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Alexander Joy Cartwright Jr. (1820?92) was present during the organization of the Knickerbocker Base Ball Club of New York in the mid-1800s. That much is certain. Since that time, and especially with his induction into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1938, Cartwright has been celebrated as the founder of our national pastime, much like Abner Doubleday. As with Doubleday, Cartwright?s claim to fame has caused all sorts of conjecture and controversy. His complex life, not just the mythography surrounding him, comes clearly into focus in Monica Nucciarone?s biography of the incomparable Cartwright. ø Through journal entries, letters, and newspaper clippings, Nucciarone traces Cartwright?s path fr...
This collection of fresh essays examines the intersection of baseball and social class, pointing to the conclusion that America's game, infused from its origins with a democratic mythos and founded on high-minded principles of meritocracy, is nonetheless fraught with problematic class contradictions. Each essayist has explored how class standing has influenced some aspect of the game as experienced by those who play it, those who watch it, those who write about it, and those who market it. The topic of class is an amorphous one and in tying it to baseball the contributors have considered matters of race, education, locality, integration, assimilation, and cultural standing. These elements are crucial to understanding how baseball creates, preserves, reinforces and occasionally assails class divisions among those who watch, play, and own the game.
The study of baseball history and culture shows the national pastime to be a forum of debate where issues of sport, labor, race, character and the ethics of work and play are decided. An understanding of baseball calls for consideration of different perspectives. This very readable textbook offers insights into baseball history as a subject worthy of scholarly attention. Each chapter introduces a specific disciplinary approach--history, economics, media, law and fiction--and poses representative questions scholars from these fields would consider. Instructors considering this book for use in a course may request an examination copy here.
Baseball is much more than a game. As the American national pastime, it has reflected the political and cultural concerns of US society for over 200 years, and generates passions and loyalties unique in American society. This Companion examines baseball in culture, baseball as culture, and the game's global identity. Contributors contrast baseball's massive, big-business present with its romanticized origins and its evolution against the backdrop of American and world history. The chapters cover topics such as baseball in the movies, baseball and mass media, and baseball in Japan and Latin America. Between the chapters are vivid profiles of iconic characters including Babe Ruth, Ichiro and Walter O'Malley. Crucial moments in baseball history are revisited, ranging from the 1919 Black Sox gambling scandal to recent controversies over steroid use. A unique book for fans and scholars alike, this Companion explains the enduring importance of baseball in America and beyond.
"Long before baseball became America's national pastime, English citizens of all ages, genders, and classes of society were playing a game called baseball. It had the same basic elements as modern American baseball, such as pitching and striking the ball, running bases, and fielding, but was played with a soft ball on a smaller playing field, and instead of a bat, the ball was typically struck by the palm of a hand. There is no doubt, however, that this simpler English version of baseball was the original form of the pastime and was the immediate forerunner of its better-known American offspring. Strictly a social game, English baseball was played for nearly two hundred years before fading a...
BACK ISSUE Base Ball is a peer-reviewed book series published annually. Offering the best in original research and analysis, it promotes study of baseball's early history, from its protoball roots to 1920, and its rise to prominence within American popular culture. Prior to Volume 10, Base Ball was published as Base Ball: A Journal of the Early Game. This is a back issue of that journal.
The story about baseball's being invented in Cooperstown, New York, in 1839 by Abner Doubleday served to prove that the U.S. national pastime was an American game, not derived from the English children's game of rounders as had been believed. The tale, embraced by Americans, has long been proven false but to this day, Cooperstown is celebrated as the birthplace of baseball. The story has captured the hearts of millions. But who spun that tale and why? This book provides a surprising answer about the origins of America's most durable myth. It seems that Abner Graves, who espoused Cooperstown as the birthplace of the game, likely was inspired by another story about an early game of baseball. The stories were remarkably similar, as were the men who told them. For the first time, this book links the stories and lives of Graves, a mining engineer, and Adam Ford, a medical doctor, both residents of Denver, Colorado. While the actual origins of the game of baseball remain subject to debate and study, new light is shed on the source of baseball's durable creation myth.
Sport in Industrial America, 1850-1920 presents the second edition of Stephen A. Riess’s well-loved synthesis of the development of sport during one of the most transformational times in the nation’s history. New edition maintains the book’s acclaimed level of research, analysis, and readability Explores topics including urbanization, ethnicity, class, sport in educational institutions, women in sport, and sport’s role in manifesting city, regional, and national pride. Includes an entirely new chapter on the globalization of American sport Includes a new bank of photographs and images. Features a newly revised and updated Bibliographical Essay
Every spring, thousands of ball players across the country step back to the nineteenth century to play vintage base ball using the equipment, uniforms, rules, and customs of the game's early years. A unique combination of athletic contest, living history, and outdoor theatre, vintage base ball transports players and spectators alike to that fascinating and innocent time when athletes gathered on the diamond for recreation, exercise, and pure enjoyment. This lore-laden how-to provides all the information needed to play this entertaining, educational, and fast-growing game and to present it properly to the public, covering everything from historically accurate equipment and etiquette to the rules of play and game-day preparations.
Think you know how the game of baseball began? Think again. Forget Abner Doubleday and Cooperstown. Did baseball even have a father--or did it just evolve from other bat-and-ball games? John Thorn, baseball's preeminent historian, examines the creation story of the game and finds it all to be a gigantic lie. From its earliest days baseball was a vehicle for gambling, a proxy form of class warfare. Thorn traces the rise of the New York version of the game over other variations popular in Massachusetts and Philadelphia. He shows how the sport's increasing popularity in the early decades of the nineteenth century mirrored the migration of young men from farms and small towns to cities, especially New York. Full of heroes, scoundrels, and dupes, this book tells the story of nineteenth-century America, a land of opportunity and limitation, of glory and greed--all present in the wondrous alloy that is our nation and its pastime.--From publisher description.