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Book Review:
Baseball Legends of Brooklyn's Green-Wood Cemetery
by Jonathan Leshanski
May 1, 2004
Book Review: Baseball Legends of Brooklyn’s
Green-Wood Cemetery
By Peter J. Nash
Published by Arcadia Publishing as part of their Images of Baseball
series.
P. 128
If you live in the Greater New York City area and you are a member
of SABR, or if you read the NY Times you would have received an
invitation to take a tour of Brooklyn’s Green-Wood Cemetery
for a visit to the graves of some of the men that shaped the game
of baseball as we know it today. The tour was lead by Green-Wood’s
own historian Jeff Richman and SABR’s Peter Nash who were there
to share the rich baseball history and the stories of its founders
- including the four men that all have claim to being the “Father
of Baseball”.
While Green-Wood is just a hop, skip and jump from where I am sitting
right now, I was unable to take the tour - so instead I read Peter
Nash’s book, which might just be the best alternative to actually
being there (or might be even better if you don’t like trudging
around cemeteries - which I have just been informed from over my
shoulder is creepy).
However in my mind it’s not really about the gravesites, but
rather the history of the men that are interred there that makes
for thought provoking musings. Within these Elysian Fields are the
founders and the most influential men of their times when it came
to baseball including perhaps the most important man in Brooklyn’s
baseball history, Charles Ebbet, one of Brooklyn’s favorite
sons and the early owner of Brooklyn’s National League franchise
and the builder of Ebbet's field.
The book is largely a picture book and uses the cemetery and monuments
to trace the early days of the game from the pioneers who codified
the rules of the game and the ballparks through the amateur era
when baseball was played by sporting clubs or gentlemen’s clubs
to its early rough and tumble days as a professional sport. In this
respect Green-Wood is a unique place, where more of baseball’s
formative years and players are represented than any other place
on earth - even more so than Cooperstown.
In its infancy baseball was not known so much as baseball but as
the “New York game” - which was to say that of all the
variants that were played the New York version formalized and played
by the Knickerbocker Club of New York in the 1840’s and 1850’s.
The Knickerbockers were the first of the formal baseball clubs.
Several of the Knickerbockers have at least a partial claim to the
title of the father of baseball and in fact four of them all credited
as the “father of the game” have their final resting place
here.
The cemetery is in many ways a tourist attraction with many monuments
relating to baseball and the players interred here. Its influence
can even be felt in many of the modern ballparks as Green-Wood was
the template for Yankee Stadium’s monument park and similar
tributes that can be seen even in one of the newest of baseball’s
parks, Citizen’s Bank Park in Philadelphia.
I must admit that I really didn’t think I would enjoy this
book very much but I was rather pleasantly surprised. At times it
can be a bit wearying reading about guys who you have never heard
of, but there is so much history - most of it almost a secret history
of the game that any die hard fan will find themselves surprised
to discover. It is a long way from the modern game - but that’s
what makes the book somewhat special.
Broaden your horizons and take a good look at the Baseball Legends
of Brooklyn’s Green-Wood Cemetery, you’ll probably enjoy
it.
Give this one 2.5 of 4 balls.
Our Rating System is based on a four ball system
as follows:
One Ball: Average. It has something to say but is nothing special.
Two Balls: Something men usually have - also means its a cut above
average, and worth reading/owning.
Three balls: Stands out from its peers and is highly recommended.
Four Balls: More than just what two men have when hanging out
together, it means it is an exceptional book that truly earns a walk -
straight to the local book store to get a copy.
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