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The New York Game: Baseball and the Rise of a New City
A hugely entertaining history of baseball and New York City, bursting with larger-than-life figures and fascinating stories from the game’s beginnings to the end of World War II.
Baseball is “the New York game” because New York is where the diamond was first laid out, where the bunt and the curveball were invented, and where the home run was hit. It’s where the game’s first stars were born, and where everyone came to play or watch the game. With nuance and depth, historian Kevin Baker brings this all vividly back to the still-controversial, indelible moments—Did the Babe call his shot? Was Merkle out? Did they fix the 1919 World Series? Here are all the legendary players, managers, and owners, in all their vivid, complicated humanity, on and off the field.
In Baker’s hands the city and the game emerge from the murk of nineteenth-century American life—driven by visionaries and fixers, heroes and gangsters. He details how New York and its favorite sport came to mirror one another, expanding, bumbling through catastrophe and corruption, and rising out of these trials stronger than ever.
From the first innings played in vacant lots and tavern yards in the 1820s; to the canny innovations that created the very first sports league; to the superb Hispanic and Black players who invented their own version of the game when white baseball sought to exclude them. And all amidst New York’s own, incredible evolution from a raw, riotous town to a new world city. The New York Game is a riveting, rollicking, brilliant ode to America’s beloved pastime and to its indomitable city of origin.
Baseball is “the New York game” because New York is where the diamond was first laid out, where the bunt and the curveball were invented, and where the home run was hit. It’s where the game’s first stars were born, and where everyone came to play or watch the game. With nuance and depth, historian Kevin Baker brings this all vividly back to the still-controversial, indelible moments—Did the Babe call his shot? Was Merkle out? Did they fix the 1919 World Series? Here are all the legendary players, managers, and owners, in all their vivid, complicated humanity, on and off the field.
In Baker’s hands the city and the game emerge from the murk of nineteenth-century American life—driven by visionaries and fixers, heroes and gangsters. He details how New York and its favorite sport came to mirror one another, expanding, bumbling through catastrophe and corruption, and rising out of these trials stronger than ever.
From the first innings played in vacant lots and tavern yards in the 1820s; to the canny innovations that created the very first sports league; to the superb Hispanic and Black players who invented their own version of the game when white baseball sought to exclude them. And all amidst New York’s own, incredible evolution from a raw, riotous town to a new world city. The New York Game is a riveting, rollicking, brilliant ode to America’s beloved pastime and to its indomitable city of origin.
528 pages, Hardcover
First published March 5, 2024
323 people are currently reading
3641 people want to read
About the author
Kevin Baker
102 books119 followersKevin Baker is the author of the New York, City of Fire trilogy: Dreamland, Paradise Alley, and Strivers Row. Most recently, he's been writing about politics for Harper's Magazine and the New York Observer.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 145 reviews
February 3, 2025
I trust all my fellow baseball fans will agree with this nostalgic quote from the book: Somehow or other they don't play ball nowadays as they used to . . .
What made me smile was that that was uttered by Old Pete O'Brien . . . in 1868! So it was, so it will always be.
It's been a real Winter around here this year, and the political scene has been equal parts divisive and disruptive, but lawdy, pitchers and catchers report in just nine days. So, there's hope. Or, as Dr. S.B. Talcott, superintendent of New York's State Lunatic Asylum offered, "I believe baseball is a homeopathic cure for lunacy." Or its cause, I might rebut.
Anyhow, this seemed an appropriate time for a baseball book, and this delivered, with quotes and anecdotes, brushes with memory and feeling. It follows America's history as well, with baseball interweaving with war, politics . . . and racism. It's not slight, then. Although it had its glib moments. As the Depression hit in 1929, the Yankees, two years removed from the heralded Murderer's Row championship, slipped: Their fall to second place was due not so much to lack of desire or the distraction of the ticker as to that evil that is the usual source of misfortune in this world: no pitching.
I noted one egregious error. The author writes that Andrew Freedman, turn of the century owner of the New York Giants, was "perhaps the most hated team owner in baseball history." Whoever was quoted there was clearly not a current Pittsburgh Pirates fan.
That brings me to the obvious fact that this history is very New York-centric. Which is not surprising given the title and sub-title of the book. And that's deserved, because much baseball history occurred in New York, from its very beginnings to the breaking of the color barrier. And that's where the story in this work ends, with Lieutenant Jack Roosevelt Robinson, freshly out of the Army, looking around for a new gig.
That's a powerful, artistic ending. Convenient, too. As the New York-loving author does not have to confront another date in history: October 13, 1960, 2:03:31 p.m. Just sayin'.
Play Ball!
What made me smile was that that was uttered by Old Pete O'Brien . . . in 1868! So it was, so it will always be.
It's been a real Winter around here this year, and the political scene has been equal parts divisive and disruptive, but lawdy, pitchers and catchers report in just nine days. So, there's hope. Or, as Dr. S.B. Talcott, superintendent of New York's State Lunatic Asylum offered, "I believe baseball is a homeopathic cure for lunacy." Or its cause, I might rebut.
Anyhow, this seemed an appropriate time for a baseball book, and this delivered, with quotes and anecdotes, brushes with memory and feeling. It follows America's history as well, with baseball interweaving with war, politics . . . and racism. It's not slight, then. Although it had its glib moments. As the Depression hit in 1929, the Yankees, two years removed from the heralded Murderer's Row championship, slipped: Their fall to second place was due not so much to lack of desire or the distraction of the ticker as to that evil that is the usual source of misfortune in this world: no pitching.
I noted one egregious error. The author writes that Andrew Freedman, turn of the century owner of the New York Giants, was "perhaps the most hated team owner in baseball history." Whoever was quoted there was clearly not a current Pittsburgh Pirates fan.
That brings me to the obvious fact that this history is very New York-centric. Which is not surprising given the title and sub-title of the book. And that's deserved, because much baseball history occurred in New York, from its very beginnings to the breaking of the color barrier. And that's where the story in this work ends, with Lieutenant Jack Roosevelt Robinson, freshly out of the Army, looking around for a new gig.
That's a powerful, artistic ending. Convenient, too. As the New York-loving author does not have to confront another date in history: October 13, 1960, 2:03:31 p.m. Just sayin'.
Play Ball!
