Dr. Paul Batesel, emeritus professor of English at Mayville State University, is the author of a new book entitled Players and Teams of the National Association, 1871-1875. This is Batesel’s third published book. Unlike its two predecessors, Major League Baseball Players of 1916 and Major League Baseball Players of 1884, A Biographical Dictionary, which focused on a single season, the latest book is centered on the life of a league.
This reference work is in two parts. The first is a biographical dictionary of the 325 men who played in the National Association between 1871 and 1875, with their playing record, together with what we know of their other baseball experience and their lives beyond baseball. The book also contains a dictionary of the 25 clubs who participated in the league, showing their history, their management, their uniforms and logos, their home grounds, and their performance in the league. About 150 player photographs are included and each club entry has two or three supporting images (18 are historical maps), bibliography, and index.
Players and Teams of the National Association, 1871-1875 is not a statistical study or an analysis of pennant races or problems. Instead, the author answers several questions that often come up. “What were people like who played the game then?” “Where did they come from, and where did they go after their day in the sun was over?” “How different are they from those who wear a major league uniform today?”
All three of Batesel’s books are available for check-out at Mayville State’s Byrnes-Quanbeck Library. In addition being an author, Batesel is a former English professor and faculty development officer for cooperative learning and critical thinking. He lives in Portland, N.D.