by Van Campen, S.
1867
Issued just two years after the Civil War, the sixteen-page volume lampoons baseball's reputation for roughness in the 1860s, and features comic illustrations of players suffering various injuries during the course of play. Many of these beautiful illustrations are well known from having been reproduced in countless books and periodicals over the years. Each of the sixteen black-and-white engravings, depicting various baseball situations, is titled, with a comment on the scene below. [Front and back covers are missing]
-Archive.org
Crashryan tells us in a CB+ comment about this book -
"I assume I'm not the only one who didn't know what a "muffin" was. At the Baseball Hall of Fame I found this explanation of the book: "Muffin was a baseball term used to describe the least skilled members of an amateur baseball team. These players tended to be less familiar with the rules of the game and to make more errors than the 'first nine' or more skilled players. The book illustrates the comic antics of a group of bumbling 'muffins' on the field."
You can find this book in other formats on the Internet Archive link above. |
