Since Al Gore was not yet around to invent the internet, rabid baseball fans go their pre-season fix not by fantasy drafts, but by the annual guides produced by companies such as Reach, Spalding and DeWitt. These two paperback guides referenced all the necessary information in professional baseball during the extreme early days. Both books feature prior years' statistics, game results, various rules and advertisements for baseball equipment. Need a new fingerless glove? Includes: 1) 1877 DeWitt Guide - 100 pages, with several slight tears to cover, which is mostly held together by tape on the binding. Clean pages. Interesting to see how the statistics were recorded before batting averages were calculated! Good condition. 2) 1884 Reach Guide - 192 pages, with rosters and more detailed statistics. This was Al Reach's second produced guide. Cover is intact but has several tears and missing pieces on binding. Clean pages. VG-EX condition. Many 19th century guides are missing covers, but this lot of two contains both. While there is the usual wear to these covers, the inside pages are very clean and offer a glimpse of what baseball information was like in the early days. Two extremely scarce and desirable early baseball guides.

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