Richter's History and Records of Base Ball: The American Nation's Chief Sport (review)

Sport journalists, particularly those covering baseball, in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries were of vital importance in the establishment of the legitimacy and romantic attachment to the national game. As important as "King" Kelly, Frank Chance, "Cap" Anson, and "Hoss" Radbourne had been as the baseball heroes for the American youth, Henry "Father" Chadwick, the Spinks of St. Louis, and Francis C. Richter played pivotal roles in interpreting the game to the very broad spectrum of the American population who never saw a game. In the early twenty-first century, when one can—through television and mlb.com—see every game and every player for a nominal fee, it is almost impossible to imagine the importance of the print journalist in interpreting the excitement and lore of the game to the American population a century ago.

This reprint is number four in McFarland's Historical Baseball Library. Each of these volumes is a welcome addition to our knowledge base of the game. Francis Richter was the editor of Sporting Life, the weekly baseball newspaper out of Philadelphia, as well as the annual Reach Guide. Born in 1854, Richter pioneered sports pages for the Philadelphia Day newspapers before branching out on his own as the publisher of the Reach Guides and then founding Sporting Life in 1883. His weekly newspaper competed with The Sporting News for preeminence in baseball reporting until its demise in 1917. By 1890 it had the most significant circulation of any sport publication.

Richter found an ample audience who gobbled up the annual report that baseball fans eagerly awaited in the spring as the trees were budding. His weekly newspaper—centered in the east but covering the entire nation—provided coverage of Major Leagues, Minor Leagues, and baseball news in general. Those who poured over box scores could spend hours going through Sporting Life and The Sporting News. Richter, like the Spinks in St. Louis, was not above creating baseball news and being an activist in attempting to create a vital game for the nation. These journalistic entrepreneurs found a symbiotic relationship between baseball and sport journalism. The journalists helped increase baseball audiences while those baseball fans found great information for ten cents with Sporting Life.

Richter's history of baseball focuses the reader's attention on the origins of the game. Using historical documents, mainly letters exchanged by the participants, he documents the famous confrontation between Spalding and Chadwick on the issue of American exceptionalism versus the transparent English origins of the game. Richter is ambivalent toward the English rounders perspective versus the "Old Cat" origins of the American game, but he is uncompromising that the first competitions of the modern game were played with Knickerbocker rules beginning in 1845.

Richter looks at the year-by-year history of both the National and American Leagues in a rather sketchy manner. He was a strongly positive supporter of the National League—so much so that by 1907 he was offered the presidency of that league. Richter was open-minded enough to realize the necessity of the challenging leagues—the American Association, the Brotherhood, and the Federal League—but "league" oriented enough to defend the National Agreement and the necessity of the reserve clause and the futility of players fighting against it. Despite his proleague attitude, he admits that the American Association "was in its time one of the greatest factors in the development of Base Ball to national greatness."

Richter provides the reader with many documents, starting with Knicker-bocker rules, general agreements that governed the game in the late nineteenth century, and the records of individual years in a concise fashion and a smoothly written approach. He follows the changes in the rules of the game with care and gives ample lists of players for various teams, both Major and Minor League, over the years.

Richter's History and...