'Baseball and Cricket' places the growing popularity of the two sports within the social context of mid 19th century American cities. The text follows baseball's transition from a leisure sport to a commercialised, professional enterprise and offers a discussion of the early American cricket clubs.

"Looking over the legends and stars of both sports, explaining the rules, complete with glossary, Right Off the Bat is a fine assortment of knowledge, very much recommended for any curious sports fan."—Midwest Book Review It's been said that baseball and cricket are two sports divided by a common language. Both employ bats, balls, innings, and umpires. Fans of both steep themselves in statistics, revel in nostalgia, and toss around baffling jargon. In Right Off the Bat, baseball nut Evander Lomke and cricket buff Martin Rowe explain "their" sport—and their love of it—to the other sport's fans. You'll come away finding yourself as fascinated by legbreaks and inswingers as you are by knuckleballs and sliders (or vice versa). Are you a dyed-in-the-wool baseball fan who nevertheless harbors a nagging doubt as to whether Babe Ruth was, in fact, the greatest athlete ever to swing a bat? When you think of cricket, is what comes to mind stuffy Victorians standing around in a field, twirling their mustaches and saying silly things like "Howzat" or "googly"? Or are you a staunch cricket fan who sometimes wonders whether a screwball is really as difficult to execute as a doosra? Do you ask yourself where the thrill is in watching a ball sail 400 feet over a wall and just past the outstretched fingers of a fielder wearing a glove (and all for a paltry one run)? Well, step right up and take a seat—you've got a lot to learn (for example, the very first international cricket match was played in the United States). And Right Off the Bat is just the book for you.

This book offers a comprehensive and detailed overview of specific sports-related injuries and a valuable guide for decision-making to establish the best strategies to prevent and manage such injuries. As a thorough understanding of each sports modality plays a key role, both in injury prevention and management, a dedicated chapter is devoted to each sports discipline. An international panel of authors examines all most popular individual and team sports – including athletics, swimming, combat sports, cycling, tennis, American football, baseball, basketball, soccer and volleyball, just to mention a few. Three additional chapters present special aspects related to sports injuries: mental health concerns in athletes, radiological assessment and patient reported-outcomes tailored to sports medicine. All chapters share a consistent format, starting with a brief presentation of the sport and its history, and then discussing its dynamics, physical demands on the athlete, common sports-related injuries, biomechanics of injuries, first aid on the field, and injury prevention. This book offers valuable resource to orthopaedists, sports physicians as well as physiotherapists practicing in the field of sports-related injuries.

This book explores these two great bat and ball sports side by side, comparing their origins, equipment, rules and key moments in their histories. Along the way it reveals some remarkable surprises and helps us to understand why baseball is America's game and cricket England's summer pastime.

It may be America?s game, but no one seems to know how or when baseball really started. Theories abound, myths proliferate, but reliable information has been in short supply?until now, when Baseball before We Knew It brings fresh new evidence of baseball?s origins into play. David Block looks into the early history of the game and of the 150-year-old debate about its beginnings. He tackles one stubborn misconception after another, debunking the enduring belief that baseball descended from the English game of rounders and revealing a surprising new explanation for the most notorious myth of all?the Abner Doubleday?Cooperstown story. ø Block?s book takes readers on an exhilarating journey through the centuries in search of clues to the evolution of our modern National Pastime. Among his startling discoveries is a set of long-forgotten baseball rules from the 1700s. Block evaluates the originality and historical significance of the Knickerbocker rules of 1845, revisits European studies on the ancestry of baseball which indicate that the game dates back hundreds, if not thousands of years, and assembles a detailed history of games and pastimes from the Middle Ages onward that contributed to baseball?s development. In its thoroughness and reach, and its extensive descriptive bibliography of early baseball sources, this book is a unique and invaluable resource?a comprehensive, reliable, and readable account of baseball before it was America?s game.

The untold story of baseball’s nineteenth-century origins: “a delightful look at a young nation creating a pastime that was love from the first crack of the bat” (Paul Dickson, The Wall Street Journal). You may have heard that Abner Doubleday or Alexander Cartwright invented baseball. Neither did. You may have been told that a club called the Knickerbockers played the first baseball game in 1846. They didn’t. Perhaps you’ve read that baseball’s color line was first crossed by Jackie Robinson in 1947. Nope. Baseball’s true founders don’t have plaques in Cooperstown. They were hundreds of uncredited, ordinary people who played without gloves, facemasks, or performance incentives. Unlike today’s pro athletes, they lived full lives outside of sports. They worked, built businesses, and fought against the South in the Civil War. In this myth-busting history, Thomas W. Gilbert reveals the true beginnings of baseball. Through newspaper accounts, diaries, and other accounts, he explains how it evolved through the mid-nineteenth century into a modern sport of championships, media coverage, and famous stars—all before the first professional league was formed in 1871. Winner of the Casey Award: Best Baseball Book of the Year

What role did team sports play in the social and urban history of mid-nineteenth-century America? And why did Americans choose baseball over its early rival, cricket, as the national pastime? George Kirsch takes us back to the amateur playing fields to observe the players, the clubs, and their fans from 1838 to 1872. Drawing upon contemporary sporting sheets and newspaper accounts, Kirsch re-creates the excitement of early baseball and cricket matches. He discusses the competition between the two sports to determine which would become the favored game in America. He also examines the experiences of the artisans, factory workers, shopkeepers, clerks, managers, and professionals who played ball either informally or on organized teams. "The Creation of American Team Sports" is a comprehensive narrative history that places the growing popularity of baseball and cricket within the social context of mid-nineteenth-century American cities. -- From publisher's description.