Baseball Before We Knew It: A Search for the Roots of the Game

Baseball Before We Knew It

This is next on my "To Read" list. I read a positive review in a recent Sports Illustrated, and the glowing Amazon reviews lead me to believe it won't be a methodical research text but more of an engaging, interesting mystery. Read the Amazon synopsis for full details, but here is a snippet:

Block's book takes readers on an exhilarating journey through the centuries in search of clues to the evolution of our modern National Pastime. Among his startling discoveries is a set of long-forgotten baseball rules from the 1700s. Block evaluates the originality and historical significance of the Knickerbocker rules of 1845, revisits European studies on the ancestry of baseball which indicate that the game dates back hundreds, if not thousands of years, and assembles a detailed history of games and pastimes from the Middle Ages onward that contributed to baseball's development. In its thoroughness and reach, and its extensive descriptive bibliography of early baseball sources, this book is a unique and invaluable resource-a comprehensive, reliable, and readable account of baseball before it was America's game.

Plus, it was published by the University of Nebraska Press, and we should all support this fine institution of learning! They publish some interesting stuff, BTW.