The New York Game

Baseball and the Rise of a New City

By: Kevin Baker

Narrated by: L.J. Ganser

Length: 19 hrs and 59 mins

Publisher's summary

The New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice • A hugely entertaining history of baseball in New York City, bursting with bigger than life figures, and long-forgotten heroes, spanning the game’s founding to the early 1940s

"You’re going to beg for extra innings. Without missing a scandal or a sensation, with an eye on how assimilation transforms the picture, Kevin Baker has written a buoyant, double coming-of-age story."—Stacy Schiff, Pulitzer Prize-winning author

Baseball is “the New York game” because the city is where the white lines were first drawn, where a bunt was first laid, and where the curve ball was first thrown. It’s also where the superstars first emerged, and where social progress in the sport was first made. With nuance and depth, historian Kevin Baker brings this all back to life: the games–World Series in 1905, 1919, 1932; the players–Babe Ruth, Joe DiMaggio, Lou Gehrig; the coaches and managers–John McGraw, “Foxy Ned” Hanlon, Clark Griffith; and even the writers, reporters, and spectators. The result is a portrait of baseball’s most transformative years amidst New York City’s evolution from a heaving, stinking, fantastic city to a global capital.

No one is better placed to write this book than Baker, a life-long Yankee fan, beloved historical novelist, and part-time historian to the city that doesn’t sleep. In his hands the city and game emerge from the murk of nineteenth century American life together–driven by big personalities and gangsters, but ultimately requiring regulation and organization. Baker details how the game and New York came to mirror one another, growing and expanding, bumbling through the sociopolitical concerns of the day, and rising out of these trials stronger than before.

From the establishment of the New York Knickerbockers Base Ball Club by a young Manhattan shipping clerk in 1846; to the shrewd financial investments that spread the game nationally, resulting in the first professional league; to the fan loyalty that skyrocketed at the turn of the century; to local investment in teams of Hispanic and Black players, trailblazers for the breaking of the color line; to the pressures of multiple world wars, The New York Game is at once a fascinating and comprehensive account of baseball. Long-forgotten legends finally get their due. The New York Game is an ode to the game of baseball and its city of origin.

©2024 Kevin Baker (P)2024 Random House Audio

Critic reviews

"Let me put it this way: You’re going to beg for extra innings. Without missing a scandal or a sensation, with an eye on how assimilation transforms the picture, Kevin Baker has written a buoyant, double coming-of-age story. He leaves plenty of myths—and Abner Doubleday—by the wayside. He carries us on a high-octane tour from baseball’s early, pre-league days to the first box scores, past Giants, Bridegrooms, and Highlanders, to stadium singalongs and brawling, betting, and umpire-flattening. A naked Babe Ruth is the least of the wonders in this exuberant, deliriously readable, glorious grand slam of a book."—Stacy Schiff, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Revolutionary: Samuel Adams

"No one knows New York City better than Kevin Baker, so it's only natural that he would breathe such spectacular life into the stories of the National Pastime in the Capital of Baseball. A remarkable, complicated doubleheader of a book."— Ken Burns, filmmaker

"An insightful, beautifully crafted narrative...One hopes for a second volume from Kevin Baker, every bit as good as [The New York Game]."—David Oshinsky, The New York Times

Need volume two

Now I know why my mother only mentioned seeing Babe Ruth when she was young. This book really makes it clear why he was such a legend. Parts of his life are sprinkled throughout this book. This is so well done that I hope they will continue and bring baseball up to the current time. Even though, this will bring up the painful time when baseball had a slow response to performance enhancing drugs, compared to other sports. I am sure he will have some amusing descriptions of the steroid enhanced players going from the typical lanky baseball player to the Incredible Hulk in one to three years.
What will he say about Pete Rose?

Great History of the Game and the City

A brilliant delightful book. I’m a lifelong New Yorker but I learned a ton about my city. And about baseball. Sad to see it end. I will be giving this book to many people.