The Last Book I Read

Before reading this book I actually thought I was pretty savvy about the history of baseball. I knew, for example, that Albert Spaulding was responsible for foisting the story of Abner Doubleday's act of creation on the American public; and that likewise, Alexander Cartwright had a minimal role in the origins of the game as we know it. But John Thorn has taken those two bits of contrived information (and each man continues to receive considerable credit from those who prefer to keep the myths alive) and used them as the framework for constructing his so-called secret history-- but one that has the ring of truth, and is based on copious research. So reading his book revealed any number of nuggets about the early days of the game, including its relationship to predecessors like cricket, rounders and town ball. Among the revelations are the class dimensions of early competition (where working class participants were written out of the narrative by early chroniclers), and the significant role played by gambling in bringing about some order to the emerging professional game after the Civil War. In addition to laying out an alternative to the lingering mythology, Thorn also explores the motives and processes that led to the formulation of that mythology, and uncovers links (not conclusive, but he acknowledges as much) with Gilded Age spiritualism and capitalism (Spaulding, of course, was to sporting goods what the Rockefellers were to oil). Thorn's style is a bit idiosyncratic, but it doesn't take long to get into the rhythm of his narrative; in an odd way it seems to fit the time frame of the tale he tells. Definitely worth a look if you are interested in the history of baseball-- or sports generally-- in the age just before they moved definitively into the forefront of our culture.