BASEBALL AND MR. SPALDING

This book will provide new fields of exploration for modern baseball fans in the story of baseball's first great pitcher --later the man who founded the great sporting goods store that still supplies the major leagues with all their equipment. Spalding was almost a contemporary of the great American game -- born in 1850, only five years after the formation of the first organized ball club. As a tall teen-ager, he won fame as baseball's first great pitcher, during the post-Civil War era, when all hurling had to be done underhand. Passing his prime as a player while still in his twenties, the energetic and intelligent Spalding turned more and more to the organizational end of the game -- became president of the Chicago White Stockings, and began publishing a Guide to baseball. Soon he and his brother were launched in the business of manufacturing and selling sport equipment. For addicts of all ages.