Baseball: A History of America's Favorite Game

by George Vecsey

“Football is force and fanatics, basketball is beauty and bounce. Baseball is 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 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

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

274 pages, Kindle Edition

First published August 15, 2006

Reviews

[Jason · Rating 4 out of 5]

I thoroughly enjoyed this book, though it's a bit scattered in it's approach. Of course, considering Vescey is trying to hit the highlights of roughly 130 years of baseball history I'd say he did a pretty specatular job taking the subject on. He's been a sports writer for the NY Times since the 50's, which no doubt helped him decide which things to touch on, and he manages to avoid telling the same old legendary tales of Ruth, Mantle, and Robinson that often find themselves being re-hashed in baseball histories. Particularly interesting was his chapter on four famous baseball scandals, including the Black Sox, which manages to come off as fresh even in the aftermath of Eight Men Out (another fabulous read!), and the current steroid scandal. Worth the few days it'll take a fan to read...highly recommend.

[Sue · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was an o.k. introduction for someone who's interested in baseball, but doesn't know anything about its history. But I imagine most hard-core baseball people already knew much of what was in here. Really, I feel like I could have written this if I had a few weeks or months to spend in libraries to do the research - not too many little-known anecdotes or interviews with players to make this a truly fascinating read. But I don't have a few weeks to spend in libraries and I did want a basic history, so to that end, this book served its purpose. I was pissed that there was nothing about women in baseball (a quick look at Wikipedia showed that the first paid baseball team was actually the Dolly Vardens, an African-American women's league in Philly, not the Cincinnati Red Stockings) and barely anything about the Mets except a quick mention that they formed in 1962, sucked, and Mookie Wilson hit a certain ground ball in Game 6. Again, I could have written this.

[Steve · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was looking forward to reading this book. However, I did not really enjoy the book. It seemed as if Vecsey took a series of feature stories written over a long period of time and tried to cobble them together. The book was only a couple hundred pages but he retold the same stories over and over again. The book jumped around too much and never felt as if it was properly pulled together. It needed a good editor or a least a good outline.

[L · Rating 2 out of 5]

There's a lot of interesting information in here for someone seeking a quick and dirty overview of the history of baseball. The structure is somewhat disorganized, however, and the book is sometimes repetitive and other times leaves out large chunks of information. All told, it reads like a selection of essays about the author's favorite (and least favorite) aspects of baseball history. Interesting, but not as good as it could have been.

[Brian Eshleman · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was a nice companion to Ken Burns's Baseball series, which I recently watched. The author uses some of the same illustrations of baseball's changes and highlights some of the same personalities. This text provides something like a 30,000 foot view that doesn't get too bogged down in details.

[Taryn · Rating 3 out of 5]

A good book for a satellite view of American baseball from the 1800s to mid-2000s. Glossed over the major highlights of how the game developed over the years, including stats (dude who developed K for strikeouts used it because he said the letter K stood out against the other letters in the word and could be remembered easily),equipment (helmets weren’t required until the 1950s?!), rules of the game (it wasn’t until the 1900s when fouled back balls were finally counted as strikes), development of free agency, scandals through the years (Black Sox, Pete Rose, steroid usage, etc.), the Negro Leagues, and baseball abroad. Did I understand everything? No. There’s a lot of names that just went over my head, and that made me think this book was mostly for people with background knowledge of key figures already. But I still learned some fun facts about the sport and why it matters.

[Caden · Rating 3 out of 5]

Hello I am Caden Watson and I am a Freshman from Woods Charter School and I wanted to write a quick review on this book. This book is all about baseball and that is what I have always been interested in so this book really fit in with me. I suggest this book to anyone that is interested in learning more about the game of baseball as this book includes a lot of facts that I have never heard of and I have played baseball my whole life. I would not recommend this book to anyone who is not interested in baseball because you will have no clue what is being talked about throughout the book and it will just be boring. I rated this book a 3/5 star because I was definitely enjoying hearing about old baseball players and old things that happened in baseball however I felt that it was a lot of facts that I had already hear of and it was more of me reading over something I already knew.

