The National Game, Second Edition (Writing Baseball)

By Alfred H. Spink

Originally published in 1910 (with a second, revised edition in 1911), The National Game by Alfred H. Spink is the first important history of baseball, predating Albert G. Spalding's better-known America's National Game by a year. Dedicating the first edition, Spink spells out his lofty goal: "I want this book to live forever, so that the names of those who helped to build up and make base ball the greatest of outdoor sports may never be forgotten." That goal was postponed, however, as Spink's The National Game has been out of print since 1911.

WhileSpalding comes down firmly on the side of the owners, telling how the courageous and honest magnates triumphed morally over greedy and crooked players, Spink celebrates the accomplishments of the great players who helped to bring the game into the prominence it enjoyed in the first decade of the twentieth century.

Spink provides a history of baseball before 1910; position-by-position biographies of every current major league player and of former players; sketches of managers, magnates, journalists, and umpires; the line-up of every championship team from 1871 to 1910; and a complete record of all games played for championships from 1884 to the 1910 World Series.

In his foreword, Steven P. Gietschier, director of historical records at the Sporting News, details Spink's career as a St. Louis journalist and as secretary and press agent for the St. Louis Browns until he left the team to start a weekly newspaper devoted entirely to sports: "The Sporting News, eight pages long, hit the streets for the first time on St. Patrick's Day, 1886."

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0809323044
• ISBN13: 9780809323043
• Release Date: April 2000
• Publisher: Southern Illinois University Press
• Length: 504 Pages
• Weight: 1.56 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.0" x 1.1" x 6.0"

Customer Reviews

Ten stars

The 1910 equivalent of the Baseball Encyclopedia or Total Baseball and the first really comprehensive baseball reference book. Hundreds of biographical sketches, photographs (portraits), detailed club histories, statistics (almost quaint in its early-1900's point of view : pitching leaders by winning pct., for example; no discussion of e.r.a., home run records, etc.). Plenty of boxscores from important games dating back to the 1830's and every "world series" from the 1880's on. An absolutely essential addition to the library of any fan of early baseball.

Indispensable resource for the study of early baseball

Al Spink (of the *Sporting News* Spinks) wrote this pioneering history of baseball in 1910 and updated it the next year. Because Organized Baseball was so young, Spink was able to write the kind of encyclopedic overview which would fill a six-volume set today.Spink discusses EVERY significant event in the history of baseball to 1910: not just famous players, but also owners, umpires, mid-19th century teams, even early baseball writers. He draws on his personal knowledge of these men to relate long-forgotten anecdotes, and to convey a perspective which no modern writer could match without spending five years at a microfilm reader. I can't imagine any serious baseball fan with an interest in pre-1910 baseball not learning a lot from this book. Even the illustrations are many cuts above the images in most modern books about this era.The baseball reissue of the year!