This is not a definitive guide to baseball on the Internet Archive. This is because there will never be a definitive guide to anything the Internet Archive. Picture the final scene of “Raiders of the Lost Ark,” except the camera keeps ascending, ascending, ascending into space, with the end of the warehouse never appearing in the frame. There is way too much internet to archive, yet some danged fool decided to try.
Advertisem*nt
No, this is a starting point for baseball on the Internet Archive. This is where the discussion begins. This is the tip of the Statue of Liberty’s torch sticking out of the sand. It’s up to you to excavate the rest. A lot of it won’t be worth the effort.
Some of it will be, though. For over a week, many of you have been stuck inside. Following current events is exponentially more stressful than it was before, and it was already pretty stressful. You used to have sports as an escape, but they stopped making new sports. There is no escape.
There is no escape, except for whatever escapes you can create. And on the Internet Archive, a glorious and vast nonprofit digital library, you can create escapes. There are books to read, pictures to study and old-time radio broadcasts to listen to. Then there are more books to read. More than you ever possibly could read.
One of the most popular Internet Archive features is the repository of Grateful Dead concert recordings, but you can skip over that and go straight to the baseball.Unless you want to hear Phil Lesh announce that the Yankees beat the Dodgers in the 1978 World Series. Then you can have a little of both. Which is a good way to illustrate just how deep this rabbit hole goes.
Here’s an incomplete guide to some of the baseball escapes the Internet Archive offers:
Books
This is the best part of the Internet Archive — it functions as a well-stocked library. Just borrow a book. You can take out 10 at a time. Perhaps you’re still skeptical about reading a book on your computer or tablet, but, well, the brick-and-mortar libraries are mostly closed. This will do until they open up again.
Here, take a book.
“The Catcher Was a Spy” – Nicholas Dawidoff
The movie was a dud, so go back and read the original. Moe Berg was one of the worst-hitting players in baseball history, but he was also a spy who traveled through Europe during World War II and attempted to convince physicists to defect. He was the first baseball player to be awarded the Medal of Freedom (and even though he declined the honor, his family accepted posthumously).
Advertisem*nt
Seems like a good topic for a book. And it is. This is what I’m trying to impress upon you: You can justread it. Right now. For free.
“The Sinister First Baseman” – Eric Walker
Bill James is the godfather of everything sabermetric, of course, and you can read some of his Baseball Abstracts on the Internet Archive (here’s his 1984 edition, his 1986 edition, his 1988 edition and his “New Baseball Historical Abstract“).
But you can find those books at used book stores and on eBay. Unless you’re looking for the mimeographed early copies from the ’70s, they’ll generally be affordable. Walker’s forward-thinking book from 1982 is harder to find. There are a couple for $26 on Amazon, and there’s one on eBay for $50. It’s a classic of the genre, and it’s definitely worth exploring.
Or you can just … read it. Right now. For free! Sample a few paragraphs and see if it appeals to you! If those last two sentences read like I’m drunk on power and free stuff, well, that’s because I am. Free!
If you’re worried that your eyeballs won’t allow you to read a full 500-page book on a computer or device, chip away at something like this instead. This is 291 pages of short biographies, stats, pictures, nicknames and where-are-they-now factlets. The more recent Encyclopedia of Women and Baseball has a greater variety of subjects and contributors, so get your hands on that if you get a chance.
But this one is free! It’s all free! Just like an actual library! Free, I tell you, free!
“October 1964” – David Halberstam
A contrast between the waxing Cardinals and waning Yankees, with fantastic anecdotes folded in, including some from Bob Gibson’s time with the Harlem Globetrotters (where hereally could make a buck). Even if you’ve watched more than five seconds of Ken Burns’ “Baseball” and are a little Yankees-ed out, this is still worth a read.
Advertisem*nt
“Baseball and Billions” – Andrew Zimbalist
It’s outdated, considering that it was written before the MLB Advanced Media digital behemoth infused all 30 franchises with cash, but it’s still a great primer on how the sport has traditionally been rigged in the direction of ownership. It was written in 1992, so it almost serves as a prequel to the strike.
Now I’m picturing a young Bud Selig shouting, “Now this is podracing” as he watches Jack Morris and John Smoltz in the 1991 World Series.
“Baseball: Our Game” – John Thorn
Bite-sized books are especially well suited to an Internet Archive loan. This extremely truncated history, from the official baseball historian of Major League Baseball, is perfect if you need something to hide away in a tab as you work from home, flipping back to it every so often and clearing your mind.
It’s also the right length if you need to hide in the bathroom from your kids, who are also home and forever on the lookout for snacks, always with the snacks, just one more snack, can I have a snack, what do we have for snacks? You’ve figured out that they don’t do this when you’re in the bathroom, so you sit, lid down, and justbreathe, you know? Maybe read a little bit about Henry Chadwick and how the game of baseball came to be.
