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Tony Phillips
Feb 9, 2006

Capt. Sticl posted:

I'll join in reading whatever gets selected, but this also seems a good place to ask a request.

I want to learn more about the early baseball leagues in the late 1800s. I'm planning to read "When Johnny Came Sliding Home: The Post-Civil War Baseball Boom 1865-1870" as well as "The National Association of Base Ball Players: 1857-1870". But if anyone has recommendations for books about the early professionalization of baseball I'd appreciate it.

Not really about baseball turning professional, but if you're just looking for pre-1900 things, both "Fifty-Nine in '84" and "The Summer of Beer and Whiskey"

http://www.amazon.com/Fifty-nine-84-Radbourn-Barehanded-Baseball/dp/B006TQV350
and
http://www.amazon.com/The-Summer-Beer-Whiskey-Immigrants/dp/1610393775

by Edward Achorn are quite enjoyable.

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Tony Phillips
Feb 9, 2006

Bob Shabazz posted:

It's also an anthology-type thing so you're not going to get buried in minutiae.

I just semi-recently finished Baseball Before We Knew It.
http://www.amazon.com/Baseball-before-We-Knew-It/dp/0803262558

What you might call the book portion of it is all of 162 pages. Then a 60 page bibliography that is really interesting, but possibly the slowest reading thing I've ever managed to finish. Then 64 pages of appendixes of varying degrees of interesting. Wrapping up with 36 pages of notes that I just skipped cause Christ I couldn't do it.

Still - I'd recommend that book in a heartbeat.

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