But Didn't We Have Fun? will make you rethink baseball's origins. Weaving together long-forgotten documents, Peter Morris retrieves a lost era and a lost way of life. His story begins with a generation of mid-nineteenth-century Americans who moved from the countryside to the cities and brought a delightfully informal game with them. The members of groundbreaking clubs like the Knickerbockers of New York are rescued from the dusty pages of history books and emerge as real men. We share their exultant pride as baseball spreads and earns its status as the national pastime-and we also share their deep dismay as their game is transformed by professionalism and other growing pains.
© 2003-2026