Digital Collections: Library of Congress Adds MLB History Online: Early Baseball Publications

From the Library of Congress:

To celebrate the start of the 2023 season, the Library is pleased to announce a new digital collection: Early Baseball Publications. The collection, which will grow over time, provides full-text digitized access to more than 120 early baseball publications.

The initial release includes a large selection of 19th- and early 20th-century annual baseball guides, including many volumes of Spalding’s Official Base Ball Guide, one of the premier baseball publications of its day. Also included are rule books, record books, scorekeeping guides and books on how to hit and play different positions.

Early Baseball Publications updates and expands the Library’s long-standing Spalding Baseball Guides digital collection, which will be retired in several months once its content has fully migrated to the new collection. The new collection will include the 15 Spalding’s Official Base Ball Guides published between 1889 and 1939 in the legacy collection as well as the 20 Official Indoor Base Ball Guides also found there (“indoor baseball” developed into what we know today as softball).

Many of the more than 120 publications in the new collection were published by Albert Spalding’s American Sports Publishing Company. Among these are not only the annual Spalding guides, but also a number of rule books and instruction manuals.

Learn More, Read the Complete LC Post

Direct to  Early Baseball Publications Collection

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