Description
Book SynopsisPresents in words and pictures 150 years of baseball history, from sandlot ball in the 1850s and the Pacific Coast League to the western arrival of the Dodgers, Giants, Angels, Athletics, and Padres. Here is a stirring, colourfully written narrative about the state that has been the birthplace and proving ground for more Major Leaguers than any other.
Trade Review“[This is] the rare baseball book that transcends its regional emphasis to earn a place on the shelf of anyone who loves the game. It reads like a core sample of a polar ice cap, with layer upon informative layer the deeper you go.”—David Kipen,
San Francisco Chronicle
“[Nelson’s] wholly charming and endearing book allows us to see baseball as a kind of benchmark for the birth and growth of California over the last century and a half. . . . Nelson shows us that baseball was always much more than a form of recreation or entertainment—it was a means of self-definition.”—Jonathan Kirsch,
Los Angeles Times Book Review “[An] excellent history. . . . You don’t have to be a Californian to enjoy these important chapters in the game’s history.”—Ron Fimrite,
Sports Illustrated “Nelson has a knack for research and an ear for good anecdotes as he reviews the impact California baseball has had not only on the game in this country but as an ‘export’ to Japan and Mexico as well.”—
Publishers Weekly “A superb blending of United States and California history, plus baseball. Well-illustrated and written in a compelling manner that few books can rightly claim, this is a rare literary sports treasure that can be recommended with great enthusiasm.”—
Oakland Tribune “I’ve read some terrific sports books in recent years . . . but I found none more interesting than Kevin Nelson's current page-turner,
The Golden Game: The Story of California Baseball. If you’re a baseball aficionado or even if you aren’t, this is a wonderfully researched narrative about the genesis of the sport in the state.”—Doug Krikorian,
Long Beach Press-Telegram Table of ContentsList of Illustrations
Foreword
Introduction
1. The Seed Is Planted
2. Stagecoach Baseball
3. Enter the Professionals
4. How Casey Advanced to the Bat
5. Train Ride South
6. From Robinson to Lange to Chance
7. A Brand-New Ballgame
8. A Ballpark Blooms in San Francisco
9. The Los Angeles Mix, Winter 1908
10. Schoolboys
11. Playgrounds
12. A Left-Hander for the Oaks
13. There Was a Crooked Man
14. The Pride of Their Community
15. Babe Ruth in California
16. An Experiment in Sound and Light
17. Barnstormers
18. In the Shadows of War
19. Joe, Ted, Jackie
20. War Games
21. Breakthrough
22. Golden Boys
23. In a Corner of the United States
24. Casey, Billy, and the Yanks
25. Brown Derby Baseball
26. They Changed the Game
27. Los Angeles Dodgers vs. San Francisco Giants, April 1958
28. The Last Days of Ty Cobb
29. The Cowboy Rides In
30. The Next Generation
31. 1969
Epilogue
Acknowledgments
Source Notes
Bibliography
Index
