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Paul Hensler

Biography

Paul Hensler

Paul Hensler is a baseball historian and has been a member of the Society for American Baseball Research (SABR) for over 30 years. He is the author of three previous books, including THE NEW BOYS OF SUMMER: Baseball’s Radical Transformation in the Late Sixties (Rowman & Littlefield, 2017). Hensler has contributed to numerous SABR publications, as well as articles and book reviews for NINE: A Journal of Baseball History and Culture. He has presented at the SABR national convention, the NINE Spring Training Conference, and the Cooperstown Symposium on Baseball and American Culture. A lifelong resident of Connecticut, Paul and his wife live in the town of Ellington.

Paul Hensler

Books by Paul Hensler

Gathering Crowds: Catching Baseball Fever in the New Era of Free Agency
by Paul Hensler - Nonfiction, Sports

In GATHERING CROWDS, Paul Hensler details how baseball grew and evolved from the late 1970s through the 1980s. Trepidation that without the reserve clause only wealthy teams would succeed diminished when small-market clubs in Minnesota, Kansas City and Boston found their way to pennants and World Series titles. The proliferation of games broadcast on cable and satellite systems seemed to create a thirst for more baseball rather than discourage fans from going to the ballpark. And as fans clicked the turnstiles and purchased more and more team-licensed products, the national pastime proved it could survive and thrive. By the end of the 1980s, baseball had positioned itself to progress into the future stronger and more popular than ever.