Would you consider yourself an expert on a particular subject matter? How about a multi-subject expert capable of rattling off statistics, historical facts, and completely captivating an audience with your extensive knowledge of baseball or American history or movies or music? If you are an expert and are approached with a blog, a book, a movie about your area of expertise, do you tend to immediately shun it as inferior or embrace it to gain even more knowledge? What if the book or blog or movie shed some light on those “gray areas” in your vault of expertise that just might help you become an even bigger expert? Or what if the movie or blog or book was so well composed, you just fell into a beautiful piece of humble pie and let its material just flow effortlessly into your brain of knowledge? If you answered yes to any of these questions (as I have), follow me into The New York Game.

Kevin Baker’s latest impressive work, The New York Game, is a fascinating book I just read from cover to cover in very short order. It’s full title describes the premise of the book and why I wanted to read it – “Baseball and the Rise of a New City.” New York City, long considered one of the finest cities in the world, was not always so fine, so upstanding, so desirable to live and work in. Living and working and social conditions around the turn of the 20th century were difficult at best. It was a city and area that was growing far too fast for its own good. Immigrants, migrations, military men and their families, so many packed into what is now Manhattan, Brooklyn, The Bronx, Queens in what seemed like overnight. Manufacturing, distilleries, shipping, construction, warehousing were just a few of the industries booming in the late 1800s in this area. Many lives were broken, lost, humbled by New York City in the late 1800s going into the 1900s. The lyrics in that oh so famous New York theme song, first song by Liza Minnelli in 1977, and later immortalized by Frank Sinatra years later, barely touched the surface of the massive struggles to be in New York at that period – “If I can make it there, I can…make it anywhere.” Baker tells the story of a very different New York that many of us can’t even imagine.

Baseball was evolving in the late 1800s into a sport. What were its humble beginnings? What sports did it compete against for fans, spectators, and to recruit into the sport? Who organized baseball games and where were they played? How did the teams of today originate or who were the founding fathers? Who were allowed to participate, who was segregated, who was in charge of those rules? What were the early rules? Did any of those early rules stick in the game we know today? How did one city, New York City, become so lucky to have three major league franchises at the same time? What are the foundational moments of the New York Giants, the New York Yankees, and the Brooklyn Dodgers? Who was pulling the strings at “Town Hall” to make sure those organizations got favorable land deals and other perks? Kevin Baker will tell you all you need to know in The New York Game.

Do you like stars in your movies and books? Here is a short list of stars you can read all about in The New York Game. Babe Ruth, you think you know a lot about him, maybe you do, but have a read and learn even more. How good was Ruth’s baseball career and celebrity life and why are modern analysts even putting him in the same category with anyone else like Shohei Ohtani or Mike Trout? How about Arnold Rothstein, aka “The Brain? You may have seen a clip of him in the movie “Eight Men Out,” find out more about Rothstein’s place in New York baseball history. John McGraw, first a professional baseball player for the Baltimore Orioles, then a longtime professional baseball manager, is a constant thread in New York baseball history. And his antics and business arrangements off the field will surprise you, I promise. Ever hear of Harry Frazee or Joe DiMaggio or Casey Stengel or Frank Grant or John Montgomery Ward or Walter O’Malley or Fiorello La Guardia? The politicians, the ball players, the baseball cathedrals in New York City, the owners, the pool hall managers, the mistresses, the celebrities in this book are literally a who’s who of American history in the turn of the 20th century. Absolutely must read stuff for the history buff!

Circling back to my original questions… yes I consider myself an expert when it comes to baseball. Yes, I typically am cynical when a friend or Rachel or pretty much anyone suggests I watch a certain baseball movie about the Cape Cod League or a book about how baseball was originated in Egypt. However, in some cases, yes I will take that a giant slice of humble pie and immerse myself into something that makes my knowledge of baseball expand to new levels. And in this case, that slice of humble pie is called The New York Game. To say it is thorough and mind blowing and well written and interesting is just not kind enough for Kevin Baker. It is a brilliant piece of history that methodically tells of the rise of the new city, brick by brick, life by life. I enthusiastically recommend this book to anyone, experts included, who has a passion for baseball and American history.

To learn more about the book and how you can purchase your copy, follow this link – The New York Game, Baseball and the Rise of a New City.