October 31, 2023
Really really enjoyed this one(as I have all of Baker’s books). So intelligent and knowledgable about New York and its baseball history. But more important Baker takes a multitude of facts and perspectives and melds them seamlessly into a warm, funny, well written and fascinating narrative. Even if you don’t live in NY or are not a fan of baseball you will be entertained and educated by this book. And I can’t wait for volume two of this chronicle which picks up where this one leaves off. Highly recommended.
Read
October 12, 2024Girl, take me out to the ballgame!
April 28, 2024
Really, really good. While it took about a third of the way through before I could really lock in, from then on it was an absolute delight. Expertly intertwines New York history with baseball history, with the latter only slightly outshining the former in terms of exposure. This is exactly what I want out of a history book, and I'll be eagerly awaiting volume two.
February 19, 2025
A very thorough but enjoyable read about the history of baseball and the history of New York City as both the sport and NYC rose in prominence. Kevin Baker's book discusses New York City & baseball in the 1800's all the way to the end of World War 2 touching on topics such as corruption in NYC politics, the beginnings of baseball in Hoboken, the start of three of baseball most celebrated franchises in the Yankees, Dodger & Giants as well as the Negro teams in the area, the Black Yankees, the New York Cubans & the Newark Eagles. For anyone who wants to learn more about both topics, you can't find a better book to read & learn from.
March 30, 2024
Thank you Thank you Knopf, Pantheon, Vintage, and Anchor | Knopf for allowing me to read and review The New York Game Baseball and the Rise of a New City on NetGalley.
Published: 03/05/24
Stars: 4
Imagine a trip to the Baseball Hall of Fame with a well-versed storytelling personal guide and locked in the New York Section. The best part -- you never leave your home.
This is filled with facts, trivia and opinions.
Probably not for everyone, however, it is a nice gift for a New York fan and possibly a historian, etc.
Published: 03/05/24
Stars: 4
Imagine a trip to the Baseball Hall of Fame with a well-versed storytelling personal guide and locked in the New York Section. The best part -- you never leave your home.
This is filled with facts, trivia and opinions.
Probably not for everyone, however, it is a nice gift for a New York fan and possibly a historian, etc.
September 29, 2024
god I love New York.
In all seriousness, a very well-researched account of how the rise of New York City and the rise of baseball were intertwined. I enjoyed the chapters about the history of New York and about the characters of the game (especially the players). I wish the book had gone a little further—Jackie Robinson? how the Dodgers/Yankees/Giants situation resolved?—especially since it hinted at a lot of things in the future. I guess I'll just have to find another book that covers from post-WWII to present!
In all seriousness, a very well-researched account of how the rise of New York City and the rise of baseball were intertwined. I enjoyed the chapters about the history of New York and about the characters of the game (especially the players). I wish the book had gone a little further—Jackie Robinson? how the Dodgers/Yankees/Giants situation resolved?—especially since it hinted at a lot of things in the future. I guess I'll just have to find another book that covers from post-WWII to present!
April 28, 2025
A thorough and entertaining piece of narrative nonfiction on the history of New York baseball.
I’m a huge fan of Kevin Baker’s novels (especially the baseball content), and was quite excited to see him turn his attentions to a nonfiction effort on baseball history in New York. The way this is written is lovely, thoughtful, and evocative, and the conversational style makes it feel like fiction in terms of pacing.
The research is excellent and very completist, which is an asset or a bit of a slog depending on how much background knowledge you have of baseball history before reading.
I didn’t learn a lot in terms of new information from this, but I’m a sports media analyst by profession and a lifelong baseball fan with a particular interest in the history of the game. I don’t know that most readers would have the same experience.
Where I felt that this perhaps could have done with some tighter editing was in how much general baseball history is included, often in great detail. The early parts of this book are essentially a very lengthy summary of John Thorne’s Baseball in the Garden of Eden, which felt unnecessary. At what point do you assume that most readers have either already read Thorne‘a classic, would be better off simply reading that rather than a summary, and such?
There is also a lot on the color line and the Black Sox scandal/early gambling issues in the sport, and a lot of it probably should have been scuttled in favor of a vey quick general summary and of course, the parts that are specific to the New York history of baseball.
To that end, if you’re a casual fan or someone who hasn’t read much about the history of the sport, this book is a great pick to get not just New York history but general baseball history. If you’re pretty well educated on the subject, this is a fun read and a good refresher, but you aren’t likely to learn much aside from a handful of anecdotal details.
Still, I can’t entirely fault any author for attempting to be completist about their topic of choice, and Baker’s writing is wonderful and engaging even when the discussion is about familiar information.
*I received an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.*
I’m a huge fan of Kevin Baker’s novels (especially the baseball content), and was quite excited to see him turn his attentions to a nonfiction effort on baseball history in New York. The way this is written is lovely, thoughtful, and evocative, and the conversational style makes it feel like fiction in terms of pacing.
The research is excellent and very completist, which is an asset or a bit of a slog depending on how much background knowledge you have of baseball history before reading.
I didn’t learn a lot in terms of new information from this, but I’m a sports media analyst by profession and a lifelong baseball fan with a particular interest in the history of the game. I don’t know that most readers would have the same experience.
Where I felt that this perhaps could have done with some tighter editing was in how much general baseball history is included, often in great detail. The early parts of this book are essentially a very lengthy summary of John Thorne’s Baseball in the Garden of Eden, which felt unnecessary. At what point do you assume that most readers have either already read Thorne‘a classic, would be better off simply reading that rather than a summary, and such?
There is also a lot on the color line and the Black Sox scandal/early gambling issues in the sport, and a lot of it probably should have been scuttled in favor of a vey quick general summary and of course, the parts that are specific to the New York history of baseball.
To that end, if you’re a casual fan or someone who hasn’t read much about the history of the sport, this book is a great pick to get not just New York history but general baseball history. If you’re pretty well educated on the subject, this is a fun read and a good refresher, but you aren’t likely to learn much aside from a handful of anecdotal details.
Still, I can’t entirely fault any author for attempting to be completist about their topic of choice, and Baker’s writing is wonderful and engaging even when the discussion is about familiar information.
*I received an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.*
August 20, 2025
This book took me longer than expected to read because I was looking up stats every two pages of players with nicknames such as The Lively Turtle, Smoky Joe, Snuffy, Dummy, Biscuit Pants, and Cannonball Dick. And don’t forget Wee Willie. A great read if you love baseball and an even better read if you love old-timey nicknames.
February 10, 2025
One of my favorite books I've read in the last few years.
