Welcome to the War

A play at the plate during the deadball era

I thought I knew something about baseball history. Not everything, of course—but enough. Enough to name the stars, recite a few memorable stats, and trace the game from the birth of the two-league system to the modern era of sabermetrics and interleague play.

Then I started to dig deeper. That’s when the ground shifted.

I was looking into the 1901 season—a year often reduced to generalities about rowdyism, clean baseball, and the birth of the American League. But what I found was something far messier. Far more dramatic. A third major league had emerged, threatening to upset everyone’s plans. The National League was arrogant and inept. The American League was uncertain and underfunded. Violence on the field was so common that players like Iron Joe McGinnity were expelled from the American League.

The more I read, the stranger—and more compelling—the stories became.

So I started writing. And before I knew it, my first manuscript had ballooned to over 200,000 words. Publishing wisdom says a history book should top out around 90,000. Which meant more than half the stories never saw the light of day.

That’s what this blog is for.

Here, I’ll share what didn’t fit between the covers. Forgotten players. Twisted deals. Petty feuds. Gritty cities. Baseball in its raw, unfiltered form—like you’ve never seen it before.

The American League wasn’t supposed to survive. The National League was tearing itself apart. And yet, somehow, the game endured.

Welcome to the war.