Early Base Ball
Start with these three books

• Baseball Before We Knew It: A Search of the Roots of the Game — David Block
• Baseball’s First Inning: A History of the National Pastime Through the Civil War — William J. Ryczek
• Baseball in the Garden of Eden: The Secret History of the Early Game — John Thorn
• But Didn’t We Have Fun? An Information History of Baseball’s Pioneer Era 1843-1870 — Peter Morris

• How Baseball Happened: Outrageous Lies Exposed! The True Story Revealed — Thomas W. Gilbert
• Baseball in Blue and Gray: The National Pastime during the Civil War — George B. Kirsch
• When Johnny Came Sliding Home: The Post-Civil War Baseball Boom, 1865-1870 — William J. Ryczek
• Inventing Baseball: The 100 Greatest Games of the Nineteenth Century
• The Father of Baseball: A Biography of Henry Chadwick — Andrew J. Schiff

• A Game of Inches: The Stories Behind the Innovations That Shaped Baseball: Volume 1, The Game On the Field — Peter Morris
• A Game of Inches: The Stories Behind the Innovations That Shaped Baseball: , Volume 2, The Game Behind the Scenes — Peter Morris

• Base Ball Founders: The Clubs, Players and Cities of the Northeast That Established the Game — Peter Morris and William J. Ryczek
• Base Ball Pioneers, 1850-1870: The Clubs and Players Who Spread the Sport Nationwide — Peter Morris and William J. Ryczek

• Baseball: The Early Years – Harold Seymour & Dorothy Seymour Mills
• Baseball: The Golden Age – Harold Seymour & Dorothy Seymour Mills
• Baseball: The People’s Game – Harold Seymour & Dorothy Seymour Mills
• Boston’s First Nine: The 1871-75 Boston Red Stockings — Edited by Bob LeMoine and Bill Nowlin
• The Great Encyclopedia of Nineteenth-Century Major League Baseball — David Nemec
• The Irish in Baseball: An Early History — David L. Fleitz
• Baseball Legends of Brooklyn’s Green-Wood Cemetery (NY) — Peter J. Nash
• Vintage Base Ball: Recapturing the National Pastime — James R. Tootle
• Strike Four: The Evolution of Baseball — Richard Hershberger

• • Web sites:
    • Our Game: Blog of MLB Historian John Thorn
    • Protoball Project
    • Baseball History: 19th Century Baseball
    • MLB Baseball Memory Lab: Early Baseball Milestones
    • MLB Baseball Memory Lab: Earliest Baseball Clubs
    • The National Pastime Museum
    • Threads of Our Game — Craig Brown

Base Ball 1870-1901

• Blackguards and Red Stockings: A History of Baseball’s National Association, 1871-1875 – William J. Ryczek
• The Summer of Beer and Whiskey: How Brewers, Barkeeps, Rowdies, Immigrants, and a Wild Pennant Fight Made Baseball America’s Game – Edward Acorn
• The Great Baseball Revolt: The Rise and Fall of the 1890 Players League – Robert B. Ross
• Fifty-nine in ’84: Old Hoss Radbourn, Barehanded Baseball, and the Greatest Season a Pitcher Ever Had – Edward Achorn
• A Game of Brawl: The Orioles, the Beaneaters, and the Battle for the 1897 Pennant – Bill Felber

Deadball Era (1900-1920)

• The Old Ball Game: How John McGraw, Christy Mathewson, and the New York Giants Created Modern Baseball – Frank Deford
• Ty Cobb: A Terrible Beauty – Charles Leerhsen
• Smoky Joe Wood: The Biography of a Baseball Legend – Gerald C. Wood
• The Battle that Forged Modern Baseball: The Federal League Challenge and Its Legacy – Daniel R. Levitt
• Eight Men Out: The Black Sox and the 1919 World Series – Eliot Asinof
• The Pitch That Killed: Carl Mays, Ray Chapman and the Pennant Race of 1920 – Mike Sowell
• The Glory of Their Times: The Story of the Early Days of Baseball Told by the Men Who Played It – Lawrence S. Ritter
• Catcher: How the Man Behind the Plate Became an American Folk Hero – Peter Morris

Baseball in Connecticut

• Major League Baseball in Gilded Age Connecticut: The Rise and Fall of the Middletown, New Haven and Hartford Clubs – David Arcidiacono
• Middletown’s Season in the Sun: The Story of Connecticut’s First Professional Baseball Team – David Arcidiacono
• Grace, Grit and Growling: The Hartford Dark Blues Base Ball Club, 1874-1877 – David Arcidiacono
• Roger Connor: Home Run King of 19th Century Baseball – Roy Kerr
• Orator O’Rourke: The Life of a Baseball Radical – Mike Roer
• Connecticut Baseball:: The Best of the Nutmeg State – Don Harrison
• Baseball in New Haven (CT) – Sam Rubin
• 19th Century Baseball, New Haven Style — Steve Scarpa
• The New England League: A Baseball History 1855-1949 — Charlie Bevis

• Online Articles:
  • Baseball Fever 1866 – Edward Baker
  • The New York Game in the Rose City: Baseball comes to Norwich, 1865-1870 – Robert D. Farwell
  • Billy Gardner – Tyler Ash and Bill Nowlin (with research by Michael Dreimiller)

Recommended Books About Connecticut’s Hall of Famers
Morgan Bulkeley (Inducted 1937)	Roger Connor (Inducted 1976)	Ned Hanlon (Inducted 1996)	Jim O’Rourke (Inducted 1945)	George Weiss (Inducted 1971)

Books By New London County Authors