Essential Reading on Vintage Cards, Early Baseball, etc.?

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Posted By: Greg Ecklund

For a book strictly on pre-war cards, the only one I can think of is Classic Baseball Cards: The Golden Years: 1886-1956 (by Frank Slocum). Doesn't have a ton of information on the sets, but it has every card from a great deal of classic sets pictured from 19th century and T206 all the way to 1955 Bowman. The 2004 Standard Catalog of Baseball Cards is also essential.

Here are some books on players and events from the era that I would recommend:

The Glory of Their Times - by Lawrence Ritter

The Black Prince of Baseball: Hal Chase and the Mythology of Baseball - by Donald Dewey, Nicholas Acocella

The Pitch That Killed - by Mike Sowell

July 2, 1903: The Mysterious Death of Hall of Famer Big Ed Delahanty - by Mike Sowell

Indian Summer: The Tragic Story of Louis Francis Sockalexis, the First Native American in Major League Baseball - by Brian McDonald

Walter Johnson: Baseball's Big Train - by Henry W. Thomas

Where They Ain't: The Fabled Life and Untimely Death of the Original Baltimore Orioles, the Team That Gave Birth to Modern Baseball - by Burt Solomon

The Ginger Kid: The Buck Weaver Story - by Irving M. Stein

Eight Men Out : The Black Sox and the 1919 World Series - by Eliot Asinof