Baseball has always been an enjoyable pastime to play and watch. However, it has not always been the game it is today. Turning back the clock to baseball’s beginnings, the authors explore what made early baseball so different. Old-time watercolor and pencil crayon illustrations complement the candid descriptions of baseball uniforms, team names, equipment, and game rules. Fluid explanations offer humorous and interesting insights into the way the sport has changed over the years. Early on, teams selected their uniform colors, but leagues determined the color of players’ stockings, which is the origin of both the Boston Red Sox and Chicago White Sox names. Important vocabulary and colorful lingo is written in bold and defined in sidebars. A “fly chaser” is an outfielder while a “can of corn” is an easy fly ball. Tales of trading a player for a turkey and trading a uniform number for a set of golf clubs are just a couple of the unusual stories that put this history book in a field of its own. (Ages 10–14)