November 24, 2024
I didn't like this at all. The author tries to hit on too many things without giving much of anything it's due. Loses focus. I think a book that focused on the roots of the game in New York and ending with Babe Ruth's ascension in the 1920s and the decline of Tammany Hall's influence in New York politics would have worked.
The book, ironically, lacks when the author focuses too much on the players and the games of note. We do not need any more written on Merkle's boner, Ray Chapman's death, Ruth's "called shot" or DiMaggio's hitting streak. We also don't need autobiographical sketches of Christy Mathewson, John McGraw, Ruth, DiMaggio or Branch Rickey. The best parts are those that focus on Tammany's influence and how the game fit into that and also how and where those stadiums were built. And to cut things off before Jackie Robinson and the triumvirate of Mantle, Mays and Snider, and two of the teams heading west seems like a let down. For this book to run 475 pages and to not include all of that (not to mention everything that has happened since) feels empty.
What really drove this down to a one-star review is a mistake. The author clearly admires DiMaggio and for good reason. But in one part when discussing the start of DiMaggio's hitting streak in 1941, he notes that the right hander hit .344 lifetime against Bob Feller and Ted Williams hit "only" .270 against the pitcher. This is wrong. I've read the re-read the section. DiMaggio actually hit .342 with a 1.057 on-base plus slugging against Feller, which is exceptional. Williams, however, hit .344 with a 1.149 OPS, which is otherworldly. I wondered if he meant this was in 1941 (when Williams hit .406) but that doesn't add up either. Unsure where the author got these numbers, but he's not only wrong but it screws up his narrative that DiMaggio was (perhaps) better than Williams.
The book, ironically, lacks when the author focuses too much on the players and the games of note. We do not need any more written on Merkle's boner, Ray Chapman's death, Ruth's "called shot" or DiMaggio's hitting streak. We also don't need autobiographical sketches of Christy Mathewson, John McGraw, Ruth, DiMaggio or Branch Rickey. The best parts are those that focus on Tammany's influence and how the game fit into that and also how and where those stadiums were built. And to cut things off before Jackie Robinson and the triumvirate of Mantle, Mays and Snider, and two of the teams heading west seems like a let down. For this book to run 475 pages and to not include all of that (not to mention everything that has happened since) feels empty.
What really drove this down to a one-star review is a mistake. The author clearly admires DiMaggio and for good reason. But in one part when discussing the start of DiMaggio's hitting streak in 1941, he notes that the right hander hit .344 lifetime against Bob Feller and Ted Williams hit "only" .270 against the pitcher. This is wrong. I've read the re-read the section. DiMaggio actually hit .342 with a 1.057 on-base plus slugging against Feller, which is exceptional. Williams, however, hit .344 with a 1.149 OPS, which is otherworldly. I wondered if he meant this was in 1941 (when Williams hit .406) but that doesn't add up either. Unsure where the author got these numbers, but he's not only wrong but it screws up his narrative that DiMaggio was (perhaps) better than Williams.
December 19, 2024
I loved it, so entertaining and I learned a lot, especially about 19th century baseball. But it ended so abruptly. I knew it wasn’t going to the modern age, but it just . . . ended. It was Harlem riot, world war II is over then done. Maybe there is a part 2 in the works?
April 24, 2024
Probably 3.5 stars but let’s be generous. I enjoyed the read but at times there were far two many names being listed and it is probably a little too long.
June 13, 2025
Overall pretty enjoyable book, particularly regarding the baseball history and storytelling. It’s also a really interesting historical narrative of the late 19th and early/mid 20th centuries. Aside from the baseball, though, you really need to know or love New York to enjoy the non-baseball centered chapters. While it’s somewhat self explanatory in the title of the book, I was still surprised at the in-depth look at NYC more generally, and not having a background or familiarity with the City, I didn’t have as much interest as would others.
September 1, 2024
Such an amazing look at the history of baseball in New York. The author did an excellent job of combining history, statistics, and anecdotes of America's Favorite Pastime.
March 22, 2025
Excellent book
May 4, 2025
I always love a good biography of a city. And I love me some baseball history. A fantastic synthesis here - and I hope there’s a sequel.
April 14, 2024
This book was great. I love reading about the early days of professional sports; it was such a different world, yet so many of the issues both on and off the field are the same. This being about New York baseball up to the end of World War II, there is a lot of Yankee content, which I'm not a fan of, but at least it's Ruth, Gehrig and DiMaggio, who are about as legendary as it gets. This book was loaded with anecdotes spanning the 19th century right up to the War. I was impressed by the author's ability to bring some new (at least to me) information about all the baseball immortals that he concentrated on in telling this story. This book is a blast for any baseball fan; highly recommended.
July 14, 2025
This was a very interesting introduction to baseball history! I particularly enjoyed how Baker effortlessly weaves in other aspects of history and culture that were happening concurrently to the baseball stuff-- I think I might have even liked this as a niche history of the city of New York more than as a history of baseball. Baker painted a vivid picture of America's Pastime and the city that nurtured it (but NOT the city that birthed it!! credit where credit's due and that one goes to Jersey).
August 20, 2025
A thoughtful and detailed look into Industrial Revolution era New York politics, sport and the fine line between. Was impressed by Baker’s vocabulary and dedicated research and was left with a newfound appreciation for America’s game as well as the larger-than-life characters, teams and cities that helped lay the foundations of what we see on the diamond today.
January 1, 2025
This book was a jumbled mess. I can’t understand the positive reception on GoodReads and Amazon. The biographical looks at Ruth and Gherig were rewarding enough to get me through this 500 page slog, but it took willpower. The author would jump from recounting play-by-plays of obscure baseball games from the 1920s, to block quoting Robert Caro’s “The Power Broker.” There was no rhyme or reason to the book’s entire structure. Was this a book about New York City planning? The [regrettable] corporatization of baseball? An examination of the game’s key 19th and early 20th century contributors? There were so many arbitrary rabbit holes I couldn’t wait to finish and move on.
March 5, 2024
A rich and detailed history of one of America's favorite sports. As a fact lover, I enjoyed the bits and pieces past times the early exclusivity of the game, the various ball clubs and leagues and the progressions and improvements made to the game throughout the decades and centuries. Seasoned baseball lovers and those new to the sport will both gain from a delightful stroll through a much celebrated hobby deep in the heart of New York.
