In the earliest days of professional baseball, onlookers regarded the game with some ambivalence. To capture the hearts of the public, baseball needed teams worth watching-and no team was a better ambassador for baseball in the 19th century than the New York Giants.

Sporadically very good and at times even fashionable, the Giants of the 1800s were not yet the perennial power they would become in the early 20th century. They were, however, one of the league's best-known and most closely watched teams, playing as they did in the country's premier city. New York and its Giants epitomized the rise of industrialized America and the need for organized spectator diversions. Together, the city and the team helped propel baseball into its position as the national pastime.

This entry refers to the LARGE PRINT edition. For the standard edition please see ISBN 978-0-7864-2728-4.