Why read Baseball in the Garden of Eden?

Book cover of Baseball in the Garden of Eden: The Secret History of the Early Game

Book description

Now available in paperback, the “fresh and fascinating” (The Plain Dealer, Cleveland), “splendid and brilliant” (Philadelphia Daily News) history of the early game by the Official Historian of Major League Baseball.

Who really invented baseball? Forget Abner Doubleday at Cooperstown and Alexander Cartwright. Meet Daniel Lucius Adams, William Rufus Wheaton,…

Explore

Topics

MLB
Baseball

Genres

History

When you buy books, we may earn a commission that helps keep our lights on (or join the rebellion as a member).

Why read it?

1 author picked Baseball in the Garden of Eden as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Andrew Forbes

Author

John Thorn—the official historian of Major League Baseball—is a living encyclopedia, and this is his definitive tome on the game’s nineteenth-century beginnings, from the amateur era to the rise of the first professional leagues. This and Gilbert’s book might be viewed as companion pieces—indeed, Thorn wrote the introduction to How Baseball Happened—and both dispel the ridiculous myth that the game was invented in Cooperstown, New York by a young man who would grow up to be a Civil War hero, but Thorn goes deep on the fascinating story of who created that myth, and why, which is a tale…

From Andrew's list on baseball in historical context.