Part one: Origins. City game -- The whirlpool and the volcano -- "The snap, go, fling" -- "One or more colored persons" -- The professionals -- Making the Welkin Ring -- A league -- "Lies, damned lies, and..." -- Drawing the color line -- "We are the people!" -- "Work of the sneaky order" -- Strike! -- Consolidation -- Part two: The inside game, 1901-1919. "Scholastic contests" -- "Truxton against the world" -- The Christian gentleman -- The bad guys come to town -- Subterraneans -- "The man with the corkscrew brain" -- Ballyhoo -- Bonehead -- The great brain -- Various catastrophes -- The flock takes flight -- The other game in town -- The end of the inside game -- "Gossip is a dangerous thing" -- The big fix -- Part three: The Babe in Nighttown, 1920-1929. The city in the air -- The Babe -- The big money -- Death in the afternoon -- The franchise -- A giant mistake -- Welcome to Goatville -- Dazzy and Daffy -- "Anything can happen now" -- Out of the shadows -- The greatest team, part I -- The brass cuspidor and paradise in the Bronx -- The virtuous city: New York in the Great Depression, 1929-1939. "Sluttish to the last degree" -- The virtuous city is born -- "The attendance was robbed" -- Last call -- The quiet men -- "The 'coonsberry' rules" -- The powerhouse -- The greatest team. Again. -- Biscuit pants and the dage -- "And always played the game" -- Singing in the dark: the city in time of war, 1939-1945. The waiting game -- The world of tomorrow -- The redheaded league -- Brooklyn becomes the world -- The stolen season -- The streak -- Brooklyn's own DiMaggio -- The wait for next year begins -- Hail and farewell -- The cave of the winds -- Life during wartime -- The fire this time.