books
As an active, and younger (36) baseball book collector I think that the main problem is that the rare book people don't understand baseball books and the baseball collectors do not understand the rare book world. As a result there is so much misinformation and a lack of realistic pricing and reasonable availability Let me give an example. One of the books shown below is a book called Uncle Nat which is a children's adventure book published in 1865. The book contains the first extensive fiction about baseball in a great chapter that actually deals with the controversy between the New York and Mass. games and an argument about whether you can "soak" or hit the base runner with the ball to get an out. Its a great books and if more well known I think that a lot of baseball collectors would like a copy. It really only can be bought however outside the hobby in rare book sites (unless your are lucky to find one on ebay) and the rare book sites seem to think its old and its about baseball so it must be worth a mint and they price it at over $2500. Its a rare book and its valuable but not THAT valuable and as a result it sits on the rare book site and never gets into the hobby.
All that said I think that one theme we are missing is that not only do the book give us info on baseball history but also the way that baseball fit into the overall society at a given time. Unlike cards or photos books deal with issue like racism, education, the Red Scare etc. This is why I love them and think that they are undervalued as objects and historical touchstones
Below are a number of books which illustrate this point
In order
1. Earliest and only(?) Spanish Language history of baseball in Mexico
2. Negro in Sports -- a wide ranging history of black sports published in 1939 and 1949 and has the only treatment of the Negro Leagues while the leagues were still in action
3. Great Negro Ball stars -- give extensive histories and pics of all the first generation of black major leaguers
4. Little League Amigos a story of a young players journey from Castro's Cuba to the American little league
5. 20 Years Too Soon by Quincy Troppe -- a self published volume that allows us to see a player that seem to only had a cup of coffee in the majors but was infact a major influence in 3 countries over 40 years
6. McGuffey's reader 1840's -- shows that baseball was part of school lessons from before it was baseball
7. Uncle Nat
8. Boys Own Book 1844 (English Edition) showing that the Knickerbockers really didn't invent much
7.
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