The National Association of Base Ball Players, 1857-1870 (review)

Marshall D. Wright. The National Association of Base Ball Players, 1857-1870. Jefferson NC: McFarland & Company, 2000. 408 pp. Paper, $45.00.

While award-winning author Marshall Wright's latest contribution to baseball literature appears to be primarily a book of statistics, it is, in fact, an engaging examination of the game's early years that goes well beyond the orderly compilation and presentation of numerical tables. Readers interested in the early history of baseball will find it a valuable addition to their libraries.

Wright's focus is on the National Association of Base Ball Players (NABPP), formed when representatives from sixteen New York-area clubs met in May 1857 "to set guidelines for the game of baseball." This organization "governed the world of baseball for the next 14 years" (p. 6).

The heart of the book is Wright's meticulous, year-by-year statistical listing of teams, games, and players in the era when pioneering clubs such as the Knickerbocker, Excelsior, Eckford, and Atlantic were at the center of the baseball universe. The author thoroughly researched hundreds of box scores and newspaper game accounts to compile a comprehensive statistical record of the 1857-70 era. Anyone who has spent long hours at a microfilm reader will especially appreciate his diligent efforts. Author and publisher deserve special commendation for providing an extensive 153-page index containing the names of the players, cities, and clubs mentioned in the yearly statistical listings.

In addition to the orderly compilation and presentation of these statistics, another strength of the book is the series of excellent essays that lead off each chapter. These provide brief but informative sketches of the important events and trends of each year included in the book's time frame. The essays furnish context and perspective for the tables of statistics that follow while alerting the reader to developments in the game (such as the growth of professionalism and the impact of the Civil War). The passages on the evolution of town ball into baseball under the leadership of the Knickerbockers, the accomplishments of the 1869 Cincinnati Red Stockings, and the contributions of writer Henry Chadwick are especially welldone.

Woven throughout the essays and the statistical tables is a history of scorekeeping and baseball statistics. "Before the formation of the National Association, recorded baseball games usually kept track of only one statistic for each player--runs scored," Wright explains. As time went on, "scribes kept track of total games, hands lost and runs a given player achieved during the year" (p. 35). The reader learns that the familiar concept of computing a player's batting average did not come into use until 1870.

Wright also traces the growth and spread of baseball as it evolved from a local exercise activity played in New York City and Brooklyn to the game that became the national pastime, with numerous clubs in other regions of the country. Records of the NABBP and the author's research pinpoint the existence of these new clubs both chronologically and geographically.

This book deserves special mention as a work that paves the way for further research. Wright has provided other investigators with a vast amount of raw data, which invites additional interpretation and analysis. Future player biographies, local histories, team histories, and other studies are sure to draw heavily on the data he has compiled.

Excellent as it is, the book is not without an occasional error. A careful reading of the tables turned up a handful of minor mistakes among the thousands of individual statistics. The most avoidable shortcoming was the selection of the cover art. Although handsome and eye-catching, the illustration inexplicably depicts a game from the 1880s rather than from the era covered by the book.

The National Association of Base Ball Players, 1857-1870 is a valuable resource, destined to become a well-thumbed reference on the desks of researchers...