Book SummaryHow Baseball Happened, by Thomas W. Gilbert

1-Page Summary1-Page Book Summary of How Baseball Happened

Baseball Origins and Development: Culture, Economy, Society, Locations, Key Figures

The Origins and Historical Challenges of Baseball

This section delves into the difficulties in pinpointing the exact origins of the sport in the 19th century and examines the competing claims for the location of the first baseball game.

Baseball's Origins in the 1800s Are Obscure

Gilbert emphasizes the murky nature of the game's earliest history. He reminds us that America prior to industrialization, the era in which baseball emerged, is significantly different from modern America, making it hard to understand the social context and cultural nuances of the time. The advent of "penny journalism," or daily newspapers, also complicates our understanding. Much of our knowledge of baseball's early days comes from these newspapers, which were geared towards selling papers rather than offering a comprehensive view of urban life. As a result, they often neglected or minimized coverage of aspects of urban life that didn't interest their target readership, such as activities within lower-income and immigrant groups. This inherent bias raises questions about whether the documented rise of organized baseball teams in the mid-19th century genuinely signifies the beginning of adult baseball, or if they merely represent the first instances of baseball played by individuals from a specific social class that appealed to the readership of the penny newspapers.

Further adding to the challenge of tracing baseball's beginnings is the fact that early clubs often comprised people with pre-existing social or occupational ties. They were companions who gathered and made the choice to formally organize their matches. Therefore, it is likely they played the sport in less formal ways for years, even decades, before their official founding dates. This observation applies even to better-known clubs such as the Knickerbockers, Gothams, and Eagles, suggesting the existence of other less-documented baseball communities that have been ignored or forgotten by mainstream baseball history because they did not attract the attention of the press, or because they did not fit the image baseball was trying to cultivate as a respectable and "all-American" sport. These forgotten groups may have included individuals of different social classes, ethnicities, or races, highlighting how our current understanding of baseball's early days is likely incomplete.

Context

• The 19th century was a period of rapid societal change in America, including urbanization and immigration, which influenced how and where baseball was played, adding complexity to its historical narrative.
• Many professions had guilds or associations that brought together individuals from the same trade. These groups often organized recreational activities, including sports, as a way to build camaraderie and relieve the stresses of work life.

Other Perspectives

• While it is true that pre-industrial America is different from modern America, historians and social scientists have developed robust methodologies for understanding past societies, including the use of primary sources, archaeological evidence, and comparative historical analysis.
• The biases present in penny journalism are not unique to this medium and can be found in many historical sources; historians are trained to account for such biases when interpreting historical documents.
• While newspapers of the time may have been geared towards selling papers, this does not necessarily mean that they failed to provide valuable insights into the early days of baseball; they could still offer factual accounts of games and descriptions of how the sport was played.
• Newspapers of the time may have covered lower-income and immigrant groups more than is currently recognized, but such coverage could be found in less mainstream publications or local community papers that have not been preserved or are less frequently cited in historical research.
• The lack of formal documentation of these informal games means we cannot definitively say how similar these early forms of play were to the organized baseball that followed, potentially challenging the continuity implied between informal play and the official founding of clubs.
• The documentation and preservation of history often rely on the availability of written records, artifacts, and testimonies. If certain groups did not leave behind such evidence, it might not necessarily indicate an incomplete understanding but rather the inherent challenges associated with historical research.

Competing Claims About Where Baseball Began: Cooperstown vs. Hoboken

The author immediately confronts the prevalent myths surrounding baseball's beginnings, specifically the claims regarding the first official game. Both Cooperstown, NY, and Hoboken, NJ, have staked claims to this distinction, each celebrating their respective 100th anniversaries. The Cooperstown claim centers on the myth that baseball was invented by Abner Doubleday in 1839. Gilbert argues that this story, fabricated in 1908 by the Mills Commission, holds no historical basis and was likely created to obscure baseball's true urban origins and promote a more romanticized, small-town narrative, thereby rendering the sport more universally "American". He reveals how even the commission's participants, including chairman A.G. Mills, knew the narrative was false, highlighting the deliberate effort to mislead the public.

Similarly, the Hoboken claim, which focuses on an 1846 match that pitted the New York Nine against the Knickerbockers, is also dismissed by the author. The Knickerbockers' status as baseball's "creators" is disputed by Gilbert, who points out the lack of novelty in their rules and the existence of earlier interclub games. He cites numerous 19th-century newspaper articles that refer to baseball as a "traditional," "time-honored," or "old-fashioned" game, even during the...

How Baseball Happened Summary The Emergence of Professional Baseball From Amateur Roots

This section examines the transition from amateur to professional baseball, exploring the ambiguities surrounding player compensation during the amateur period and the factors leading to the acceptance of professionalism.

Player Compensation Dynamics During the Era of Amateurism

Gilbert's analysis of baseball's Amateur Era exposes the misleading simplicity of the terms "amateur" and "professional" in 19th-century baseball. While seemingly clear-cut, these labels often masked a complex reality of covert benefits and inconsistent enforcement of amateurism rules. He demonstrates that numerous teams, including the esteemed Knickerbockers, provided indirect compensation through sinecures, government patronage positions, and even assistance with housing.

The author points out that this blurring of lines between amateurism and professionalism, while seemingly hypocritical, wasn't considered a breach of amateur ideals in that era. The focus, he argues, was not on preventing payment outright, but rather on maintaining club loyalty and preventing star athletes from switching among teams purely for financial gain. This emphasis on club ties further highlights the differences between...

How Baseball Happened Summary Influence of Social Movements, Politics, and Community on Baseball's National Status

This section examines baseball's intertwined relationship with broader social and political trends in America during the 1800s, specifically nativism, class tensions, and movements for societal change. It explores how the sport reflected and shaped the values and aspirations of a nation grappling with rapid change and internal divisions.

Nativism, Hostility Toward Immigrants, and Class Tensions in Athletics

Gilbert explores the pervasive influence of nativism, a wave of anti-immigrant sentiment that engulfed 19th-century America. This ideology, fueled by fears of cultural change and the perception that immigrants threatened traditional American values, impacted baseball's development. He demonstrates how elite clubs, including the Knickerbockers, actively sought to establish baseball as an exclusively American sport, one played by native-born, Protestant men of a certain social standing.

This desire for exclusivity manifested in various ways, including the Knickerbockers' stringent membership criteria, their emphasis on gentlemanly conduct, and their initial resistance to the influx of less affluent, and often immigrant, players drawn to the game as it became more popular....

How Baseball Happened Summary Selective Storytelling Shapes Baseball's Origin Myth

This section examines how the dominant narrative of baseball's origins, often focused on figures like Abner Doubleday and the Knickerbocker club, has obscured the contributions of diverse communities and individuals in shaping the sport's early development.

Myths' Persistence: Abner Doubleday & Knickerbocker Club as Baseball "Founders"

Gilbert argues that the enduring myths surrounding baseball’s origins, particularly those centered on figures like Doubleday and the Knickerbockers, were deliberately constructed to create a sanitized and idealized narrative, one that resonated with a broader American public eager to embrace a uniquely American pastime free from foreign influences. He contends that these fabricated stories served specific ideological and marketing purposes, obscuring baseball's less glamorous, urban, and often working-class roots.

He argues that the legend of Doubleday was crafted during a time (early 20th century) when Major League Baseball was seeking to solidify its authority and promote itself as a national institution, one that embodied American values and exceptionalism. Similarly, the Knickerbocker narrative, while originating earlier in the game's...