Mapping out his personal journey, the author reminisces about living his dream when he acquired a minor league baseball team.

This impressive history of baseball in the smaller towns and cities of the U.S. is divided into three sections. The first covers the years from 1877 to 1920, when the modern game was evolving and the general outlines of major and minor leagues were taking shape; the second treats the period from 1920 to 1950, the golden age of the minors; the third is devoted to the expansion of the majors and the rise of television, both of which all but destroyed the minors, reducing the number of leagues from 59 to 21.

Considers S. 616 and related S. 886, to amend the Federal Trade Commission Act to clarify the antitrust status of professional sports leagues.

The split screen, the indicators poking up like perspex orange fingers, the notoriously rust-prone floors, the pootling exhaust note… just some of the much-loved characteristics of the Morris Minor or Morris 1000. Designed by Sir Alec Issigonis back in 1948, in a sense it was Britain’s answer to the Beetle – a bulbous little creation that was also Britain’s first mass-appeal car. Between then and 1972 when production belatedly ceased some 1.6 million were built. There were variants like the Morris Traveller (timber-framed estate car) and the Morris Million (painted pink), while the convertible was another popular choice. For thousands of ‘newly-marrieds’, or penurious students, it was their first car. It was also the kind of car in which the district nurse did her rounds. In 2008, it is 60 years old, and Martin Wainwright (who proposed to his wife over the gear stick of a Morris Minor) gives us a quirky and fascinating history of this quintessentially British car. You’ll find everything from the post-70s vogue for restoring and rebuilding Morris Minors (several garages still exist to do just that, to the alarming habit of their bonnets to open at speed and entirely obscure your vision, their unreliable trunnions, and not to mention the esoteric photo exhibition some years ago devoted to abandoned Morris Minors on the West Coast of Ireland.

There are many sports-related books about what happens on the playing field, but few are written about the equally interesting stories of what happens on the business side. Why acquire a professional sports team? What goes into the branding, marketing and entertainment that make some teams successful, and others not? What are the challenges that managers and staff face? Are there valuable lessons from the major and minor leagues for university, high school and other amateur sports programs? How do sports teams generate a profit? While the examples are drawn from the business of baseball, the lessons are applicable to other sports and many retail businesses.

A Nation of Small Shareholders puts the role of individual investors in broader, long-term perspective.