I mean, I’m fine, ha ha, just fine, but maybe that’s the kind of situation you’re in.
Maybe you’re avoiding this one because it’s been overhyped. Everyone’s been telling you that it’s a must-read, which is the easiest way to make sure you’re disappointed. A book can’t possibly live up to that hype. It can’t be that good.
No, it’s better. Even without the context that it blew minds because there was nothing like it at the time, it’s an amazing read. Add that context in, and you can see how it’s still the greatest player autobiography, maybe in all of sports.
Also, it gives me an excuse to embed this:
There’s a universe where this runs longer than M.A.S.H., you know.
“The Baseball Codes” – Jason Turbow with Michael Duca
An entire book about the unwritten rules and quirks of this silly sport, with the section on sign-stealing especially appropriate right now. You know, because of the Astros? The team that got in trouble for stealing signs approximately 1,387 years ago?
Advertisem*nt
Goodness, what I wouldn’t do to yell at someone online about stealing signs. We were so innocent all those years ago.
“The Glory of Their Times” – Lawrence S. Ritter
Perhaps my favorite all-time baseball book. Certainly the one I’ve read the most. It’s an oral history of players from the first part of the 20th century, like Sam Crawford, Rube Marquard and Harry Hooper, and the conversational style makes it a breeze to read.
This list could go on for another 20 entries. The larger point is that you should go to the Internet Archive, think of a book you want to read and search for it. They probably have it!
Baseball fiction
Again, here are just a few of the books I’ve read. There are thousands and thousands of baseball books that I haven’t, and they’re probably there. Some of my favorites, in no particular order, other than the first one on the list:
- “The Universal Baseball Association, Inc., J. Henry Waugh, Prop.” – Robert Coover
- “Things Invisible To See” – Nancy Willard
- “The Veracruz Blues” – Mark Winegardner
- “The Art of Fielding” – Chad Harbach
- “The Natural”– Bernard Malamud
- “The Celebrant” – Eric Rolfe Greenberg
I’m also curious about “The Young Pitcher”from Zane Grey, who is more famous for his western novels, and “The Great American Novel” by Philip Roth, which has sat dormant on my bookshelf for about 30 years.
There are also, presumably, baseball novels that don’t begin with the letters “Th.” I’m currently working to confirm this.
Random esoterica
Here, friends, is the real sweet spot for me. I have too many physical books, and they taunt me from the bookshelves. “Hey, idiot. Why don’t you go play another video game and ignore us some more?” they say as I try to unwind after a long day, with a brain that’s too worn down to make it through more than five pages of a book.
But flipping through some of this bizarre and old-timey baseball stuff, with no commitment or pressure to finish it? It’s perfect.
Check out The Baseball Cyclopedia, for example, which was published in 1922. The last section is something of a proto-Baseball-Reference.com, and there isn’t a lot to glean, but the first part is filled with anecdotes, facts and then records. I’m partial to the heading on page 58, “REMARKABLE THAT SO MUCH IS KNOWN,” which expresses amazement that anybody was actually paying attention at all to the first baseball games.
Or go through “John McGraw Scientific Base Ball,” which is a delight. The first part was written by Christy Mathewson, and it’s filled with proto-Eno Sarris wonder:
There’s also a set of baseball’s early rules and descriptions of how every position on the field should function. But if this is all too newfangled and modern to you, go through a Spalding’s Base Ball Guide from the 1800s. The ads alone are worth it:
The Victor Baseball Guide was released at the same time, and it’s easy to imagine a child reading one by candlelight. So much fun to flip through. The 1885 book, “The Art of Pitching and Fielding” by Henry Chadwick, contains the following passage:
When an error of play is committed do your best at once to remedy the evil by using your best efforts to get at the ball, either after missing it, letting it pass you, or failing to hold it. Some players after “muffing” a ball will walk after it like an ill-tempered, sulky ten-year-old.
Advertisem*nt
So true.
It’s not just the ultra-vintage publications, though. There are the completely random and bizarre tomes, like “Baseball Secrets: How I Made from $1,000 to $5,000 a Year in the Baseball Business By Promoting and Managing My Own Club”. There’s a compendium of hearings and evidence related to a 1948 gambling scandal in the Carolina League. There’s an omnibus of baseball oddities made to look like a trashy magazine and featuring the words “BABE RUTH’S KINKY SECRET” on the cover. It’s how I found out that Darrell Evans was visited by UFOs.
There are Beckett’s Baseball Card Price Guides and books about rotisserie baseball from the ’90s. There’s a traveler’s guide to spring training before that was a wildly popular destination every year.There’s an entire book about giving signs.
There are magazine covers like this:
And because these books are scanned in, you’ll occasionally find Easter eggs like this one:
That’s from a 1970 book about the World Series. According to Baseball-Reference.com, Curt Flood was worth 0.7 dWAR in 1969, while a 38-year-old Mays was down to -0.3.
Advantage: book.
