Outside the Lines of Gilded Age Baseball: Gambling, Umpires, and Racism in 1880s Baseball

This is book 2 in the series on 1880s baseball from Society of American Baseball Research member Dr. Rob Bauer. He is a member of SABR's 19th Century and Deadball Era research committees.

Although on the decline, the threat of gambling on games continued menacing baseball in the 1880s. One issue that certainly was not in decline, however, was the abuse of umpires. Arguments and rows between players, fans, and umpires ranks among the most important issues in the game in this decade. Several major fights broke out every season. Many times, umpires narrowly escaped with their life. At least twice, they killed fans in their own self-defense. How did the situation grow so serious?

Equally regrettably, the 1880s was the decade in which baseball drew its color line, banning African Americans from the game. Even after that decision, however, racism showed its face in more subtle ways. Learn how prejudice continued to mar the game throughout the decade, especially when it came to baseball’s treatment of mascots.

• Outside the Lines of Gilded Age Baseball: Alcohol, Fitness, and Cheating in 1880s Baseball
• Outside the Lines of Gilded Age Baseball: The Origins of the 1890 Players League
• Baseball Gods in Scandal: Ty Cobb, Tris Speaker, and the Dutch Leonard Affair
• Gettysburg Eddie: The Story of Eddie Plank
• Baseball Revolutionaries: How the 1869 Cincinnati Red Stockings Rocked the Country and Made Baseball Famous
• The Glory of Their Times: The Story of the Early Days of Baseball Told by the Men Who Played It (Harper Perennial Modern Classics)
• The National Pastime, 2019: Pacific Ghosts: San Diego Baseball History (National Pastime: A Review of Baseball History Book 49)
• The Buffalo Soldier (Clarence Duval Series Book 3)
• The First Fall Classic: The Red Sox, the Giants and the Cast of Players, Pugs and Politicos Who Re-Invented the World Series in 1912
• Baseball Research Journal (BRJ), Volume 48, #1: Spring 2019