This entertaining, informative and easily understood guide digs into the roots of baseball in and around Cleveland, starting in the 1840's and closing with the end of the century in 1900. It is an outline with a large volume of baseball information where the chapters are chronologically and geographically ordered accounts of games and off-field happenings that made the news. This is a complete history of the sport at all levels in its formative year-until now, that not only reflects the economic and social growth of Cleveland, during this the time of Industrial Revolution, but all of America as well. It also contains a fascinating but forgotten story of baseball on the Western Reserve, from its infancy as an amateur game through its growth into adulthood as a professional sport. Also included are several dozen illustrations and photostats from microfilm newspaper records, along with an alphabetical list of all names and subjects. Dozens of box scores, with players' names and statistics for important games, are found throughout the text as well as complete team standings at year end.