A. G. Spalding & Bros. · San Mateo, Florida · 1910

Spalding's Athletic Library

1910, and Spalding will teach you the entire game for a dime a book. How to Bat. How to Pitch. How to Catch. A separate volume for every position on the diamond, plus How to Umpire a Game and a Ready Reckoner of Base Ball Percentages. And at the bottom, in white script on black: Boys, send your name and get the catalogue free.

The San Mateo Item, serving a small town on the St. Johns River in Florida, gave over a quarter page on March 26, 1910 to “SPALDING’S ATHLETIC LIBRARY—BASE BALL SERIES,” which amounts to a complete correspondence course in the national game at “PRICE OF EACH BOOK 10 CENTS.”

The curriculum deserves reading in full. No. 1 is Spalding’s Official Base Ball Guide and No. 202 is How to Play Base Ball, but the library gets more specific fast: “How to Bat. How to Run Bases. How to Pitch. How to Catch.” Then a dime volume for every station on the diamond: “How to Play First Base. How to Play Second Base. How to Play Third Base. How to Play Shortstop. How to Play the Outfield.” No. 231 crams seven books into one, from “How to Organize a Base Ball League” and “How to Manage a Base Ball Club” through “How to Umpire a Game” and “Technical Base Ball Terms.” And for the scorekeepers, No. 219: “Ready Reckoner of Base Ball Percentages.” The Other Seasonable Books list even slips in Spalding’s Official Cricket Guide, in case a Putnam County boy felt continental.

The bottom half belongs to the Spalding “Official National League” Ball, drawn enormous atop its box, “Official Ball of the Game for over Thirty Years,” with a warning on the box label to “BEWARE OF COUNTERFEITS.” Spalding had held the National League ball contract since 1878, and the store list underneath runs from New York to Seattle to “LONDON, ENGLAND.”

The best part is the sign-off, white script on a black slab: “Boys—Send your name and address to any of the above Spalding stores and get a new Athletic Goods catalogue free.” That free catalogue was the whole game: get the boy dreaming over glove engravings in March and his dime follows in April. Spalding ran the same play in a 1906 Oklahoma paper, and it worked for decades.