Major League Baseball Profiles, 1871-1900, Volume 1

In its infancy, major league baseball was anyones game, open to a dizzying array of rogues and scamps, athletic giants and captains of industry, hustlers, managers, and umpires who transformed club-based teams into the first professional federations with formalized rulesand commercial considerations. This two-volume workwith its profiles of every key contributor to the major league game from May 4, 1871, through December 31, 1900is truly inside baseball. Volume 1 profiles all the key position players and pitchers of the nineteenth century, giving detailed information about each players role in the game, his debut and finale, high points and low, most important achievements, relationship to ground-breaking diamond occurrences, in addition to fascinating personal information. More than a collection of mere facts and statistics, Major League Baseball Profiles provides a unique history of the evolution of major league baseball, from the date of the first major league game in 1871 through the 1900 season, which marked not only the close of a century but also the unofficial end of what many believe to be the formative period of the game.