The New York Game: Baseball and the Rise of a New City

The New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice A hugely entertaining history of baseball in New York City, bursting with bigger than life figures, and long-forgotten heroes, spanning the game’s founding to the early 1940s

"You’re going to beg for extra innings. Without missing a scandal or a sensation, with an eye on how assimilation transforms the picture, Kevin Baker has written a buoyant, double coming-of-age story."—Stacy Schiff, Pulitzer Prize-winning author

Baseball is “the New York game” because the city is where the white lines were first drawn, where a bunt was first laid, and where the curve ball was first thrown. It’s also where the superstars first emerged, and where social progress in the sport was first made. With nuance and depth, historian Kevin Baker brings this all back to life: the games–World Series in 1905, 1919, 1932; the players–Babe Ruth, Joe DiMaggio, Lou Gehrig; the coaches and managers–John McGraw, “Foxy Ned” Hanlon, Clark Griffith; and even the writers, reporters, and spectators. The result is a portrait of baseball’s most transformative years amidst New York City’s evolution from a heaving, stinking, fantastic city to a global capital.

No one is better placed to write this book than Baker, a life-long Yankee fan, beloved historical novelist, and part-time historian to the city that doesn’t sleep. In his hands the city and game emerge from the murk of nineteenth century American life together–driven by big personalities and gangsters, but ultimately requiring regulation and organization. Baker details how the game and New York came to mirror one another, growing and expanding, bumbling through the sociopolitical concerns of the day, and rising out of these trials stronger than before.

From the establishment of the New York Knickerbockers Base Ball Club by a young Manhattan shipping clerk in 1846; to the shrewd financial investments that spread the game nationally, resulting in the first professional league; to the fan loyalty that skyrocketed at the turn of the century; to local investment in teams of Hispanic and Black players, trailblazers for the breaking of the color line; to the pressures of multiple world wars, The New York Game is at once a fascinating and comprehensive account of baseball. Long-forgotten legends finally get their due. The New York Game is an ode to the game of baseball and its city of origin.