The Great Baseball Revolt

Reviews / Votes

"[The Great Baseball Revolt] makes a substantial contribution to our understanding of the early days of the business of baseball."-Roger I. Abrams, New York Journal of Books "Robert Ross has done some heavy lifting with producing this book."-Gregg's Baseball Bookcase "As a contribution to our understanding of the role of athletes and sports leagues in American life, this text is outstanding. From it, I learned why I should care about economic details that at first did not interest me. I also learned what David Ortiz and Clayton Kershaw owe to John Montgomery Ward."-Edward G. Mahoney, New York Labor History "Ross is a gifted writer and storyteller, who brings to life the larger-than-life characters who fought to create the league, and thus something like a cooperative of leisure capital (John Montgomery Ward, Mike Kelly, and dozens more) or worked to undermine it (most prominently Albert Spalding, the sporting goods impresario). The Great Baseball Revolt is a fine example of narrative history being put to work for historical-geographical explication."-AAG Review of Books "This book is both well written and well researched, and the author does an excellent job of making this material accessible for nonacademics without losing any of the scholarship required of such a work. I recommend this book to not just scholars of sport, labor, and urban geography, but also to anyone who considers themselves a baseball fan. The Players League is a significant event in the early history of baseball, and one, until now, that has been largely forgotten."-Michael Hawkins, Historical Geography "Sports historians rarely reference the 1890s Players League-that failed attempt at radical baseball democracy. That's because this is history that's dangerous to the current powers that be, because it's an example, however flawed, of athletes trying to take their destinies into their own hands. Robert Ross's ingenious book restores this narrative to its rightful place not only in sports history but in our collective people's history. If your list of heroes ranges from Henry Aaron to Howard Zinn, you will absolutely love this book."-Dave Zirin, sports editor of The Nation