From the early 1900s to the 1950s, baseball games between mine workers were a small-town phenomenon. Based on interviews with players, families of deceased players, and contemporary sources this history covers not only teams and leagues but their function within the mining communities of Virginia, Kentucky and West Virginia.

This work traces the history of New Mexican baseball to the days of Billy the Kid and Geronimo. The author describes a kind of feudal society in those early years of the Wild West, where soldiers, miners, criminals, homesteaders, farmers, and the still unsubdued Apaches populated the land, but where baseball existed and was played by a strange amalgamation of Americans.

One of early baseball's most popular celebrities, Arlie Latham played for the St. Louis Browns in the 1880s. A brainy hitter and base-runner, he was also the sport's brashest, funniest player, his "fresh" personality bringing him as much trouble as reward. He played with the 19th century's greatest names, and was friends with everyone from King Kelly to King George V. He parlayed his stardom into a vaudeville career and the first official major league coaching job. In his fifties he carried the game he loved into world war to cheer Allied troops and in his seventies went to work for the...