{"product_id":"how-baseball-happened-outrageous-lies-exposed-the-true-story-revealed-9781567927238","title":"How Baseball Happened: Outrageous Lies Exposed! the True Story Revealed","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eThe fascinating, true, story of baseball's amateur origins. \"Explores the conditions and factors that begat the game in the 19th century and turned it into the national pastime....A delightful look at a young nation creating a pastime that was love from the first crack of the bat.\"--Paul Dickson, \u003ci\u003eThe Wall Street Journal\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eBaseball's true founders don't have plaques in Cooperstown. The founders were the hundreds of uncredited amateurs -- ordinary people -- who played without gloves, facemasks or performance incentives in the middle decades of the 19th century. Unlike today's pro athletes, they lived full lives outside of sports. They worked, built businesses and fought against the South in the Civil War. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eBut that's not the way the story has been told. The wrongness of baseball history can be staggering. You may have heard that Abner Doubleday or Alexander Cartwright invented baseball. Neither did. You may have been told that a club called the Knickerbockers played the first baseball game in 1846. They didn't. You have read that baseball's color line was uncrossed and unchallenged until Jackie Robinson in 1947. Nope. You have been told that the clean, corporate 1869 Cincinnati Red Stockings were baseball's first professional club. Not true. They weren't the first professionals; they weren't all that clean, either. You may have heard Cooperstown, Hoboken, or New York City called the birthplace of baseball, but not Brooklyn. Yet Brooklyn was the home of baseball's first fans, the first ballpark, the first statistics--and modern pitching. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eBaseball was originally supposed to be played, not watched. This changed when crowds began to show up at games in Brooklyn in the late 1850s. We fans weren't invited to the party; we crashed it. Professionalism wasn't part of the plan either, but when an 1858 Brooklyn versus New York City series accidentally proved that people would pay to see a game, the writing was on the outfield wall. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eWhen the first professional league was formed in 1871, baseball was already a fully formed modern sport with championships, media coverage, and famous stars. Professional baseball invented an organization, but not the sport itself. Baseball's amazing amateurs had already done that. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eThomas W. Gilbert's history is for baseball fans and anyone fascinating by history, American culture, and how great things began.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAbout the Author\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eGilbert, Thomas W.:\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e - \u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eThomas W. Gilbert\u003c\/b\u003e is the author of many baseball books, including \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eBaseball and the Color Line\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e, \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eRoberto Clemente\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e and \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003ePlaying First\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e. From his Greenpoint, Brooklyn stoop he can throw a baseball to the former site of the Manor House tavern, where members of the Eckford Baseball Club enjoyed a post game drink or two in the 1850s.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eThorn, John:\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e - \u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eJohn Thorn\u003c\/b\u003e is the Official Baseball Historian for Major League Baseball and the author of numerous books including \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eBaseball in the Garden of Eden: The Secret History of the Early Game\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e and \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eTotal Baseball: The Official Encyclopedia of Major League Baseball\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"David R. Godine Publisher","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":50615008166162,"sku":"9781567927238","price":13.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0831\/4771\/8930\/files\/img_87ad2939-d64b-4cde-b3a4-176ec7a05d51.jpg?v=1732471827","url":"https:\/\/surprise-castle.myshopify.com\/products\/how-baseball-happened-outrageous-lies-exposed-the-true-story-revealed-9781567927238","provider":"Surprise Castle","version":"1.0","type":"link"}