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A Game of Inches

By Dr. John D. Eigenauer
August 25, 2006

It would be difficult to find a better baseball book this year than Peter Morris’ first volume of A Game of Inches, volume I: The Game on the Field. But the second volume of Morris’ work, A Game of Inches, volume II: The Game Behind the Scenes, comes close. (The second volume, also published by Ivan R. Dee, is due out October 6, 2006). Both volumes are monuments of baseball scholarship and research, representing years of work, meticulous fact finding, and admirable cooperation with baseball’s scholarly community.

I wrote in my review of Morris’ first volume that I could have concluded the review with two words: “absolutely terrific.” The second volume deserves equal praise. There are, however, some important differences between the two volumes.

First, because this is an encyclopedic history of baseball off the field, the research required was less accessible and the fascinating results more surprising. While the invention of the curveball may have been clouded by various claimants’ desire for fame, the history of baseball autographs (for example) is nothing short of opaque. To overcome the difficulty of occasional obscurity of origin, Morris provides fascinating background on numerous entries such as the one on Autographs. There we learn about early autograph collectors (who focused on famous intellectuals), about why baseball players’ autographs were not sought after (because the players were considered to be of a lower social class), and of their growth in popularity that became so extreme that by 1937 players were known to use rubber stamps.

Second, Morris expands his entries on innovative firsts to include more complete histories, placing the subjects within a broad context. Morris does not end his entry on Admission Fees, for example, by telling us merely when and where the first admission was charged. Instead, he tells the story of the relationship between admission and enclosed stadiums and of the gradual transition to charging for games, which was made easier through benefit games. This makes for very engaging reading.

Volume 1 Peter Morris's well-received first volume was reviewed in June.

Finally, Morris includes categories that one would never think of. I might have guessed that the first volume would include entries on when the first shin guards, face masks, and catchers’ gloves were introduced, but I never would have thought about Collusion, Pay for Spring Training, Turnstiles, and City Series. Indeed, part of the book’s intrigue is discovering what comes next, and it holds many surprises.

Morris opens with a long chapter on Building a Team that, while organized in encyclopedic fashion, is really an essay on talent acquisition. Morris argues that as soon as baseball became a competitive business, those in charge sought to improve their rosters. This quest for talent played against the background of contracts, player agreements, drafts, scouting, competitive balance, team ownership, attempts at unionization, finances, and many other factors that alternately helped and hindered the search. Morris does a terrific job of tying these themes together and demonstrating that baseball from an early age has been more than a game. In doing so, he shows that malice, ingenuity, stubbornness, and self interest played roles in what is often assumed to have been a rational process.

Equally interesting and well-written are the chapters on Ballparks, Fans, Marketing, and Money, to name a few. These chapters tell fascinating stories of leaders who pushed for innovation, or strived to maintain the status quo. Bill Veeck’s name comes up in the usual places, but so do the names John T. Brush, Larry McPhail, Al Eckert, Alva Bradley, Chris Von de Ahe, Thomas Hutchinson, E. W. Morgan, and many others. Somehow, Morris ties together fireworks shows, scorecards, brooms, fantasy camps, Astroturf, replays, and pension funds into a broad collection of facts that reads remarkably like a narrative.

The best aspect of this book, in fact, is the immaculate prose. It is not easy to tell the story of free agency in three pages, but Morris does it. As an example of Morris’ writing that captures his ability to present complex phenomena economically, consider this passage: “The reserve clause was finally brought to the Supreme Court in 1922, where Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., wrote a ruling that held that baseball was not interstate commerce and was therefore exempt from antitrust laws. While the legal basis of this finding struck many as dubious, baseball players had no choice but to accept it. With the courts against them and no rival league to turn to, most players came to view the reserve clause as a necessary evil, with some even defending it against periodic challenges.” As in this passage, Morris repeatedly provides the reader with a broad range of knowledge in a short space. I have simply never read a more well-written baseball book.

Just like the first volume, Morris’ A Game of Inches, volume II: The Game Behind the Scenes, receives my unconditional recommendation. It is insightful, informative, thorough, well researched, and extraordinarily well written. Years from now we will look back and call these two volumes some of the most important historical baseball scholarship written to date.

John Eigenauer can be contacted at jeigenauer@yahoo.com. A complete list of his reviews and more about him can be found here.