Baseball
A HIstory of America's Game

Benjamin G. Rader (Author)

9780252088803

Paperback / softback, published 8 April 2025

328 pages, 34 black & white photographs, 15 tables
22.9 x 15.2 x 2.5 cm, 0.567 kg

“The best single-volume history of the sport. Tackles the business and organizational evolution of the professional game, while not losing sight of how it was played on the field.”--Washington Post Book World “Baseball reflects Rader's firm grasp of the best and latest scholarship and his insightful understanding of American sport history.”--Sporting News

Analytics, technology, and the most ambitious rewrite of the rulebook in fifty years have reshaped baseball. Benjamin G. Rader’s account of the American pastime moves from diamonds scratched out of commons and corn fields to the multimedia theme parks doubling as today’s baseball stadiums. The fifth edition follows the long arc of the game’s history into the third decade of the twenty-first century, an era rich in innovation but even richer from revenue streams undreamt-of by the plutocrats of old. Rader brings readers up to date with looks at the Astros cheating scandal, on-the-field changes from power pitchers to ghost runners, data-driven player development and career rebirth, and the one-of-a-kind Shohei Ohtani.

Preface ix