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.