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But Didn't We Have Fun?: An Informal History of Baseball's Pioneer Era, 1843-1870
The story of baseball in America begins not with the fabled Abner Doubleday but with a generation of mid-nineteenth-century Americans who moved from the countryside to the cities and brought a cherished but delightfully informal game with them.
1111630925
But Didn't We Have Fun?: An Informal History of Baseball's Pioneer Era, 1843-1870
The story of baseball in America begins not with the fabled Abner Doubleday but with a generation of mid-nineteenth-century Americans who moved from the countryside to the cities and brought a cherished but delightfully informal game with them.
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But Didn't We Have Fun?: An Informal History of Baseball's Pioneer Era, 1843-1870
The story of baseball in America begins not with the fabled Abner Doubleday but with a generation of mid-nineteenth-century Americans who moved from the countryside to the cities and brought a cherished but delightfully informal game with them.
Peter Morris's most recent book is Catcher: How the Man Behind the Plate Became an American Folk Hero. His A Game of Inches was the first book ever to win both the Seymour Medal and the Casey Award as the best baseball book of the year. He lives in Haslett, Michigan.
Table of Contents
Introduction 3 Before the Knickerbockers 11 The Knickerbockers' Game Becomes the New York Game 26 The New York Game Becomes America's Game 39 How the Game Was Played 58 Bats, Balls, Bases, and the Playing Field 76 Customs and Rituals 101 Club Life: The Common Threads That Bound the Players Together, and the Activities They Shared 122 Intercity Competition and Civic Pride 135 The Civil War: The End of an Era, Part One 152 Competitiveness and Professionalism, and What They Wrought: The End of an Era, Part Two 160 The Cincinnati Base Ball Club and the Red Stockings 184 Looking Backward 202 Moving Forward: "Muffin" Ballplayers Start a New Tradition 213 The Doubleday Myth 227 The Knickerbockers' Original (1845) Rules 229 Acknowledgments 231 Notes 233 Selected Bibliography 267 Index 273
"Peter Morris takes us on a fascinating and highly entertaining journey through the earliest-the very earliest-days of our National Pastime. To read this book is to see Baseball emerging from its womb and blinking its eyes and stretching its arms as it begins to take shape and through trial and error grows into its remarkable and compelling existence."
Will Carroll
"Abner Doubleday just struck out. If you ever wondered where baseball came from-really came from-this story is for you. It's the real story of how America's game is much more about America than it is about a game. Entertaining and informative, I think Morris is headed for another medal."
Stefan Fatsis
"I first heard about Peter Morris because he was one of America's preeminent Scrabble players. Now he has achieved an even greater distinction: one of America's preeminent baseball historians. But Didn't We Have Fun? is exhaustively researched and artfully written-an invaluable contribution to the early history of our sport and our country."--(Stefan Fatsis, author of Word Freak: Heartbreak, Triumph, Genius, and Obsession in the World of Competitive Scrabble Players and Wild and Outside: How a Renegade Minor League Revived the Spirit of Baseball in America's Heartland)
Rob Neyer
"If you think baseball's rich history begins with the American League in 1901, or with the National League in 1876, or even with the National Association in 1871, think again. Thanks to Peter Morris, now we know that the game's pioneer days-the nearly four decades prior to the first professional 'league'-might have been the richest of them all."
