Playing for Keeps: A History of Early Baseball

by Warren Jay Goldstein

Overview

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.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780801418297
Publisher:	Cornell University Press
Publication date:	11/15/1989
Pages:	208
Product dimensions:	6.12(w) x 9.25(h) x 0.88(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Warren Goldstein is Professor of History and Chair of the History Department in the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of Hartford. He is the author of William Sloane Coffin, Jr.: A Holy Impatience and coauthor (with Elliott Gorn) of A Brief History of American Sports.

Table of Contents

Prologue
Histories of the Game
A Note on Method
OriginsPart I: The Culture of Organized Baseball, 1857-1866
1. The Base Ball Fraternity
Rites of Play
"Hard Work and Victory"
Players and Workers
Cultural Antecedents2. Excitement and Self-control
Dangerous Excitement
Agents of Control: Rules, Umpires, and Women
The Problem of Competition3. The "Manly Pastime"
Men and Boys
The Fly Rule
Ethics of the Game: Reform vs. Custom
Fruits of Reform: "Ambitious Rivalries and Selfish Victories"Part II: Amateurs into Professionals, 1866-1876
4. Growth, Division, and "Disorder"
The Coming of the "Good Old Days"
Growth and Fragmentation
Cultural Conflict and Division5. "Revolving" and Professionalism
The Decline of the National Association
Baseball Capital and Baseball Labor6. The National Game
Home and Away
The Birth of the Cincinnati Red Stockings
Uniform Identities
Management, Triumph, and Defeat: The Red Stockings of 1869 and 18707. Amateurs in Rebellion
The Amateurist Critique of Professional Baseball
"Restoring" the Pastime8. Professional Leagues and the Baseball Workplace
"Baseball Is Business Now"
The Origins of Baseball Statistics
The National LeagueEpilogue: Playing for KeepsNotes
Selected Bibliography
Index

Editorial Reviews

Baseball remains our paradise lost, a perpetual disappointment, where the best hitters make outs two-thirds of the time and the home team seldom if ever makes it to October. One of the many virtues of Warren Goldstein's [book] is that it explains why we continue to care, our hopes eternally and absurdly renewed each spring and dashed each autumn. . . .

In the late 1850s, organized baseball was a club-based fraternal sport. sport. Two decades later it had become an entertainment business run by owners and managers, depending on gate receipts and the disciplined labor of skilled player-employees. Goldstein reconstructs the culture and experience of early baseball through examination of the sporting press, baseball guides, and the correspondence of player-manager Harry Wright. Emphasizing the game's simultaneous character as work and play, Goldstein explains the intensity of baseball's labor relations, as well as public ambivalence about the commercialization of the Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Booknews

Baseball remains our paradise lost, a perpetual disappointment, where the best hitters make outs two-thirds of the time and the home team seldom if ever makes it to October. One of the many virtues of Warren Goldstein's Playing for Keeps is that it explains why we continue to care, our hopes eternally and absurdly renewed each spring and dashed each autumn.... This is a marvelous book, tightly structured, entertaining, beautifully written; and, like the best social history, it focuses on the particular (the story of baseball) to enlarge our understanding of the general (American society and culture).

The Nation

A strikingly original interpretation of baseball's early history, Playing for Keeps is imaginatively conceived and rich in texture. It is not only commendable for its treatment of baseball history but appreciably expands our knowledge of nineteenth-century American urban life in general.

Journal of American History

Rich in delicious information, Playing for Keeps argues that the first years of baseball established patterns of double thinking that still govern the complaints and yearnings of fans. Playing for Keeps tells its story with affection. Its calming long perspective should reassure lovers of the game—or business—as we approach new crises and apparent transformations.

New York Times Book Review

Goldstein sees clearly that baseball's history is not only linear—that is, its events unfold chronologically—but also cyclical—that is, the same things tend to happen again and again. This repetition binds each generation of fans to the preceding ones and makes the emotional response to the game so intense. In the late 1850s, baseball was a club-based sport enjoyed by artisans, clerks, and shopkeepers who played for fun. Two decades later, it was a business run by owners and managers who employed players in an effort to make a profit. Goldstein analyzes the hows and whys of this transformation.

Sporting News

A strikingly original interpretation of baseball's early history, Playing for Keeps is imaginatively conceived and rich in texture. It is not only commendable for its treatment of baseball history but appreciably expands our knowledge of nineteenth-century American urban life in general.

-- "Journal of American History"

Baseball remains our paradise lost, a perpetual disappointment, where the best hitters make outs two-thirds of the time and the home team seldom if ever makes it to October. One of the many virtues of Warren Goldstein's Playing for Keeps is that it explains why we continue to care, our hopes eternally and absurdly renewed each spring and dashed each autumn.... This is a marvelous book, tightly structured, entertaining, beautifully written; and, like the best social history, it focuses on the particular (the story of baseball) to enlarge our understanding of the general (American society and culture).

-- "The Nation"

Goldstein sees clearly that baseball's history is not only linear--that is, its events unfold chronologically--but also cyclical--that is, the same things tend to happen again and again. This repetition binds each generation of fans to the preceding ones and makes the emotional response to the game so intense. In the late 1850s, baseball was a club-based sport enjoyed by artisans, clerks, and shopkeepers who played for fun. Two decades later, it was a business run by owners and managers who employed players in an effort to make a profit. Goldstein analyzes the hows and whys of this transformation.

-- "Sporting News"

Rich in delicious information, Playing for Keeps argues that the first years of baseball established patterns of double thinking that still govern the complaints and yearnings of fans. Playing for Keeps tells its story with affection. Its calming long perspective should reassure lovers of the game--or business--as we approach new crises and apparent transformations.

-- "New York Times Book Review"

From the Publisher

"Goldstein sees clearly that baseball's history is not only linear—that is, its events unfold chronologically—but also cyclical—that is, the same things tend to happen again and again. This repetition binds each generation of fans to the preceding ones and makes the emotional response to the game so intense. In the late 1850s, baseball was a club-based sport enjoyed by artisans, clerks, and shopkeepers who played for fun. Two decades later, it was a business run by owners and managers who employed players in an effort to make a profit. Goldstein analyzes the hows and whys of this transformation."

Sporting News