Beer played a decisive role in baseball in the 1880s. When teams signed new players they asked two questions. Can he play? Is he sober? You love baseball and take pride in your knowledge of the game. But if you’re like many fans, you know almost nothing about baseball in the 1800s. The Outside the Lines of Gilded Age Baseball series illuminates all aspects of baseball’s most colorful decade. Rob Bauer will show you how beer, methods of keeping fit, and cheating played a critical role in baseball in the 1880s. He is a member of the Society of American Baseball Research’s 19th Century Baseball Research Committee. Bauer has also presented research at the Baseball Hall of Fame. Whether it’s bringing a keg of beer to the ballpark, treating sore arms with a branding iron, or fighting on the field, this book has the stories of 1880s baseball. Some are funny, others tragic, but they reveal what baseball was like in its early years. A former college professor, Rob Bauer now brings his knowledge of the past to baseball history. He is a member of the Society for American Baseball Research's 19th Century Research Committee. In 2019 he gave a presentation at the National Baseball Hall of Fame. He writes a history blog on his website, robbauerbooks.com/blog, where he reviews historical fiction books and blogs about the historical influence of things as diverse as Martin Luther King, Jr., leaded gasoline, fascism, and, of course, baseball. In addition to his nonfiction baseball research, Rob also write historical novels balancing creative storytelling and meticulous historical accuracy. One of his books, The Buffalo Soldier , even contains some of his own historical research about 1890s Montana. When not writing, Rob lives at the beach and tries to maintain the fiction that he's a runner. To that end, he swears he'll finish a marathon someday.