When it was auctioned in 1999, a document called “Laws of Base Ball” had no known author but obvious significance. Within its pages were fundamental rules like nine men on a side and 90-foot basepaths ...

With "Baseball in the Garden of Eden: The Secret History of the Early Game," baseball's greatest historian, John Thorn, disperses the misty haze that obscures so much of the game's beginnings. "In no ...