[Jack · Rating 3 out of 5]

Personal Response
I liked the book Baseball . Baseball is one of my three favorite sports, but it is the one I know least about. I don't know much about the old time players of baseball or how the game started. This book covers lots of pre-21st century baseball. It talks about who created the game, the Negro Leagues, and the steroid age. The book did get a little dull to me at times, especially when I had been reading for a while. It also talks about baseball during both World Wars and the Great Depression, which I found very interesting. Overall, I found the book enjoyable and it increased my knowledge of baseball a lot.
Plot Summary
This book jumps around from time to time, but generally it follows the same plot line of advancing forward through baseball history. It starts off by talking about really early forms of baseball in different countries. Then, it talks about how the actual creator of baseball of how we know it today, credited someone else with creating it, that had nothing to do with baseball his whole life. The American public actually believed this for a while. Negro Leagues are a big topic in the book as well, it talks about how the MLB didn't allow any black people to play. Jackie Robinson is also talked about, as well as how the Boston Red Sox were the last team in baseball to call a black person up onto their major league team. The final big topic that is discussed is the steroid era. The author talks about how Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa used steroids and they were encouraged to do so. When Barry Bonds broke the home run record record however, the record was tainted because of him using PED's.
Recommendation
I would recommend this book only to people who really enjoy baseball. I would do this because if you don't know at least a little bit about baseball this book could be hard to follow along with, and could get boring pretty fast. Younger people also might have a hard time paying attention to this book because their attention spans are shorter.

[Melanie · Rating 3 out of 5]

A short book on a long history of baseball. I would say it would be good for someone wanting to learn the history, but then it moves very quickly and doesn't go deep into anything. More of refresher for the fans.

How did this book find me? It was available on Audible+ until September 16.

[Joy · Rating 4 out of 5]

I picked up this book because I visited the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown on Wed and wanted to be absolutely insufferable with facts about the game. (Book or not, I knew I'd be insufferable at the Hall -- at least with a little pre-reading, at least I could be informed...)

I wanted to read Cooperstown Confidential, but the library didn't have a copy available, and I wasn't up for $25 for a hardback copy. So...I found this brief history of 150 years of baseball in America written by NYTimes sports columnist George Vecsey and really enjoyed it.

Some things I learned: Abner Doubleday did not invent baseball, nor did he live in Cooperstown. It's baseball's "creation myth," says Vecsey. I enjoyed Cooperstown and Doubleday field anyway. So there.

Branch Rickey (ever heard of him?) played a HUGE role in the early years of baseball, in establishing the minor league farm system, introducing the batting helmet, hand-picking Jackie Robinson to break the color-barrier in baseball, and recruiting the first Hispanic superstar Roberto Clemente.

The book makes mention of the recent steroid scandal, but interestingly, the Hall of Fame does not. Barry Bonds' home run ball with the asterisk was no where to be found. Hmmmm

[Andrew · Rating 4 out of 5]

George Vecsey's Baseball: A History of America's Favorite Pastime is a broad and beautifully written look at the 150+ years of baseball.

It can give the impression of skipping around simply because of the breadth of the subject Vecsey is trying to cover. Its chapters are best taken on their own. If they whet your appetite for more, pick up a more comprehensive study (Koppett's Concise History would be the best I could recommend). What Vecsey excels in here, though, is the human touch and detail beneath the great wave of the game.

[Jeffrey]

I've just started this book. So far, he comes across as another bitter old man who thinks everything reached perfection in the 50's. I'll still give it a go because I love the game. We'll see what happens....

[Amy · Rating 2 out of 5]

It was okay. Didn't love the kind of jaded tone to a lot of it. There seemed to be a lot of personal pet-peeves mixed in among the traditional history highlights. I appreciated it had more to say about the 70's on than other things I've read and watched.

[Jonathan Tennis · Rating 5 out of 5]

Vecsey tells a great baseball tale. If you're a fan of the game, you'll be a fan of this book.

[Kathy McC · Rating 4 out of 5]

Mr. Vecsey is to be commended on his thorough research and a writing style that made all of the dates and places more narrative than encyclopedic.

[Lynn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very enjoyable. This is definitely a low-key but authentic book. The author is a New York Times columnist and author of other significant books.

