Cleveland and the surrounding area was home to one of the earliest and most active baseball scenes outside of the eastern seaboard. This extraordinarily detailed history combines author commentary with first-hand accounts to document baseball’s rapid development and popularization in the region during the decades following the Civil War. Ordered chronologically and then geographically by town, chapters follow the game’s rise from the earliest reports on ball in 1841, to the era of loosely organized, town-to-town rivalries and semipro clubs, and finally through the early era of the professional, and eventually major league, sport.

James M. Egan, Jr., lives in Ohio.

James M. Egan, Jr.
Format: softcover (7 x 10)
Pages: 338
Bibliographic Info: 35 photos, notes, bibliography, index
Copyright Date: 2008
pISBN: 978-0-7864-3067-3
Imprint: McFarland

Preface      1
Introduction      3

PART I. THE EARLY YEARS, 1865–1877
1865      5
1866      7
1867      9
1868      23
1869      32
1870      43
1871      55
1872      66
1873–1877      72

PART II. THE MIDDLE YEARS, 1878–1889
1878      77
1879      85
1880      96
1881      105
1882      113
1883      122
1884      131
1885 & 1886      140
1887      144
1888      155
1889      169

PART III. THE CLOSING YEARS, 1890–1900
1890      181
1891      193
1892      204
1893      215
1894      221
1895      230
1896      242
1897      259
1898      270
1899      278
1900      281

Afterword      291
Chapter Notes      293
Bibliography      299
Sources by Chapter      301
Index      305

“exhaustively detailed…a glorious success. Any serious baseball fan would love to read [this book]. It’s a home run of research and reporting…and reading.”—Ohioana Quarterly; “Egan … has done an incredible amount of research. His exhaustive culling of difficult-to-find small-town newspapers will be invaluable to researchers of early baseball in the Greater Cleveland area.”—Journal of Sport History.