With "Final Innings" Dean Sullivan concludes his four-volume documentary history of baseball, whose three earlier volumes have been called "a broad array of illuminating and often unexpected materials" ("Sports Collectors Digest"), "an invaluable reference tool" ("Newark Star-Ledger"), and a "fascinating collection" ("Washington Post"), in which "ancient myths are shattered and new facts are uncovered" ("USA Today Baseball Weekly"). Culling the most pertinent, newsworthy, and just plain curious stories from newspapers and periodicals, and putting each into context, Sullivan constructs an informative and entertaining account of Major League baseball from 1972 through 2008. The 105 essays cover key topics such as George Steinbrenner's purchase of the Yankees, the first free-agent draft, the coming of lights to Wrigley Field, the cancellation of the World Series in 1994, and the BALCO steroid probe. They also bring to light lesser-known gems like the rise of sabermetrics and the federal injunction against team owners in 1995. Offering a you-are-there view of the events that made baseball into the game we know today, this book gives readers a chance to go back and experience baseball's recent history as it happened and was reported by many of the game's finest writers and most prominent voices.

"Late Innings: A Documentary History of Baseball, 1945-1972" is the third volume in Dean A. Sullivan's successful series on the vibrant history of baseball. Through 114 contemporary documents, "Late Innings" examines everything from Jackie Robinson's ground-breaking assault on the color barrier to Roger Maris's run on the home run record to the first stirrings of labor-management unrest in the 1970s. "Late Innings" also looks at exciting on-field activities, the antitrust controversy, issues of expansion, the effect of television on the game, and several other points of interest swirling around baseball in postwar America.

In this text, Dean A. Sullivan presents an array of provocative, unexpected, and illuminating materials revealing the rich history of baseball. The 105 pieces in this work cover such topics as the Merkle Boner, Jim Thorpe, Christy Mathewson, the Black Sox scandal, Lou Gehrig, the death of Ray Chapman, Ty Cobb, Dizzy Dean, and more from the storied major leagues. Lesser-known treasures celebrate semipro teams, boys' baseball fiction, Japanese baseball, college ball, black baseball, the minor leagues, women's teams, and other facets of the wonderful game of baseball.

This compilation of 120 primary writings documents baseball's first century, from a loosely organized village social event to the arrival of the National League. Collecting from a wide range of sources--including newspaper accounts, letters, folk poetry, songs, and annual guides--Dean A. Sullivan of Fairfax, Virginia, progresses chronologically from the earliest known baseball reference (1825) to the creation of the Doubleday Myth (1908).