This comprehensive reference work covers the early years of major league baseball from the first game—May 4, 1871, a 2-0 victory for the Fort Wayne Kekiongas over the visiting Cleveland Forest City team—through the 1900 season. Baseball historian David Nemec presents complete team rosters and detailed player, manager, and umpire information, with a wealth of statistics to warm a fan’s heart.

 

Sidebars cover a variety of topics, from oddities—the team that had the best record but finished second—to analyses of why Cleveland didn’t win any pennants in the 1890s. Additional benefits include dozens of rare illustrations and narrative accounts of each year’s pennant race. Nemec also carefully charts the rule changes from year to year as the game developed by fits and starts to formulate the modern rules. The result is an essential work of reference and at the same time a treasury of baseball history.

 

This new edition adds much material unearthed since the first edition, fills gaps, and corrects errors, while presenting a number of new stories and fascinating details. David Nemec began the lifetime labor that helped produced this work in 1954 and admits it may never end, as there always will be some obscure player whose birth date has not yet been found. Until perfection is achieved, this work offers state-of-the-art accuracy and detail beyond that supplied by even modern baseball encyclopedias. As Casey Stengel, who was born during this era, was wont to say, “you could look it up.”  Now you can.

 

Generations after its demise, Ebbets Field remains the single most colorful and enduring image of a baseball park, with a treasured niche in the game's legacy and the American imagination.

In this lively story of sports, politics, and the talented, hilarious, and charming characters associated with the Brooklyn Dodgers, Bob McGee chronicles the ballpark's vibrant history from the drawing board to the wrecking ball, beginning with Charley Ebbets and the heralded opening in 1913, on through the eras that followed. McGee weaves a story about how Ebbets Field's architectural details, notable flaws, and striking facade brought Brooklyn and its team together in ways that allowed each to define the other.

Drawing on original interviews and letters, as well as published and archival sources, The Greatest Ballpark Ever explores the struggle of Charley Ebbets to build Ebbets Field, the days of Wilbert Robinson's early pennant winners, the eras of the Daffiness Boys, Larry MacPhail, and Branch Rickey, the tumultuous field leadership of Leo the Lip, the fiery triumph of Jackie Robinson, the golden days of the Boys of Summer, and Walter O'Malley's ignominious departure.

With humor and passion, The Greatest Ballpark Ever lets readers relive a day in the raucous ballpark with its quirky angles and its bent right-field wall, with the characters and events that have become part of the nation's folklore.