**Thank you NetGalley for an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.**
**Thank you NetGalley for an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.**
April 21, 2024
At the risk of generalizing, New Yorkers have a superiority complex and a sense of entitlement found nowhere else in the United States. They expect everything to be top-notch, bigger and better than anywhere else in the country, if not on the planet.
That was not always the case.
The title of Kevin Baker’s excellent new book, THE NEW YORK GAME: Baseball and the Rise of a New City, has a double meaning. The rules for baseball as we know it today were codified in New York; other regions of the country played with variations. The second use of the phrase easily could refer to playing by rules to get along in the city itself --- rules that were continually flaunted by politicos and citizens looking to put more money in their own pockets.
By now, serious students of the sport have come to accept that it was not invented by Abner Doubleday in the bucolic environs of Cooperstown, New York, the location of the Baseball Hall of Fame. Instead, the nascent toddler grew up in the open areas around the city before it began to attract hundreds of thousands from around the States and around the world. Those green spaces shrank as houses and businesses were erected throughout Manhattan, Brooklyn and the Bronx, where the Yankees, Dodgers and Giants would grow as well.
At first, baseball was a game for “gentlemen” since they were the ones who had the wherewithal in terms of time and funds for such leisure activities. But few things remain pure, and soon the competitive spirit led to hiring better athletes to improve the chances of winning. According to Baker, these were often rough men of lower repute. Baseball soon became a game full of drinking (“hard-drinking” is a phrase that appears in many cases throughout the book), cursing, fighting and, perhaps most insidious of all, gambling.
Maybe I’m just too naive, but I found it amazing how much greed, graft, corruption, xenophobia and racism are ingrained in New York’s history. As long as we can remember, it has always been a “melting pot,” where people from all nations, religions and races blend, making “the Big Apple” so wonderful.
Alas, Baker lifts the curtain to show us the seamier side, aka reality.
About two-thirds of the book deals with the three major league teams that vied for the affections of fans. But aside from the Yankees, Dodgers and Giants, Baker also recalls the 19th-century rivalries where games were played on roughly hewn fields, with primitive equipment and rules that changed over time to accommodate heretofore unknown situations.
THE NEW YORK GAME is divided into five eras. “Origins” examines baseball before the Major Leagues as we know it came into existence. “The Inside Game, 1901-1919” looks at the early days with a shocking number of gamblers --- most of whom seemed to be based in New York --- seeking to influence players and, subsequently, outcomes. “The Babe in Nighttown, 1920-1929” focuses on a post-World War I NYC and country when people began to cut loose, led in no small part by Babe Ruth once he was traded from the Boston Red Sox to the Yankees. Things got bigger, broader and louder, for better or worse.
“The Virtuous City: New York in the Great Depression, 1929-1939” is perhaps the most, well, depressing portion. With all that was going on due to the Market crash, it’s amazing that baseball survived. While the Yankees, Dodgers and Giants did well --- relatively speaking --- smaller markets barely had enough patrons passing through the turnstiles to keep the lights on.
The Yankees were, of course, the most successful of the three teams, dominating the American League for years thanks to Ruth, and Baker depicts the Giants as more “old school” thanks to John McGraw, who managed the team for more than 30 years. The Dodgers, for the most part, were the “lovable losers,” full of colorful characters with nicknames like Dazzy and Daffy.
“Singing in the Dark: The City in Time of War, 1939-1945” has baseball slowly coming out of one crisis and heading into another. The book ends somewhat abruptly with the end of WWII and doesn’t adequately cover how baseball was affected as players went off to serve.
Two themes run throughout the book. One is the political machines and individuals who tried to control huge swaths of everything going on in the city, including the location and construction of new ballparks and the impact it had on the surrounding neighborhoods. The other is the pernicious racism that kept African Americans out of “organized baseball.” There was no shortage of abhorrent behavior on the parts of those (white men) who made, without exaggeration, life-and-death decisions.
New York is a particular area of expertise for Baker --- his work includes PARADISE ALLEY and DREAMLAND, novels about the city in the 19th and early 20th centuries, as well as a nonfiction work, THE FALL OF A GREAT AMERICAN CITY: New York and the Urban Crisis of Affluence --- so he is in an excellent position to tell this tale. He also has published a baseball novel, SOMETIMES YOU SEE IT COMING, set in more contemporary times.
Reviewed by Ron Kaplan
That was not always the case.
The title of Kevin Baker’s excellent new book, THE NEW YORK GAME: Baseball and the Rise of a New City, has a double meaning. The rules for baseball as we know it today were codified in New York; other regions of the country played with variations. The second use of the phrase easily could refer to playing by rules to get along in the city itself --- rules that were continually flaunted by politicos and citizens looking to put more money in their own pockets.
By now, serious students of the sport have come to accept that it was not invented by Abner Doubleday in the bucolic environs of Cooperstown, New York, the location of the Baseball Hall of Fame. Instead, the nascent toddler grew up in the open areas around the city before it began to attract hundreds of thousands from around the States and around the world. Those green spaces shrank as houses and businesses were erected throughout Manhattan, Brooklyn and the Bronx, where the Yankees, Dodgers and Giants would grow as well.
At first, baseball was a game for “gentlemen” since they were the ones who had the wherewithal in terms of time and funds for such leisure activities. But few things remain pure, and soon the competitive spirit led to hiring better athletes to improve the chances of winning. According to Baker, these were often rough men of lower repute. Baseball soon became a game full of drinking (“hard-drinking” is a phrase that appears in many cases throughout the book), cursing, fighting and, perhaps most insidious of all, gambling.
Maybe I’m just too naive, but I found it amazing how much greed, graft, corruption, xenophobia and racism are ingrained in New York’s history. As long as we can remember, it has always been a “melting pot,” where people from all nations, religions and races blend, making “the Big Apple” so wonderful.
Alas, Baker lifts the curtain to show us the seamier side, aka reality.
About two-thirds of the book deals with the three major league teams that vied for the affections of fans. But aside from the Yankees, Dodgers and Giants, Baker also recalls the 19th-century rivalries where games were played on roughly hewn fields, with primitive equipment and rules that changed over time to accommodate heretofore unknown situations.
THE NEW YORK GAME is divided into five eras. “Origins” examines baseball before the Major Leagues as we know it came into existence. “The Inside Game, 1901-1919” looks at the early days with a shocking number of gamblers --- most of whom seemed to be based in New York --- seeking to influence players and, subsequently, outcomes. “The Babe in Nighttown, 1920-1929” focuses on a post-World War I NYC and country when people began to cut loose, led in no small part by Babe Ruth once he was traded from the Boston Red Sox to the Yankees. Things got bigger, broader and louder, for better or worse.
