"Baseball's First Inning"

"Baseball's First Inning" by William Ryczek is the last volume of his trilogy about the early years of base ball (19th century spelling). Ryczek has worked his way backwards starting with the period dominated by the first all professional team, the Cincinnati Redstockings, moving to the post Civil War years ("When Johnny Came Sliding Home"), and now on the founding period.

Of course, the further one goes back the harder it is to write with any authority. There is the well documented history of the Knickerbockers, but there is obviously something before that, but no one has yet found it. I have already written earlier posts about what I think are two of the biggest positives of this book - the author's new way of looking at old data and how thinking in time helps us to understand the 19th century rules that vintage base ball players and fans find troublesome.

Having now read the full book (as well as "When Johnny Came Sliding Home"), I think this is a valuable book in giving an overview of the game's early years. As Peter Morris has pointed out authors writing about the early years of baseball face a very difficult balancing act because the early game was so decentralized. As a result simply recording the details of the game in different areas can be almost unreadable, while anything too general runs the risk of adding nothing new to the story. In the case the author has done a good job of striking that balance and provides important background information for those looking for the basic story or researchers who need a framework for their more specific area of interest.

As is probably very clear by this point, my primary area of interest for early base ball history is New Jersey. In that regard, I don't particularly care for how Ryczek has treated New Jersey in both of the books I have read. In "When Johnny Came Sliding Home," I think he puts too much emphasis on the negative aspects of the Irvington Club making them look too much like a group of ruffians. While the Irvingtons certainly had their rough edges, my own research has certainly found plenty of examples of how they observed the common courtesies of the game. In this book, the problem is not so much what is written about New Jersey, but rather how little is included in the story and how little importance is attached to what is written. For example, the Liberty Club of New Brunswick's 1861 upset victory over the champion Brooklyn Atlantics is presented as evidence that the Atlantic's did not have a "memorable year" becuase they lost to the "lightly regarded Liberty Club." There is no mention of what the victory might have meant to the New Jersey team.

To be fair, part of this has to do with perspective. The author's focus is on the big picture which in those days was the New York and Brooklyn teams. Still I would argue that New Jersey teams played a significant role in the era which is not reflected in either of these books. This reinforces the feeling I got at the 19th century base ball conference in Cooperstown that I have a call to write a book about the early days of New Jersey base ball. That sense of call got even stronger this week when I had an e-mail from the editor of the pioneer project suggesting I add an introduction to the team histories that I have already written. Looking at my research files, I found some good material and am now working on that introduction.

All of this has made me think that I need to move this project more on to the front burner or more accurately on to the front burners. There is another book possibility that I hope will be formalized very soon. My thought had been that book first and then the NJ base ball book. I am now wondering if it would be possible to work on two books at once especially since my role in the other one would be more editing than actual writing. It's something that will definitely require further thought.