When the members of the first baseball players' union formed their own league in open revolt against the reserve clause and other restrictive practices of the National League, baseball journalism moved out of the curiosity shop of mainstream journalism and into the newsroom. Baseball journalists Henry Chadwick, T.H. Murnane and Ella Black covered the labor struggle on the field and in the front offices - and they took sides: one as a mouthpiece for the capitalist owners of the National League, one as a omer for the cooperatively operated Players' League, and the other more or less in the middle. The roots of baseball writing as we know it today are visible in their coverage that season. Through a close examination of their work, this book tells the stories of the three sportswriters and the development of sports journalism in response to the famed “Brotherhood War” of 1890.