“The Virtuous City: New York in the Great Depression, 1929-1939” is perhaps the most, well, depressing portion. With all that was going on due to the Market crash, it’s amazing that baseball survived. While the Yankees, Dodgers and Giants did well --- relatively speaking --- smaller markets barely had enough patrons passing through the turnstiles to keep the lights on.
The Yankees were, of course, the most successful of the three teams, dominating the American League for years thanks to Ruth, and Baker depicts the Giants as more “old school” thanks to John McGraw, who managed the team for more than 30 years. The Dodgers, for the most part, were the “lovable losers,” full of colorful characters with nicknames like Dazzy and Daffy.
“Singing in the Dark: The City in Time of War, 1939-1945” has baseball slowly coming out of one crisis and heading into another. The book ends somewhat abruptly with the end of WWII and doesn’t adequately cover how baseball was affected as players went off to serve.
Two themes run throughout the book. One is the political machines and individuals who tried to control huge swaths of everything going on in the city, including the location and construction of new ballparks and the impact it had on the surrounding neighborhoods. The other is the pernicious racism that kept African Americans out of “organized baseball.” There was no shortage of abhorrent behavior on the parts of those (white men) who made, without exaggeration, life-and-death decisions.
New York is a particular area of expertise for Baker --- his work includes PARADISE ALLEY and DREAMLAND, novels about the city in the 19th and early 20th centuries, as well as a nonfiction work, THE FALL OF A GREAT AMERICAN CITY: New York and the Urban Crisis of Affluence --- so he is in an excellent position to tell this tale. He also has published a baseball novel, SOMETIMES YOU SEE IT COMING, set in more contemporary times.
Reviewed by Ron Kaplan
June 1, 2024
A exhaustive tale of baseball through its growth and development in New York. The writing never clicked for me.
March 12, 2024
Baker starts off by making the point that despite all the nostalgia and "Field of Dreams" mythology, baseball is a city sport. That is where it thrived and became the national sport.
This is a life and times biography of baseball in New York City up to 1945. It is a big well researched opinionated take on a huge story. New York City, for most of the first half of the 20th century, had three major league baseball teams, the Yankees, the Dodgers and the Giants. That made sense because New York was the biggest, most exciting, most powerful City in America during those years.
Baker weaves the story of the City and the teams. For example, he shows how the Yankees were founded by gamblers connected to Tammany Hall. They played their first games in 1903 at the "American League Park" in Upper Manhattan. It was a small rock-strewn wet mess of a field. By 1923 they were in Yankee Stadium in the Bronx, "The House that Ruth Built."
The book is a chronological telling of the changes in the City and the game in the City. It is full of great stories which are well told. To start with, there are the great baseball names. For the 1885 New York Gothams "patrolling the outfield was the wonderfully matched combination of Silent Mike Tiernan and Orator Jim O'Rourke." or, in 1908 "Three Finger Brown and Orval Overall pitched Chicago to a doubleheader sweep at the Polo Grounds"
Then there are the great baseball characters. John McGraw coached the Giants from 1902 to 1932. He won three World Series and lost six. He was always in the middle of wild tales. He lost a pennant on "Merkle's Boner". He was a vaudeville performer in the off season. He was the last believer in "inside baseball" in the heyday of the long ball.
Baker traces the start of the Red Sox -Yankee hatred back to 1903 and he tells the full story of the Ruth trade.
He does a nice job pulling out great stats. "In the course of his career...Ruth hit the longest home run ever recorded at the home fields of every single major league team, American League and National." or "Mickey Mantle's "ratio of home runs to strike outs was nearly one to one (361-367). In other words, a fan was just as likely to see him hammer a home run as to whiff."
Baker also does a great job straightening out the New York City history. The story of stockbrokers jumping out windows when the market crashed in 1929, is a myth. "Contrary to popular lore, the suicide rate in the city declined that fall of 1929." One woman fell off a roof, but she hadn't lost her money in the crash. He points out the significant coincidence that in 1914 two teenage boys were released from juvenile institutions in two different cities, Baltimore and New Orleans. One was white, the other black. Between them. Louis Armstrong and Babe Ruth transformed American popular culture.
Baker traces the sorry story of Black Baseball. There was a complete ban on black players from the earliest days of organized baseball. He tells the fascinating story of Alex Pompez, a number runner in New York City, who organized an all-Cuban team that played in the Negro Leagues
Baker walks a fine line in the book. This is a history driven by great story telling based on well researched conclusions, but it also a personal book. Baker is happy to drop in his opinions and comments. He takes sides on issues and makes it clear who he likes and who he doesn't.
This is a treat. I can't wait for volume two which he teases us with at the end of this volume.
This is a life and times biography of baseball in New York City up to 1945. It is a big well researched opinionated take on a huge story. New York City, for most of the first half of the 20th century, had three major league baseball teams, the Yankees, the Dodgers and the Giants. That made sense because New York was the biggest, most exciting, most powerful City in America during those years.
Baker weaves the story of the City and the teams. For example, he shows how the Yankees were founded by gamblers connected to Tammany Hall. They played their first games in 1903 at the "American League Park" in Upper Manhattan. It was a small rock-strewn wet mess of a field. By 1923 they were in Yankee Stadium in the Bronx, "The House that Ruth Built."
The book is a chronological telling of the changes in the City and the game in the City. It is full of great stories which are well told. To start with, there are the great baseball names. For the 1885 New York Gothams "patrolling the outfield was the wonderfully matched combination of Silent Mike Tiernan and Orator Jim O'Rourke." or, in 1908 "Three Finger Brown and Orval Overall pitched Chicago to a doubleheader sweep at the Polo Grounds"
Then there are the great baseball characters. John McGraw coached the Giants from 1902 to 1932. He won three World Series and lost six. He was always in the middle of wild tales. He lost a pennant on "Merkle's Boner". He was a vaudeville performer in the off season. He was the last believer in "inside baseball" in the heyday of the long ball.
Baker traces the start of the Red Sox -Yankee hatred back to 1903 and he tells the full story of the Ruth trade.
He does a nice job pulling out great stats. "In the course of his career...Ruth hit the longest home run ever recorded at the home fields of every single major league team, American League and National." or "Mickey Mantle's "ratio of home runs to strike outs was nearly one to one (361-367). In other words, a fan was just as likely to see him hammer a home run as to whiff."
