The author worked on the Strat-o-Matic Negro Leagues set. He is trying to evaluate the talent levels of amateur, semi-pro, and other non-affiliated pro teams of earlier baseball using a system he developed (STARS) and about half the book is devoted to this work. The other half is stories and history of barnstorming, semipro, and Black baseball teams. Simkus was taking a stand that a lot of baseball fandom was turning away from, trying to look for the truth about the ‘outsider’ leagues. He is largely taking the statistical analysis view here—for instance, there’s a lot of debunking about the Jackie Mitchell story and he points out that there were many other women, better women, playing outsider ball.

(He also makes the point that TV killed off the outsider leagues even more so than integration did.)