By 1900 Maryland's Eastern Shore, along the western side of the Delmarva Peninsula, was acknowledged in the national press as a hotbed of baseball activity. By the 1920s the game was fully ingrained into local community life, central to the summer social season among the towns and villages that measured their worth by the quality of their teams. Providing fresh insight into early 20th century baseball at its grassroots, this book explores the Chesapeake Bay region as a case study for the enthusiasm (and hubris) the game brought to rural American life, in context with national trends and influences.