Before They Were Cardinals: Major League Baseball in Nineteenth-Century St. Louis.

By Jon David Cash. Sports and American Culture Series. (Columbia and London: University of Missouri Press, c. 2002. Pp. [xvi], 279. $29.95, ISBN 0-8262-1401-0.)

When modern fans think about professional baseball in St. Louis, they usually focus on the highly successful Cardinals. Jon David Cash instead examines that franchise in its predecessor guise as the Brown Stockings (more commonly, the Browns) in this study of the origins of pro baseball in St. Louis from 1875 through the early 1890s. He organizes the book around several overlapping themes: the commercial and sporting rivalry betweeen St. Louis and Chicago; the key role played by St. Louis saloon owner Chris Von der Ahe in developing top-flight baseball in the city; and the competition for supremacy between the National League and the American Association.

Cash uses primary sources, mainly newspapers and materials from the Missouri Historical Society, to provide an entertaining story and a snapshot of major issues affecting major league baseball during the late nineteenth century. After providing readers with a crash course in rules and rule changes of the time period, Cash examines topics such as gambling (particularly the "hippodrome" [pp. 133-34]--that is, a game whose outcome was fixed), player salaries and the reserve clause, and problems of contract jumping. Perhaps the most interesting overriding issue Cash focuses on is the economic war between the American Association and the National League, both of which were major leagues at the time. The Browns were usually the best team in the Association, which was seen as a workingman's league since it upheld a twenty-five cent admission price, the sale of beer at games, and Sunday competitions. The Chicago White Stockings were often the best team on the rival National League circuit, which represented middle-class values: admission was fifty cents, and both beer and Sunday games were prohibited. Although the National League still survives in name today under the "major league baseball" umbrella, Cash shrewdly points out that the values of the American Association mainly prevailed in the long run.

Cash might have developed further the social conditions and other factors that caused some cities to opt for National League baseball and others the Association's brand of ball. It is clear why Von der Ahe and St. Louis fans preferred beer and Sunday play, but not why the White Stockings' leadership and their fans favored the National League style. Beyond this, Cash's commentary on the various pennant races is uneven throughout the book. He provides nearly a game-by-game narrative of the pennant race during some seasons, while in others only the World Championship Series is discussed in detail. For many people, too much baseball (or any kind of sport commentary) is dull reading. Cash might have used rule changes, player biographies, social issues, or important contemporary events to break up some of the baseball narrative. For example, during the 1886 season a discussion of the Haymarket affair in Chicago might have provided an intriguing sidelight to the ongoing war between the American Association and the National League. Despite these few reservations, most baseball followers (especially St. Louis fans) will enjoy and profit from Cash's book.

JOHN M. CARROLL 

Lamar University