I first became fascinated with baseball when we moved to Chicago in 1947. Our neighbor across the street, our babysitter's father, had the first TV in the neighborhood, and people would troop in and out of the house to watch whatever was on. During the summer, it was either Chicago Cubs or Chicago White Sox baseball, and when I wasn't watching it over there, I was listening to it on the radio.

In my lifetime, I've read at least fifteen books on baseball and consider myself to be a fan, though I'm not a fanatic, my interest has ebbed and flowed over the years, and I've rarely been partial to one particular team. (Probably the Cubs more than any other, but far from always.) I consider myself to be conversant in baseball history. I also know when enough is enough, so years go by between books.

Baseball has been around for a very long time, and there is much to learn about it. Particularly intriguing to me is the sequences of changes that came to the game: in rules, gear, and the business aspects of the game.

Although I still love to watch a good game when I can, much of the modern game has been spoiled for me by certain modern developments; and I don't think of myself as a purist or an old-fashioned fuddy-duddy. The designated hitter is simply a bad idea for a lot of reasons, one of the worst being that it's been implemented only in the American League, which affects the whole style of strategy. Furthermore, in interleague play, the visiting team is always at an additional disadvantage because of playing according to the rules of the home team. I also detest all the noise and additional tomfoolery that takes place between innings. Furthermore, I dislike the tendency that has developed for there to be increasingly more home runs rather than strategic play, and the specialization of pitchers that leads to pitchers pitching five or six perfect innings and then being taken out because he's reached some arbitrary pitch count. It seems like more often than not, a pitcher who has been doing fine will walk someone in the fifth or sixth inning, be taken out, and the next batter will smack it into the next county on the first pitch of the "relief" pitcher. (Some relief.) Another thing I dislike about modern baseball is the wild card that leads to extended playoffs so that instead of seeing the World Series in early October, when they are delightful, they extend sometimes to November 1, when players and fans alike might be bundled in winter wear. Baseball is supposed to be a summer game.

Nevertheless, when baseball is good, it's a beautiful experience, especially when watched from a seat along the first-base side in the ballpark. And this remains true whatever level the game is played at: major leagues, minor leagues, college, high school, and even little league.

If you think you already know a lot about baseball, I daresay there are still some tidbits you can pick up from reading George Vecsey's book.

[Colten Miller · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sports are a common phenomenon within the world. Baseball, arguably the most popular sport in history, has been alive for centuries. Considering those factors, it is no surprise that Baseball would bring so many historic moments. Enter George Vecsey; George has been writing about baseball since the 1960's; with his knowledge, he has created a book that shows the legacy that baseball has created. In November of 2006, George released his book; Baseball - A History of America's Favorite Game.

Let's talk about the goods of this book. Right away as soon as you flip to the very first page of the book, many sources praise Vecsey for his hard work and dedication. From many regional sources to some of the most famous sources, such as The Washington Times and The Tampa Tribune, these sources have read through the entire book, and have seemed to love it.  Another great thing that this book offers is a very detailed bibliography. With most books, they will tell where they got their information from, just from the regular sources and pages. With George Vecsey, he makes sure to give each line that he had gotten information from their source. This book is specialized with many different and hidden details. 

"Perhaps it was a good life, but it was also uncelebrated." (Vacsey, 2006, pg. 36)

With every positive, there's a negative. No matter what book you read, there's always some criticism you can make from this. While George Vecsey's book does not a lot of negatives, there are always some to pick out. One of my biggest problems is how there are several fillers this book provides. Yes, there are tons of fantastic details, but not all of them need to be here. Another problem I have is the fact that there are some unnecessary stories within this book. This one isn't too big of a problem, but it is a gripe I still have. While the history of it is cool, some stories within the book kind of feel plain empty. No book is safe from small negative details, and this feels like no exception. 

"If you want a vision of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face forever" (Vacsey, 2006, pg. 151)

Overall, if you're into Baseball, or even honestly any sort of sports or fantastic stories, this is a must for you. This book brings out the fantastic legacy of Baseball and isn't afraid to bring out the personal details. I had fun reading this book; I've never been a big fan of timeline books, but this does bring out so much for me that it almost entices me to read more and more until the book is done. 