Baker also does a great job straightening out the New York City history. The story of stockbrokers jumping out windows when the market crashed in 1929, is a myth. "Contrary to popular lore, the suicide rate in the city declined that fall of 1929." One woman fell off a roof, but she hadn't lost her money in the crash. He points out the significant coincidence that in 1914 two teenage boys were released from juvenile institutions in two different cities, Baltimore and New Orleans. One was white, the other black. Between them. Louis Armstrong and Babe Ruth transformed American popular culture.
Baker traces the sorry story of Black Baseball. There was a complete ban on black players from the earliest days of organized baseball. He tells the fascinating story of Alex Pompez, a number runner in New York City, who organized an all-Cuban team that played in the Negro Leagues
Baker walks a fine line in the book. This is a history driven by great story telling based on well researched conclusions, but it also a personal book. Baker is happy to drop in his opinions and comments. He takes sides on issues and makes it clear who he likes and who he doesn't.
This is a treat. I can't wait for volume two which he teases us with at the end of this volume.
September 2, 2024
The New York Game has an interesting focus, i.e., that the history of baseball has most of its roots in New York City and that the rise of baseball as the national pastime has deep connections with the development of NYC. And Mr. Baker makes a compelling case.
The title comes from the fact that there were competing rules for baseball, but that the rules that we know today were mostly developed in the 19th century by clubs in New York City and Brooklyn. And, in fact, early practitioners referred to the game as the "New York Game" to differentiate it from other similar games that were developed in places like Massachusetts. It's ironic that we consider baseball to be a rural game… from the start it was a city game (and was often referred to as "town ball"). But I digress…
Mr. Baker discusses those early years and then proceeds to talk about the powerhouse McGraw Giants teams of the early part of the century, the rise and dominance of the Yankees (Ruth, Gehrig, DiMaggio), and the early rumblings of the Dodgers as a powerhouse in the 1940s. He ends his narrative in 1946 — the year before Branch Rickey and Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier — and that is fitting because what comes after Robinson would have required that the book be twice its (already considerable) size.
But this is not just a baseball book. Mr. Baker intertwines the story of baseball with the social and political history of the city. I especially enjoyed the way in which he connected baseball with Tammany Hall, Fiorello La Guardia, and the fixer of the 1919 World Series, Arnold Rothstein. He takes us to the rise and fall of Harlem. He discusses why the Polo Grounds, Yankee Stadium, and Ebbets Field were located as they were. We spend a lot of time with John McGraw, which in itself is a great treat, since he has somewhat disappeared from the national consciousness, even though he was a larger than life figure in the National League into the early 1930s.
McGraw and his fellows are just names to younger fans now — the stuff of SABR articles — but they were the backbone of the baseball history that I learned as a kid in the 1960s and 1970s. Go to a game and ask even middle-aged fans about John McGraw, Christy Mathewson, or Fred Merkle… they will draw a blank. Lou Gehrig? Wasn't that the guy whose record Cal Ripkin broke? Joe DiMaggio? I heard his name in an old song at one point. Where has he gone? Pistol Pete Reiser? Never even heard of him. Babe Ruth? Fat guy, right? Used to hold some home run records?
The Babe Ruth story is particularly interesting. Mr. Baker relates all sorts of statistics about Babe Ruth that I never knew. And some that I did. In 1921, Ruth outhomered every team in the American League. He broke the career home run record in 1921 and then proceeded to break that record 575 more times. He might have been the best left-handed pitcher of his generation. He was the first truly universally recognized athlete in history, even to those who didn't follow sports. He changed the game in ways that still resonate today. His story could have only happened in the larger-than-life New York City of his time.
I'm digressing again…
I guess that the bottom line is that if you have a desire to learn more about the history of baseball or about the history of New York City — or both — then this is a book that you will want to read, because it covers both exceeding well.
The title comes from the fact that there were competing rules for baseball, but that the rules that we know today were mostly developed in the 19th century by clubs in New York City and Brooklyn. And, in fact, early practitioners referred to the game as the "New York Game" to differentiate it from other similar games that were developed in places like Massachusetts. It's ironic that we consider baseball to be a rural game… from the start it was a city game (and was often referred to as "town ball"). But I digress…
Mr. Baker discusses those early years and then proceeds to talk about the powerhouse McGraw Giants teams of the early part of the century, the rise and dominance of the Yankees (Ruth, Gehrig, DiMaggio), and the early rumblings of the Dodgers as a powerhouse in the 1940s. He ends his narrative in 1946 — the year before Branch Rickey and Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier — and that is fitting because what comes after Robinson would have required that the book be twice its (already considerable) size.
But this is not just a baseball book. Mr. Baker intertwines the story of baseball with the social and political history of the city. I especially enjoyed the way in which he connected baseball with Tammany Hall, Fiorello La Guardia, and the fixer of the 1919 World Series, Arnold Rothstein. He takes us to the rise and fall of Harlem. He discusses why the Polo Grounds, Yankee Stadium, and Ebbets Field were located as they were. We spend a lot of time with John McGraw, which in itself is a great treat, since he has somewhat disappeared from the national consciousness, even though he was a larger than life figure in the National League into the early 1930s.
McGraw and his fellows are just names to younger fans now — the stuff of SABR articles — but they were the backbone of the baseball history that I learned as a kid in the 1960s and 1970s. Go to a game and ask even middle-aged fans about John McGraw, Christy Mathewson, or Fred Merkle… they will draw a blank. Lou Gehrig? Wasn't that the guy whose record Cal Ripkin broke? Joe DiMaggio? I heard his name in an old song at one point. Where has he gone? Pistol Pete Reiser? Never even heard of him. Babe Ruth? Fat guy, right? Used to hold some home run records?
The Babe Ruth story is particularly interesting. Mr. Baker relates all sorts of statistics about Babe Ruth that I never knew. And some that I did. In 1921, Ruth outhomered every team in the American League. He broke the career home run record in 1921 and then proceeded to break that record 575 more times. He might have been the best left-handed pitcher of his generation. He was the first truly universally recognized athlete in history, even to those who didn't follow sports. He changed the game in ways that still resonate today. His story could have only happened in the larger-than-life New York City of his time.
I'm digressing again…
I guess that the bottom line is that if you have a desire to learn more about the history of baseball or about the history of New York City — or both — then this is a book that you will want to read, because it covers both exceeding well.
