Winner of the Seymour Medal from the Society for American Baseball Research
Winner of the North American Society for Sport History Book Award
A Choice Outstanding Academic Title
When Baseball before We Knew It was first published in 2005, it shattered many long-held assumptions about the pastime’s origins. No, baseball was not original to America. No, baseball did not come from the English game rounders. Yes, of course, the Doubleday story was in fact a myth, but for the first time its secret backstory had been revealed. Beyond all its myth busting, Baseball before We Knew It traveled back in time to uncover the true roots of the sport, exploring the many antecedent ball games from Britain and elsewhere that contributed bits of themselves to baseball’s evolution.
Now, in this twentieth anniversary edition of his classic work, David Block fills in more of baseball’s origin story by summarizing the discove
