Lords of the Realm: The Real History of Baseball

Purporting to be the real history of baseball, Helyar’s opus tells the labor history of baseball, skipping over the first century of professional ballplaying, and picking up with the rise of the Player’s Association in the 1960’s. At times fascinating and time repulsive, Lords of the Realm traces the rise of underpaid, mistreated baseball players to the most powerful union in America. True to the title, the book focuses on the owners – the eponymous Lords – efforts to quash, marginalize, and capitulate to the union. One must question the objectivity of a history that continually refers to one party as Lords, but Helyar writes with a sense of whimsy and historical perspective. I learned a lot from this book, really more than show more I’d wish to know sometimes, and knowing what I know now dampens hopes for baseball ever being able to save itself.

“It all greatly resembled the final scene in George Orwell’s Animal Farm. The pigs, who’d once led a barnyard rebellion against the oppressive farmers, now shared many of their traits and, at the end, were sharing a sumptuous meal with them. Wrote Orwell, ‘The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which.’” (p. 532) show less

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By the end you're so sick of MLB owners that you want to puke. Effectively written and thoroughly researched.

Has to be the most comprehensive book on the business side of baseball