In the wake of the 1919 White Sox scandal and the suspension for life of eight players, baseball saw a precipitous decline in popularity, especially among America's youth. To combat this, a group of World War I veterans who were members of the newly formed American Legion created an organization to promote teenage interest in baseball. Led by John L. Griffith, who became the first commissioner of the Big Ten Conference, the Legion undertook the revival of baseball. In the 1920s and through the Great Depression and World War II, Legion baseball grew steadily. By 1950 it had become the principal training ground for major league players, boasting at its peak more than 16,000 teams across the country. Tracing the long history of this uniquely American institution, this work details each year's American Legion World Series and the ups and downs of participation over nearly a century.

The small and midsized cities of western Pennsylvania, Ohio and West Virginia reached their peaks of population and prosperity in the second quarter of the 20th century. The baseball teams from these towns formed the Middle Atlantic League, the strongest circuit in the low minors and the one with the most alumni to advance to the majors. The MAL played from 1925 through 1951 and went through three distinct phases. In the pre-Depression years, communities rallied around the home team, which always stood one step from financial disaster. During the Great Depression, the league flourished as president Elmer Daily magically found investors and night baseball boosted attendance working class. Middle Atlantic League clubs enjoyed a modicum of financial stability and an infusion of outstanding young players and became talent farms for major league teams. During this period Akron, Dayton, Canton, Springfield, Portsmouth and Zanesville, Ohio became the core cities of the league's strongest era. Following World War II, America and baseball experienced seismic cultural and economic shifts with television, the baby boom, suburban growth and changing family values, which overwhelmed the league and its cities.

West Virginia sprang into existence as a state in the midst of the Civil War, and ""base ball,"" as it was called then, was close on the heels of statehood. A game in 1866 hosted by the Hunkidori Base Ball Club in Wheeling, then the state capital, is considered the first ""match game of Base Ball."" Some historians contend the game spread via the movement of soldiers who were from urban areas. The real roots of baseball are not the romantic image of rural boys in sandlots or lazy father-son afternoons (just as West Virginia is not the backward, poverty-stricken state that stereotypes paint, the author notes). It was born and came of age as an urban sport, a social pursuit of well-heeled young men that in the early days often involved banquets and shows following each game. In this book the author traces the history of minor league and independent league baseball in West Virginia. Baseball below the minor leagues has a rich and comparatively unexplored history, this author asserts, and West Virginia has made substantial contributions to this legacy. Chapters examine the chronological history of baseball and the larger economic and cultural changes that have influenced it since end of the Civil War. Eras include baseball as a social game (through 1873); the emergence of professional baseball (through 1895); its second boom (through 1905); the deadball era (through 1920); the Martinsburg dynasty (1914 to 1934); as a miners' sport (1920 to 1941); the Middle Atlantic League (1925-1942); the Mountain State League (1937-1942); the post-war years (1945-1955); the nadir (1955-1985) and finally, a chapter titled ""A Minor Miracle"" (1985-2000) that heralds a comeback in the popularity of professional baseball.