September 25, 2025
Matty, Dihigo, the Iron Horse, Bullet Joe, Mugsy, Bonehead, Country, Leo the Lip, the Yankee Clipper, Branch, Frenchy, Old Reliable, Cool Papa, Iron Joe, Fireman, the Georgia Peach, Burleigh, Schoolboy, the Babe.
Baseball is a game of names and nicknames. It's one of the most charming things about it, for in what other sport are sobriquets central to the mythos of entire teams and eras? The greatness of baseball, at least for as long as I've loved it, lies in its stories, traditions, and observances, as much as the actual game. Lou's farewell speech, the Time photo of the Babe's retirement send-off, Mazerowski's walk-off, "In a year that has been so improbable, the impossible has happened!" What other sport has these things? What other game is so indelibly tied into the history and bedrock of an entire nation? I'm not even American, but were I, reading about and watching baseball would make me feel some pride in being one - at least, if you separate the ugly history of segregation and racism that is foundational to it (which, to his credit, Baker does not shy away from).
This book is brilliant. Kevin Baker has done so much justice to the wonderful, rich, and confounding tapestry that is this game, capturing the heartbeat of its history, to go alongside the heartbreak. From the early days of spitballs and two separate Polo Grounds, to the Black Sox scandal and the rise of the Bambino, history and storytelling bleed through into every chapter, and do so in propulsive, literary thrusts. There are so many rich details here, so many characters that pulsate and breathe on the page.
And it's not just baseball; Baker captures the birth, rise, zenith, and nadir of the city of New York (and the boroughs of the Bronx and Brooklyn) with such stately vibrance as to make me, someone who has never been there, feel like I have some kind of insider's knowledge of its rudiments. The non-baseball characters and happenings buzz and hum, too - Mayor LaGuardia, the Tammany Machine, the Bums of Brooklyn, Flatbush, Flushing, Times Square during wartime, the Harlem Renaissance, lights at the ballpark. Kevin Baker does all of these things so much justice, gives stories that speak to the complexity and tumult and life that beat in all of them.
I don't know what else to say. He's written what, in my estimation, is the best history of baseball you're likely to find. Sure, its emphasis on New York and its clubs means that it shies away from some of the history of Boston, Philly, the Cubs, etc. But a good history isn't always about telling every story - sometimes, it's about telling a few stories really well - and that's what Baker does here. He does justice to the Negro Leagues, the New York Giants, Alex Pompez, Dexter Park, the Brooklyn Bridge, Ban Johnson, the barnstormers, and Ma Gehrig, among so many others.
It's a wonderful book. I already can't wait to read it again.
Baseball is a game of names and nicknames. It's one of the most charming things about it, for in what other sport are sobriquets central to the mythos of entire teams and eras? The greatness of baseball, at least for as long as I've loved it, lies in its stories, traditions, and observances, as much as the actual game. Lou's farewell speech, the Time photo of the Babe's retirement send-off, Mazerowski's walk-off, "In a year that has been so improbable, the impossible has happened!" What other sport has these things? What other game is so indelibly tied into the history and bedrock of an entire nation? I'm not even American, but were I, reading about and watching baseball would make me feel some pride in being one - at least, if you separate the ugly history of segregation and racism that is foundational to it (which, to his credit, Baker does not shy away from).
This book is brilliant. Kevin Baker has done so much justice to the wonderful, rich, and confounding tapestry that is this game, capturing the heartbeat of its history, to go alongside the heartbreak. From the early days of spitballs and two separate Polo Grounds, to the Black Sox scandal and the rise of the Bambino, history and storytelling bleed through into every chapter, and do so in propulsive, literary thrusts. There are so many rich details here, so many characters that pulsate and breathe on the page.
And it's not just baseball; Baker captures the birth, rise, zenith, and nadir of the city of New York (and the boroughs of the Bronx and Brooklyn) with such stately vibrance as to make me, someone who has never been there, feel like I have some kind of insider's knowledge of its rudiments. The non-baseball characters and happenings buzz and hum, too - Mayor LaGuardia, the Tammany Machine, the Bums of Brooklyn, Flatbush, Flushing, Times Square during wartime, the Harlem Renaissance, lights at the ballpark. Kevin Baker does all of these things so much justice, gives stories that speak to the complexity and tumult and life that beat in all of them.
I don't know what else to say. He's written what, in my estimation, is the best history of baseball you're likely to find. Sure, its emphasis on New York and its clubs means that it shies away from some of the history of Boston, Philly, the Cubs, etc. But a good history isn't always about telling every story - sometimes, it's about telling a few stories really well - and that's what Baker does here. He does justice to the Negro Leagues, the New York Giants, Alex Pompez, Dexter Park, the Brooklyn Bridge, Ban Johnson, the barnstormers, and Ma Gehrig, among so many others.
It's a wonderful book. I already can't wait to read it again.
May 31, 2024
The old cliché of how art can imitate real life can be applied here in this book of the history of New York baseball and the rise of the city by Kevin Baker. Of course, one would have to consider baseball to be a form of “art”, but even so, this is a great illustration of the rise of baseball from a game scattered across the five boroughs of the city and how it compares to the rise of New York City as a major world metropolis.
The book starts off with an emphasis that is one did not already know this (most do), baseball was not invented by Abner Doubleday in Cooperstown, New York. Instead, the earliest origins can be traced to various fields and street of the city in the mid 19th century. From there, the book tells the story of baseball in the city up to World War II with great detail and with emphasis on the three teams in New York during this portion of the 20th century – the Yankees, Dodgers and Giants. Each team has excellent very good, detailed descriptions of their star players (most notably Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig for the Yankees, as one might expect) and of the managers. For the latter, this is especially true for Giants manager John McGraw.
Intertwined with the history of the ballclubs is the history of the city and how it rose in stature to what it was at the time of the end of the book. Just like the excellent description of 19th century baseball of which many do not know about the New York experience such as the New York Knickerbockers – no, not to be confused with the basketball team. What is also very interesting about including the history of city politics is how they were tied in with the baseball teams. The best writing about this connection is Baker’s telling of how Tammany Hall politics were involved in the founding of the Yankees. The story of how they were also squeezed out of the Polo Grounds and ended up building a nice little park called Yankee Stadium also made for good reading.