"The sport still brings out the child in some of us." (Vascey, 2006, pg. 222)

[K · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's a beautifully written, idiosyncratic history of baseball. For the knowledgeable fan (me), most of it is familiar: the origins in rounders and the fake origins attribute to Abner Doubleday, the emergence of Babe Ruth, the exclusion of black players and then the triumphant entry of Jackie Robinson, the advent of free agency in the 1970s and growth of money and commercialism, and the steroid scandal. Vecsey skips through these issues quickly and accurately, and he gives a good sense of how they affected the game on the field. He even throws in a few anecdotes that were new to me.

I like his breezy writing style, which occasionally reaches a poetic pitch. And I like that he plays favorites, given that he's covering such well-trodden ground. He loves Stan Musial, on whom he dwells for a while, almost ignoring his contemporaries in time and peers in talent, such as Mickey Mantle, Ted Williams and Willie Mays. He loves the bravery of Jackie Robinson (won't sit at the back of the bus in the Army), but takes time to remind us that Robinson's best sport was football, and that he was a raw baseball recruit coming out of college and Army service. He's a little too high on the Yankees for my taste: saying that Billy Martin died too young at 71, and calling the emergency of the Yankees' quartet of Bernie Williams, Derek Jeter, Mariano Rivera and Jorge Posada "unprecedented" in baseball history.

In conclusion, this is a pleasant book that ranges across baseball quite effectively. It's short and easy to read, so you're not going to get all the details and all the controversies, but you will have a sense of how baseball has changed and endured, and why people still love it.

[Steve · Rating 3 out of 5]

2006 entry in the Modern Library Chronicles series. So it is a bit dated by this time. I used to read a baseball book every year at the beginning of the season, but have not done so in quite some time now. So when this was on sale at amazon for your kindle, I grabbed it - and quickly read it. 150 years (more or less) of baseball history in @225 pp. Decent bibliography, but it seems like lots of his facts came from a handful of titles (casual "Notes" at the back of the volume).
Vecsey is an old school sports writer from NYC. Which means he is funny, cantankerous, and opinionated. People on the West Coast know nothing about baseball, the DH is an abomination to the game, OMG - domes, and blaring speakers at ball parks should be banned. OTOH, there is seldom an owner who was not an idiot. Also, he can't say enough about the racism of the game, actively keeping Af Am players off of Major League teams into the '50's (amazingly, the supposed bastions of liberalism, Boston and NYC, were among the last to sign Af Am players).
Nice wrap of the game's history, and reminding us that "baseball" did not suddenly pop out of the brain of Abner Doubleday like the chidren of Zeus, but has a history going back centuries, to many countries.
So many names are thrown around so quickly, it is hard to keep track of them, and who needs to be remembered, because they will pop up again later in the book. Not a chronological history, at times the book feels a bit disorganized - but, again, 150 years in 225 pp is not easy.
Worth a read, as a reentry point into America's first major sport.

[Dan McCollum · Rating 5 out of 5]

I greatly enjoyed this work by Vecsey. Like many Americans I can wax eloquent about the poetry of baseball, while not exactly knowing a great deal of the game's history. Furthermore, I find the idea of sports history to be rather fascinating, all the while not being particularly well-versed in it either. I was recently listening to some lectures by a sports historian at Uni and decided that enough was enough, and I needed to fill some massive gaps in my knowledge. Vecsey's work is a good summary history - as most books of it's sort, it gives a broad overview without delving into great depth on any single topic. Despite this, several sections really do stand out - the chapter of the Negro Leagues was excellent and left me wanting to learn more, for instance, and his examianion of the career of Jackie Robinson was likewise really interesting and informative. All of this is tied together by Vecsey's writing style, which carries with it all the hallmarks of his career as a sports reporter (and, specifically, a baseball reporter): it is equal parts folksy, romantic, cynical, snarky and earnest.

