There was a certain symmetry in the timing of when baseball started to take its present form as a business enterprise. The American League started operations in 1901, right at the beginning of the 20th century. It joined the established National League (founded in 1876) at that point, and eventually came together under one business umbrella - although it took longer than you might think to make it a full integration.
We tend to ignore what happened in the 19th century on some level, partly out of convenience. We're used to having the two leagues in business, and it's easy to head back to when that model began. But obviously, the game, the sport and the business needed time to develop. It's been up to some baseball historians to come up with a variety of books and articles to answer the age-old question, "How did we get here?"
In this case, author Jeffrey Orens has focused in on a couple of the major figures of 19th century base ball (as it was called in the day): George Wright and Al Spalding. Both are in the Baseball Hall of Fame. The reason that these two men were picked for biographies of sort in "Selling Baseball" only has some connection to their abilities on the field, which were admittedly considerable. They also had quite an influence on the game off the field - in essence, baseball's first marketing success stories.
Wright was one of the best players of the 19th century. He was the star of the 1869 Cincinnati Red Stockings, the first professional team in the sport. When the National Association was formed in 1871 - the first true pro baseball league as we know it - Wright landed in Boston and helped establish a dynasty there. He was accompanied in both spots by older brother Harry, who served as the player/manager of the teams.
But soon after his arrival in Boston, the light bulb in George Wright's brain went off. If baseball was such a great game, more people should be playing it. They would need equipment to do so, and such items as baseballs, bats, gloves, safety equipment, etc. were becoming standardized. Why not get in on the financial ground floor in the 1870s? Which he did.
Spalding was a teammate of George Wright in Boston in the first half of the 1870s. He moved to Chicago in 1876, played three years there and then retired. Al finished with a career record of 252-65, numbers that were helped by leading his league in pitching wins for six straight years. In 1877, Spalding starting wearing a glove as his appearances on the field started to diminish. Gloves were unusual at that point - you probably could pick out a baseball player by his mangled hands at this point in history - but he liked the concept and convinced some others to use one. And once gloves became universal, the game changed for good and for the better.
Upon his return to his native Chicago area, Spalding had the same idea as Wright. Why not start a sporting goods business? The idea worked well in the Midwest too. Soon Al had a chain of stores, and started working on other elements of the business. For example, he helped produce an annual guide for baseball that became the top reference source in the country on such matters.
Orens makes it clear that Wright is more of a good guy in the story. Spalding wasn't above exaggerating or even lying about matters. The best example was when baseball formed a commission on how to figure out how baseball was created. Even though it clearly evolved from other games that came over from Europe, Spalding helped ram through a conclusion on very shaky evidence that Abner Doubleday invented baseball in Cooperstown, New York - even though Doubleday was elsewhere at the time.
Orens' book has some interesting information between its covers. In hindsight, the concept of a professional sport developed quite quickly. It was something of a regional specialty when the Civil War helped spread it to new areas around the country. Once teams started forming, it was almost inevitable that one city would play a team from its neighbor. It was also inevitable that eligibility and financial rules would get bent along the way ... in other words, teams would figure out a way to lure the best players with under-the-table cash. The cure for that was professionalism.
The last few chapters aren't quite as gripping. Spalding led an around-the-world tour one offseason in an effort to promote the game. There is a book out there written about that entire experience. But it's still difficult to make a series of exhibition games from long ago dramatic. We hear about Wright's involvement in the eventual growth of golf and lawn tennis as well as something called roller polo (as Orens writes, it's indoor hockey on roller skates). George sold some merchandise in the latter even if the game's 19th-century popularity was short-lived. Some loose ends are tied together in the final main chapter, including the players' attempt at starting their own league in 1890 in order to make negotiations with owners much less one-sided. Spoiler alert: It didn't work.
"Selling Baseball" accomplishes its goal of illuminating the story about how Wright and Spalding leveraged their on-field success to earn themselves some money and promote baseball and other sports in the process, and does it quickly and professionally. It's hard to say if such a book will find a good-sized audience, but it's nice to have such a publication out there for those interested in the subject.
Three stars
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