If there is a problem with any part of the book, it comes near the end, where the stories about the teams, players, and city in the 1940’s doesn’t seem to cover all aspects as well as the rest of the book as well as an ending that seemed abrupt. But by then, I was so enamored with the rest of the book that it didn’t matter – this was an excellent, albeit lengthy, read on baseball and New York City.
I wish to thank the publisher for providing a review copy of the book. The opinions expressed are strictly my own.
https://sportsbookguy.blogspot.com/20...
The book starts off with an emphasis that is one did not already know this (most do), baseball was not invented by Abner Doubleday in Cooperstown, New York. Instead, the earliest origins can be traced to various fields and street of the city in the mid 19th century. From there, the book tells the story of baseball in the city up to World War II with great detail and with emphasis on the three teams in New York during this portion of the 20th century – the Yankees, Dodgers and Giants. Each team has excellent very good, detailed descriptions of their star players (most notably Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig for the Yankees, as one might expect) and of the managers. For the latter, this is especially true for Giants manager John McGraw.
Intertwined with the history of the ballclubs is the history of the city and how it rose in stature to what it was at the time of the end of the book. Just like the excellent description of 19th century baseball of which many do not know about the New York experience such as the New York Knickerbockers – no, not to be confused with the basketball team. What is also very interesting about including the history of city politics is how they were tied in with the baseball teams. The best writing about this connection is Baker’s telling of how Tammany Hall politics were involved in the founding of the Yankees. The story of how they were also squeezed out of the Polo Grounds and ended up building a nice little park called Yankee Stadium also made for good reading.
If there is a problem with any part of the book, it comes near the end, where the stories about the teams, players, and city in the 1940’s doesn’t seem to cover all aspects as well as the rest of the book as well as an ending that seemed abrupt. But by then, I was so enamored with the rest of the book that it didn’t matter – this was an excellent, albeit lengthy, read on baseball and New York City.
I wish to thank the publisher for providing a review copy of the book. The opinions expressed are strictly my own.
https://sportsbookguy.blogspot.com/20...
March 4, 2024
Note: Thank you to NetGalley, Knopf Publishing, and Kevin Baker for the advanced reader copy of the book. This review will also be posted on NetGalley. What follows is my unbiased review of the book.
Baseball is intrinsic with New York. Not just professional baseball, but the baseball that was once-upon-a-time “town ball” that was played by kids anywhere they could find room to hit a ball and run. Although we treat baseball like a sport of rural areas, it was actually played where people could gather together and have enough players to form these teams, mostly in cities and towns. There was no city where this was truer than New York City.
Kevin Baker wrote a book that intertwines the politics of New York City with the history of baseball, showing readers how they influenced each other. He traces it back before baseball was a professional sport to the numerous clubs that were associated with different groups in the city. In particular, it was New York City’s Tammany Hall that controlled the City for much of the early days of professional baseball, and controlled what teams were allowed to play there. This book runs from the mid-19th century until just before Jackie Robinson’s debut with the Brooklyn Dodgers.
Baker has researched some incredible detail about those early years of baseball and put together a history like no other. It was a new experience for me, reading about how the political machine in New York City helped shape professional baseball as we know it today. It helped shut out many of the other leagues that tried to rival the American League and National League that we know of today. It also controlled what teams were allowed to play in the city, keeping the (then) New York Giants in quite a privileged position. It’s also what eventually pushed the team that would be known as the Yankees out of Manhattan to playing in the outer borough of the Bronx.
To read my full review, please go to: Book Review – The New York Game: Baseball and the Rise of a New City by Kevin Baker
Baseball is intrinsic with New York. Not just professional baseball, but the baseball that was once-upon-a-time “town ball” that was played by kids anywhere they could find room to hit a ball and run. Although we treat baseball like a sport of rural areas, it was actually played where people could gather together and have enough players to form these teams, mostly in cities and towns. There was no city where this was truer than New York City.
Kevin Baker wrote a book that intertwines the politics of New York City with the history of baseball, showing readers how they influenced each other. He traces it back before baseball was a professional sport to the numerous clubs that were associated with different groups in the city. In particular, it was New York City’s Tammany Hall that controlled the City for much of the early days of professional baseball, and controlled what teams were allowed to play there. This book runs from the mid-19th century until just before Jackie Robinson’s debut with the Brooklyn Dodgers.
Baker has researched some incredible detail about those early years of baseball and put together a history like no other. It was a new experience for me, reading about how the political machine in New York City helped shape professional baseball as we know it today. It helped shut out many of the other leagues that tried to rival the American League and National League that we know of today. It also controlled what teams were allowed to play in the city, keeping the (then) New York Giants in quite a privileged position. It’s also what eventually pushed the team that would be known as the Yankees out of Manhattan to playing in the outer borough of the Bronx.
To read my full review, please go to: Book Review – The New York Game: Baseball and the Rise of a New City by Kevin Baker
March 4, 2025
I am a Boomer, born the year (1955) that the Dodgers finally beat the Yankees, raised for the first thirteen years of my life in northern New Jersey, and a completely baseball-obsessed kid. (That did not last, as the professional game got too dull for my tastes.) This book brought back so many memories, not of New York baseball (the book wraps up in 1945, ten years before I was born), but of the stories that I heard about and read about while I was growing up. I enjoyed the book tremendously, as it was one of those books that I read quickly while lamenting how fast I was getting through it, and maybe my favorite sentence of the book was in the bibliographical essay where the author acknowledged that this is just the first volume of his study on NYC baseball. I enjoyed how the book tied the history of New York into the history of baseball, and while there are more detailed studies of New York City, the book does a very nice job of analyzing how the game, and the city, were completely intertwined. The big names are all there- McGraw, Mathewson, Ruth, Gehrig, Durocher, DiMaggio, among others. The story of the Polo Grounds, Yankee Stadium and Ebbets Field are prominently featured, as are some of the game's most notorious moments: Fred Merkle's bonehead play and Mickey Owen's passed ball, both of which cost teams a World Series, as well as the 1919 "Black Sox" scandal, which was planned and executed by corrupt New York money man Arnold Rothstein. The book puts the horrific treatment of African-American players front and center, and this volume of the story actually ends with the racial tensions that were manifested in New York during the Second World War, which will no doubt mean that the next volume will commence with the story of Branch Rickey and Jackie Robinson. For potential readers who are looking for a study of urban history, social history, and of course, baseball, this is the book for you. One can only wish that the second volume is already being readied for publication.
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