If you, like me, want to know more about that most American of games, you could do a lot worse than picking up George Vecsey's Baseball: A History of America's Favorite Game

[Niel · Rating 3 out of 5]

The book was an informative read. As someone who had very little knowledge of the sport not to mention historical context the book presented a skip through baseball history. Some of the most memorable chapters were on Jackie Robinson, the commissioners of the game, the international aspect of the sport and performance enhancers usage. Reading the book demonstrated to me that baseball is truly coupled with American history. Baseball's history is American history. The problems that America has faced like racism and labor disputes occur in the baseball arena as well. The expansion of the country led to the expansion of the league as well. All in all a good baseline for the sport and right in time for the upcoming season

[Cameron Jackson · Rating 4 out of 5]

As a lifelong lover of baseball I felt a quick read would be necessary before I consumed some of the more Herculean baseball books out there.
As a writer, Vecsey really captures what makes baseball America's game, and I applaud him for that.
Now onto the negatives. This book although written in 2006, shows its age. The description of Ty Cobb dismissively referred to as a racist which thanks to the 2015 Ty Cobb biography we now know to be an oversimplification of a complex man.
There's also the discussions of steroids which were at the height when this book was written and the discussion about Ruth being the best player ever which I feel takes away from the incredible career that has Hank Aaron's.
All in all a great book with a few minor dated parts

[John · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fun, crisp history of the best sport in the world. Vecsey writes very much like a journalist (gee I wonder why) which takes a bit of getting used to, but ultimately I found his style to be very humorous and fulfilling. It's probably best to go into this book already possessing at least a basic knowledge of baseball history, since he makes a lot of references that new students of the game might not understand (or might pause to google). All in all, though, it's a nice, concise history that hits all the important points of the game's history, be it great moments, funny tales, grave injustices, or downright absurdities. A bit dated, but nothing a bit of googling can't fix.

[Mars · Rating 3 out of 5]

A pretty good overview of Baseball's history, with some nice editorializing thrown in from the Brooklyn Dodger fan author. Some of his opinions are a tad, in his words, "dinosaur," like his vehement hatred of the DH. Edgar Martinez would be disappointed George. It's light reading, so I'd say if a person is at all interested in learning about the sport, this is as good a place to start as anywhere. I read it over the course of two weeks on my public transit route. Certainly, it is useful for learning which parts of the sport might interest a person later down the line. For myself, I found that I wanted to know far more about the Negro League before integration in '47.

[Alex Reyes · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a very good book overall; it fascinated me, I found it very interesting, and it is a very easy book to read. It walks you through the history of baseball in the United States and how it had to adapt itself to the new challenges that the world presented throughout the decades. There are many interesting facts and information in this book alone. From the creation of the farm system or the free agency, or from Babe Ruth and Stan Musial times, and many scandals that had hit baseball just as the black sox, the gambling problems, and even the steroid era. This book is all you need to understand baseball at its maximum.

[John Pitcock · Rating 5 out of 5]

From the time I was a youngster until now (age 71), baseball has been woven into my life. From Mickey Mantle to Chipper Jones. From the NY Yankees to the Atlanta Braves to the Tampa Bay Rays. From highs to lows. Through drug tainted records to amazing experiences. No matter my personal affinity to the sport, this is a good book on its history and evolution. If you enjoy baseball, you’ll enjoy this book.

[Lonnie · Rating 4 out of 5]

book was recommended and give to me by Mom. had to stop and start it several times because of one thing or another. Really enjoyed reading it and learned so much about the history of baseball. also enjoyed the little things Vecsey added about current times. well written documentary on baseball that held my attention! I gave it 4 cause I'm a baseball fan, if not reader might not enjoy it as much.

[Steve Henry · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really enjoyed the first half of the book outlining the history of the game. The second half knocked it down a star. Though I agreed with most of what the author writes in the second half, he went from reporting and writing the history, he went to simply complaining about all the changes to the game.

[Steve Rice · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great overview of the game, from its origins through many of the changes, controversies, and scandals that have impacted the game over the years. Vecsey in particular outlines how baseball has mirrored and handled several of the themes of American life; management vs labor, white vs black, and the pressure to achieve at any cost.

[Caroline Murray · Rating 5 out of 5]

As someone who is working at the National Baseball Hall of Fame, I thought this book was an excellent overview of baseball in an engaging way. I never wanted to put the book. I thought it's non-linear structure was plus, keeping me on my toes. I thought it was well-researched, especially the part about the Baseball Hall of Fame.