Base ball. As viewed by a muffin.

This is one of the rarest nineteenth-century baseball books extant, with probably fewer than six copies known (this copy is from the Library of Congress). Issued just two years after the Civil War, the sixteen-page volume lampoons baseball's reputation for roughness in the 1860s, and features comic illustrations of players suffering various injuries during the course of play. Many of these beautiful illustrations are well known from having been reproduced in countless books and periodicals over the years. Each of the sixteen black-and-white engravings, depicting various baseball situations, is titled, with a comment on the scene below. [Front and back covers are missing]