 if possible. While the research is impressive, the writing can be a bit dry at times. Even as an avid fan of baseball history, I found certain sections lacking the spark to keep me fully engaged.

One of the surprises in this book was the focus on the economic side of baseball. While there’s certainly overlap between the game’s culture and its finances, I was hoping for a deeper dive into the players, the culture, and the game itself rather than so much attention on wages and labor disputes. The book dedicates significant space to this aspect, which may not appeal to readers looking for a more game-centered perspective.

Additionally, at times, the game itself takes something of a backseat. Apart from the discussion of the "bound rule," there’s little exploration of the rules or the evolution of play. I would have loved more analysis of the strategy, style, or key moments that shaped baseball as we know it.

Overall, "Playing for Keeps" is a solid read for those interested in the broader history of baseball, particularly its economic and cultural implications. While it wasn’t quite the in-depth exploration of the game itself that I hoped for, the book is still a valuable addition to the library of any baseball history enthusiast.

[Stephen Morrissey · Rating 2 out of 5]

"Playing for Keeps" is a book that, by its title and subtitle, promise a sweeping overview of baseball's early history, and (unfortunately) delivers a rather dry monograph on the cultural norms and structure of baseball in the 1860s and 1870s. Warren Goldstein no doubt accomplished much research and delivers original insights, but the thematic nature of the chapters and focus on the ideologies of owners and players falls flat.

For a true, narrative overview of early baseball, it may help to save "Playing for Keeps" after reading more traditional narratives of baseball's 19th Century history.

[Alex Stephenson · Rating 4 out of 5]

An academic history, but not so dry that folks who enjoyed the Ken Burns documentary on baseball will be completely out of their depth here. Fascinating to see how so much of baseball culture, and with that, American sports culture, was shaped in these two decades.

[Michael · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a good historical analysis of the origins of the current game we see today and how the more things change the more they stay the same. The evolution of a club game with parties to stadiums filled with paying fans, from pay to play players to professional players was tied together very well in a detailed but short study of the time period before the formation of the National League.

[Kevin · Rating 1 out of 5]

Not what I expected. I thought it would be more about the players. But it was more about the sociological and economic development of the game. I thought it was quite boring.

[Thomas Nahigian · Rating 5 out of 5]

A wonderful book about the early days of baseball.