The Plated City

Published in 1895, and long out of print, "The Plated City" has been identified as one of the earliest literary novels that treats baseball as an integrated part of the story, which it does. But it is also an incredibly modern story, including dramatic renderings of issues of race, gender and sex in Connecticut during the late Victorian period. "The Plated City" was reviewed favorably by the NY Times when it was published: .,."The color line always is a distressing topic, never to be dismissed, always dramatic, often coarsened by overvehemence. Mr. Bliss Perry, in "The Plated City," has shown marked powers of discernment and has treated a difficult subject with uncommon skill.....Mr. Bliss Perry's constructive powers are excellent."

For the better part of two decades, Darryl Brock was a history, English, and psychology instructor in San Francisco Bay Area high schools. He holds a BA from the University of Redlands and has many graduate units in history at UC Berkeley. He has served as a writing consultant to the State of California and worked with Educational Testing Service to establish essay-scoring programs. Since 1984, Brock has been a full-time freelance writer, and is the author of numerous articles and reviews, many of them about early baseball and/or Mark Twain. He is an accomplished public speaker on the subjects of the Red Stockings, early baseball in general, and his experience in researching those pioneer pros. He is heavily involved in the world of baseball, attending Society for American Baseball Research (SABR) regional meetings and occasionally national conventions, as well as other baseball organizations' functions. Darryl Brock lives in Berkeley, California, with his wife and daughter.