Baseball in the Garden of Eden, John Thorn
Baseball in the Garden of Eden, John Thorn
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Baseball in the Garden of Eden
The Secret History of the Early Game

Author: John Thorn

Narrator: Joe Barrett

Unabridged: 11 hr 55 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Tantor Media

Published: 05/11/2021


Synopsis

The "fresh and fascinating" (The Plain Dealer, Cleveland), "splendid and brilliant" (Philadelphia Daily News) history of the early game by the Official Historian of Major League Baseball.

Who really invented baseball? Forget Abner Doubleday at Cooperstown and Alexander Cartwright. Meet Daniel Lucius Adams, William Rufus Wheaton, and other fascinating figures buried beneath the falsehoods that have accrued around baseball's origins. This is the true story of how organized baseball started, how gambling shaped the game from its earliest days, and how it became our national pastime and our national mirror.

Baseball in the Garden of Eden draws on original research to tell how the game evolved from other bat-and-ball games and gradually supplanted them, how the New York game came to dominate other variants, and how gambling and secret professionalism promoted and plagued the game. From a religious society's plot to anoint Abner Doubleday as baseball's progenitor to a set of scoundrels and scandals far more pervasive than the Black Sox Fix of 1919, this entertaining book is full of surprises. Even the most expert baseball fan will learn something new with almost every page.

About John Thorn

John Thorn cocreated the groundbreaking Total Baseball, the sabermetric classic The Hidden Game of Baseball, and was the chief consultant for Ken Burns's television series Baseball. He was appointed Official Historian of Major League Baseball in 2011.


Reviews

Goodreads review by John on June 26, 2011

This book...frustrating. So many interesting little facts about early baseball are scattered throughout: gambling and carousing were a problem from the very beginning, early baseball players were basically free agents like they are now, going to a different team every year for a bigger payout, there......more

Goodreads review by carl on August 03, 2016

Official Historian of Major League Baseball John Thorn takes on the sacred legends of the game rather aggressively, “You’re not one of those idiots that believe Abner Doubleday invented the game are you?” “Er, no John, I don’t think so,” I reply, holding the book a little farther away. “Well you’d b......more

Goodreads review by Spencer on July 03, 2024

I'm disappointed I didn't enjoy this book more because I really liked its jacket design (haha). Not my favorite book, but I did take away at least a general understanding of how baseball came to be. As someone who is starting to follow the sport more, I became curious in its history. This book was a......more

Goodreads review by Chip on November 15, 2024

Really good history of early, early baseball. Thorn not only deals with the Doubleday myth but he investigates why Doubleday was chosen to be the so-called inventor of Baseball. It all has to do with the desire to claim it as a uniquely American invention and not evolved from the English sport of Ro......more

Goodreads review by Andrew on May 08, 2023

Fascinating. The best part was the turn of the century. Filled with gambling, monopolies, fringe religious societies, politicking, and more, the early days were exciting.......more