Manhattan College Professor, Dr. George B. Kirsch, Authors Two Newly-Released Paperbacks On The Early History Of Baseball

RIVERDALE, N.Y. – Dr. George B. Kirsch, professor of history at Manhattan College, is the author of Baseball in Blue and Gray: The National Pastime During the Civil War, and Baseball and Cricket: The Creation of American Team Sports, 1838-72, which were both recently released in paperback.

In Baseball in Blue and Gray (2003), published by Princeton University Press, Kirsch examines the growth of baseball during the Civil War (1861-1865) and how the sport’s popularity had everything to do with the surging American nationalism of the period. He recounts stories of great players and introduces entrepreneurs who found new ways to invest in the sport. Kirsch also touches on the exclusion of blacks and shares stories of the rise of sports journalism.

Baseball and Cricket (1989), published by University of Illinois press, attempts to answer the question of why Americans chose baseball over its early rival, cricket, as their national pastime. The book tracks baseball’s transition from a leisure sport to a professional entity within the social context of the mid-19th century.

“Baseball in Blue and Gray has been a big hit with Civil War buffs and fans of old-fashioned baseball, and I am very pleased to see Baseball and Cricket back in print, since it has been recognized as a classic study of the origins of team sports in the United States,” Kirsch says.

Kirsch, who has taught history at Manhattan College for more than 30 years, is the author of several books and the editor of two volumes of Sports in North America: A Documentary History, and co-editor of the Encyclopedia of Ethnicity and Sports in the United States. He has served as a historical consultant for Major League Baseball and Macmillan’s Baseball Encyclopedia, and currently is completing a social history of golf in the United States to be published by University of Illinois Press in 2008.

Founded in 1853, Manhattan College is an independent, Catholic, coeducational institution of higher learning offering more than 40 major programs of undergraduate study in the areas of arts, business, education, engineering and science, along with graduate programs in education and engineering. For more information about Manhattan College, visit www.manhattan.edu.