Subtitled Baseball and the Rise of a New City, the book The New York Game is about the interdependent rise of professional baseball in New York with the grand and grandiose progress that New York accomplished from 1901 to 1945. This is the first episode of that podcast that I wrote in advance so that my words were measured and what I intended to say.

I recommend this book, but not for the reasons that reviewers expressed. I find that Baker presents most of the principle characters as universally deficient in moral character. And I think this book clashes its baseball content with the non-baseball content as they compete in a tug-of-war throughout the book. Finally, there are two glaring factual errors — that have no business being inaccurate — that could call into the question the accuracy of other accounts described in the book. Still, Baker describes several famous events in New York baseball history with stunning visualization.

Overall, a worthy read with a few swings and misses.

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Music: “Field Grass,” by Sergei Pavkin