A Clever Base-Ballist: The Life and Times of John Montgomery Ward

Providing yet more support to the theory that one should take a close look at baseball in order to understand America, Di Salvatore paints a lively portrait of 19th-century America by focusing on the life of Ward (1860-1925). Ward began his career as a professional baseball player in the late 1870s, just as the sport transformed from a popular amateur club game into a competitive business. In that transformation are rooted many of the issues that confront baseball today, and Di Salvatore follows baseball's evolution masterfully, with Ward the touchstone for the era. Ward himself evolved from small-town hopeful to gentleman star, from seasoned captain to mastermind of the first players' union. Along the way, he pitched the first perfect game ever recorded (though no one called it that yet); married a famous actress, Helen Dauvray (the marriage ended in a publicized divorce); and saved the art of the slide (the retired star argued against allowing players to run through every base, not just first). Di Salvatore avoids romantic nostalgia, relying instead on a narrative structure that breathes life into abstract topics such as owner-player relations, the changing rules of the game and the origin of the dreaded reserve clause, which drove Ward and the Brotherhood of Professional Base Ball Players to start their own league in 1890 (it lasted a year). Offering entertaining anecdotes and intelligent analysis, Di Salvatore, who has written for the New Yorker, Outside and other publications, tells a good story rife with captivating social history that reveals how different the game--and yet how similar the world--was long ago. (Aug.)