ABSTRACT
Treating Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper as a repository of nineteenth-century social history, the chapter examines the development of the weekly’s visual baseball coverage. Using three editorial stances and an actuality scale, the chapter analyzes the coverage found at five-year increments between 1855 and 1895. The findings indicate a slow development of baseball journalism, as well as coverage that was aimed primarily at an audience unfamiliar with baseball. The findings also indicate that the degree of actuality corresponded with the editorial stance of the coverage, more of which was aimed at avid baseball audiences by the end of the century.