(The real answer was apparently Paul Blair, who was worth 2.8 defensive wins that season.)
This is the best possible way to waste time online. Just type “baseball” or “World Series” or “BABE RUTH’S KINKY SECRET” into the search field and scroll, scroll, scroll.
Old radio broadcasts
There’s a greater variety found elsewhere on the internet, but I like the simplicity of the Internet Archive format. Here are 14 games, including several World Series games, complete with cigarette ads. There’s also a random White Sox/Red Sox game that I’m not sure is significant, but I’ll listen to it in the background later today and find out.
There’s also a Milton Berle tribute to baseball from 1949 that’s worth studying. There’s a bit about baseball broadcasts from different countries, and for a while, you’re thinking, “Gee, I can’t believe this isn’t racist yet.” But that’s only so you’ll let your guard down. It gets there.
Advertisem*nt
Negro League History
This is currently what I’m working through, as I have planet-sized gaps in my knowledge of the Negro Leagues. I’ve read only the first two books on this list, but all of them have come highly recommended, so check back in a month:
- “The Soul of Baseball” – Joe Posnanski
- “Only the Ball Was White” – Robert W. Peterson
- “Dandy, Day, and the Devil” – James A. Riley
- “Invisible Men” – Donn Rogosin
- “Beyond the Shadow of the Senators” – Brad Snyder
And if you’re going to click on one link — just one — in this entire linkapalooza, make sure it’s “We Are the Ship” from Kadir Nelson. It’s the most beautiful baseball book in existence, with an obscene level of talent, dedication and love dripping off every page.
Children’s books
Again, they probably have the one you’re thinking of. They probably have the ones you’re not thinking of. There are some gaps (no recently released books, like “Waiting for Pumpsie” by Barry Wittenstein; “Anybody’s Game” by Heather Lang;or David Weisner’s “I Got It”), but whether you’re looking to occupy a kid for a few minutes or a few days, there’s something here. Here’s a brief list of the ones I can vouch for:
- “Sandlot Peanuts” – Charles M. Schulz (a collection of all the Peanuts baseball comic strips)
- “Baseball Camp on the Planet of the Eyeballs” – Jon Buller and Susan Schade
- “Hit the Ball, Duck” – Jez Alborough
- “In the Year of the Boar and Jackie Robinson” – Bette Bao Lord and Marc Simont
- “Honus & Me” – Dan Gutman
- “She Loved Baseball” – Audrey Vernick and Don Tate
- “Baseball Saved Us” – Ken Mochizuki and Dom Lee
- “They Came From Center Field” – Dan Gutman
- “Play Ball, Amelia Bedelia” – Peggy Parish and Wallace Tripp
I have no idea how anybody still talks to Amelia Bedelia. She should have been arrested years ago.
Video games
This is a hidden gem of the archive, as you can play a lot of these games right from your browser. There’s Earl Weaver Baseball, one of the earliest statistic-heavy simulations available for the computer. There’s also MicroLeague Baseball 2, which absolutely blew my mind when I was a child, and Tony La Russa Baseball 2,featuring a historical draft that’s fun even if you don’t play a single game.
Mostly, though, the best video game you can play through the Internet Archive is just about all of them. There are arcade games and NES roms and SNES roms and Wii roms and Atari roms and … it’s a lot. Some of the files will take research and Googling on your part to figure out how to play them, and then there’s the potential problem of not having a dedicated controller on your computer. There is a way to play MVP Baseball 2005 on your computer, I’m just not smart enough to write a step-by-step guide.
Those guides exist, though. You just might have some downtime to figure it all out.
Advertisem*nt
Videos
Don’t look for videos too long on the Internet Archive. That’s what YouTube is for.
But you’ll still find a few nuggets, like the made-for-TV “Climax! – The Lou Gehrig Story.” Or if you’re looking for the actual Gehrig, here he is playing a rancher in an actual Hollywood movie. There’s the glory of a few brief minutes of a spring training home movie from the ’60s, a marvelous commercial for Roger Maris Action Baseball, commercials for Wheaties and old B-roll footage of the Red Sox that’s the only video posted by Narragansett Brewing, for some reason. San Diego State University has uploaded a lot of videos, which means it’s easy to find college-age Stephen Strasburg gems.
I mean, if you really need a 57-year-old Bob Gibson striking out the actor who played Kevin Costner’s dad in “Field of Dreams,” it’s there for you. Otherwise, there are deeper rabbit holes to travel down. Just go to YouTube.
Hmm. I smell a sequel. “An Incomplete Guide to Wasting Your Entire Life on Baseball YouTube Videos.”
This should keep you busy for a while, though. The Internet Archive is one of the most important websites in the world. It’s also one of the best time-wasters that’s ever existed in any format. And there’s a frightening amount of baseball to be discovered. After spending about 40 hours on it over the last week, I’m not sick of it yet.
(Top photo: Leslie’s Illustrated Weekly Newspaper 1918)
