My life in baseball: the forgotten manuscript of a big league legend who preceded Ty Cobb and Babe Ruth as the National Pastime's first 20th-century superstar gives a fascinating glimpse of what life was like around the grand old game during its early years.

• Author: Wagner, Honus
• Position: Athletic Arena; 'Honus Wagner: On His Life & Baseball' - Excerpt

On Dec. 13, 1923, the man many still consider to be the best all-around player ever to grace the diamond set out to write his autobiography. Through January 1924, he told his story in the form of articles published in the Los Angeles Times and Pittsburgh Gazette Times. Though a book was planned at the time, it never was published--until now. What follows are Wagner k own words as to what baseball aim life were like in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

THE BIG TURNING POINT in baseball, the way I look at it, was the war with the American League back in 1900, which lasted for two or three years and then wound up in the present national agreement. Baseball would not have been what it is today if we hadn't had this war. We wouldn't have had any World's Series for one thing. Can you imagine what baseball would be today if we didn't have a World's Series as a sort of big climax to the end of the season?

In the old days, a team won the pennant and the players were paid off and given a banquet. Often, fans forgot who had won the pennant the year before. It didn't make any difference. That thing of having a big classic event to end the season, a climax, gave baseball its big jump. Every fall and winter the Series is talked about all over the world. Now fans in little towns know all about each player and what he did. In the old days, they wouldn't even know who won the pennant and wouldn't care. You know how it is.

Well, it was during that war that I came into prominence in money matters --baseball money, I mean. I was among those players who refused to jump. I may have lost a lot of money by it, but I feel much happier and satisfied for having stayed in Pittsburgh.

My friends, good ball players all over the country, were going to the American League for the big money. Naturally, a lot of agents, most of them friends, were after me. I was leading the National League as a hitter and, if I do say it myself, was supposed to be a good drawing card. I loved my team and associations. They meant much more to me than money.

One day the players had a meeting to talk about the offers they had and to decide what they should do. After a lot of talk, we agreed to meet again the next day at 3 o'clock and not to sign a contract until after that meeting.

[Pittsburgh Pirates owner] Mr. [Barney] Dreyfuss and Harry Pulliam, who was then with the Pittsburgh club but later president of the National League, got wind of this in some way. They knew, of course, that American League agents were in town. They tried to get hold of me, but I avoided...