Chadwick, Henry | The infancy of sabermetrics and "Moneyball"

The Passion of American Collectors: Property of Barbara and Ira Lipman

Chadwick, Henry

The Game of Base Ball. How to Learn It, How to Play It, and How to Teach It. With Sketches of Noted Players. New York: George Munro & Co., [1868]

12mo (164 x 101 mm). Wood-engraved frontispiece portrait of Chadwick, 3 full-page diagrams, illustration of a scorecard; lower fore-edge corners of 6 text leaves and 4 ad leaves at end lost. Original green cloth over green patterned-paper boards, front cover gilt-lettered "Chadwick's American Game of Base Ball"; gilt-lettering very faded, extremities quite rubbed, Half blue morocco slipcase, chemise.

First edition of the first serious analysis of baseball by the game's "preeminent pioneer writer for half a century" (as his Hall of Fame plaque has it). Henry Chadwick ignited baseball's fascination with—and ultimately its dependence on—statistical analysis. He devised the modern box score, including many of the symbols and conventions still in use today. Chadwick is also credited with creating the fundamental statistics of batting average and earned run average. A very uncommon book.