From the Introduction:   When baseball evolved in the nineteenth century from a child's game to adult social recreation to professional sport, the very best players emerged into the public consciousness to become America's first sports heroes. More than three dozen of these long-ago starts have been enshrined in baseball's Hall of Fame, but scores of other outstanding pre-1900 players have fallen into obscurity. With this book, the Society for American Baseball Research, through the efforts of its committee on the 19th century, attempts to bring some forgotten stars back into the limelight. By going beyond the published statistics, SABR authors have tried to achieve greater insight into the careers and lives of these men and into the nature of baseball in their time.   You'll find some real characters in these pages. There were "glory boys," fan favorites and boo-targets. There were alcohol abusers, rule-breakers and game-fixers, team jumpers and company men. And there were innovators.   From the first real shortstop, Dickey Pearce, and the first professional player, Jim Creighton, to turn-of-the-century standouts like George Davis and Fred Tenney, 136 biographical sketches of players and managers are included here. No particular criterion was used in selecting the players included, except that Hall-of-Fame members are excluded, and despite special efforts to get sketches of certain men, many worthy players remain absent from these pages.   Come meet the men who were there at the beginning, as baseball itself was taking shape. The Society for American Baseball Research is pleased to submit to you this work on "Nineteenth Century Stars."