The Man Who Sold America

Chapter Ten

Saving Baseball from Itself

ALBERT LASKER’S impulse to find, hone, and exploit a powerful idea manifested itself in many arenas—perhaps the least likely of which was professional baseball.

His first exposure to the game came in the early months of 1894, when the Chicago Cubs came to Galveston for what was then called “winter training.”¹ In that simpler time, Chicago sportswriters didn’t bother to travel south to cover the Cubs in training; instead, the Chicago newspapers paid local stringers to write up the exhibition games. Lasker ...