In the early 1870s, baseball was chaos, mired in mismanagement and corruption. William Hulbert, the owner of Chicagos National Association team, believed that a league run efficiently with honest competition wouldsurvive and flourish. Hulbert, relying on his pragmatic philosophy of molasses now, vinegar later and working with his prize recruit Albert Spalding, founded the National League in 1876.

That inaugural season of the National League is chronicled in this heavily documented work. The league fell far short of Hulberts dreams in its first season, but he stuck to his belief that...