Baseball may be just a game on the field, but it"s a a complex web of contracts and consolidations off of it; from the moment William Hulbert invoked the power of the legal system to unite a disparate group of clubs into the National League in 1876, the law and the game have turned into fascinating teammates. Abrams, the Dean of Rutgers University Law School and a Major League salary arbitrator, has produced an engaging episodic history of the connection--from Monte Ward"s attempt to form the first union in the late 1800s to the labor wars of the "90s that made the sports page sound like the civil code. Along the way, he stops to examine Napolean Lajoie and the institution of the reserve clause, baseball"s anti-trust exemption and Curt Flood"s fight for free agency, Marvin Miller and modern collective bargaining, arbitration, collusion, and the Pete Rose scandal. Comprehensive and anecdotal, Legal Bases covers as much ground as a good shortstop and interprets complex arguments and issues with the clarity of a catcher"s sign. The final verdict: Appealingly absorbing. --Jeff Silverman