282 - On Baseball's First Superstar w/ Thomas W. Gilbert

Our guest this episode is Thomas W. Gilbert. His new book, "Death in the Strike Zone: The Mystery of America's First Baseball Hero" (David R. Godine, 2026), is the story of James Creighton, a young pitcher who pitched for amateur clubs in Brooklyn and is credited for inventing modern pitching. Gilbert's book is not only about Creighton's exploits on the field, but about the life and times of baseball in its earliest years - before the Civil War, before industrialization and before the g...