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For more than a hundred years, baseball has been woven into the American way of life. By the time they reach high school, children have learned about the struggles and triumphs of players like Jackie Robinson. Generations of family members often gather together to watch their favorite athletes in stadiums or on TV. Famous players like Babe Ruth, Joe DiMaggio, Hank Aaron, Cal Ripken, and Derek Jeter have shown their athletic prowess on the field and captured the hearts of millions of fans, while the sport itself has influenced American culture like no other athletic endeavor.
In Baseball and American Culture: A History, John P. Rossi builds on the research and writing of four generations of baseball historians. Tracing the intimate connections between developments in baseball and changes in American society, Rossi examines a number of topics including:
·the spread of the sport from the North to the South during the Civil War
·the impact on the sport during the Depression and World War II
·baseball’s expansion in the post-war years
·the role of baseball in the Civil Rights movement
·the sport’s evolution during the modern era
Complimented by supplementary readings and discussion questions linked to each chapter, this book pays special attention to the ways in which baseball has influenced American culture and values. Baseball and American Culture is the ultimate resource for students, scholars, and fans interested in how this classic sport has helped shape the nation.
For more than a hundred years, baseball has been woven into the American way of life. By the time they reach high school, children have learned about the struggles and triumphs of players like Jackie Robinson. Generations of family members often gather together to watch their favorite athletes in stadiums or on TV. Famous players like Babe Ruth, Joe DiMaggio, Hank Aaron, Cal Ripken, and Derek Jeter have shown their athletic prowess on the field and captured the hearts of millions of fans, while the sport itself has influenced American culture like no other athletic endeavor.
In Baseball and American Culture: A History, John P. Rossi builds on the research and writing of four generations of baseball historians. Tracing the intimate connections between developments in baseball and changes in American society, Rossi examines a number of topics including:
·the spread of the sport from the North to the South during the Civil War
·the impact on the sport during the Depression and World War II
·baseball’s expansion in the post-war years
·the role of baseball in the Civil Rights movement
·the sport’s evolution during the modern era
Complimented by supplementary readings and discussion questions linked to each chapter, this book pays special attention to the ways in which baseball has influenced American culture and values. Baseball and American Culture is the ultimate resource for students, scholars, and fans interested in how this classic sport has helped shape the nation.
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Chapter 1: Baseball’s Origins
Additional Readings: Spalding’s Official Base Ball Guide 1908 and
Bats, Balls, and Bullets: Baseball and the Civil War by George B.
Kirsch
Chapter 2: Baseball Becomes a Business, 1876-1892
Additional Readings: Out at Home: Baseball Draws the Color Line by
Jerry Malloy and Casey at the Bat
Chapter 3: Monopoly Baseball and the Rise of the American League,
1891-1908
Additional Readings: Race and Ethnicity in American Baseball:
1900-1919 by Steven A. Riess and Take Me Out to the Ball Game,
1908
Chapter 4: Baseball’s Silver Age
Additional Reading: Anatomy of a Murder: The Federal League and the
Courts by Gary Hailey
Chapter 5: The Roaring Twenties and Baseball’s Golden Age
Additional Readings: The Babe on Balance by Marshall Smelser and
The Judge Who Ruled Baseball by Bruce Watson
Chapter 6: Depression and World War II, 1931-1945
Additional Readings: The History of Women’s Baseball by Kerry
Candaele and Baseball and World War II: A Study of the
Landis-Roosevelt Correspondence by James A. Percoco
Chapter 7: Boom, Bust, and Expansion, 1946-1960
Additional Reading: Blacks in Major League Baseball: The Experience
of the First Generation, 1947-1961 by John Rossi
Chapter 8: Baseball’s New Frontier, 1961-1977
Additional Readings: A Tale of Many Cities: The Westward Expansion
of Major League Baseball in the 1950s by Lee Elihu Lowenfish and
Walter O’Malley Was Right by Paul Hirsch
Chapter 9: The End of Baseball Innocence
Additional Reading: The Quest of Marvin Miller: A Briefcase for a
Lance by Lawrence Richards
Chapter 10: Late Innings: Baseball Enters the New Century,
1994-2017
Additional Reading: Totally Juiced: Confessions of a Former MVP by
Tom Verducci
Index
Bibliography
About the Author
John P. Rossi is professor emeritus of history at La Salle University in Philadelphia. His baseball writings have appeared in such journals as The Society of American Baseball Research and the International Journal of the History of Sport. Rossi co-wrote the Cambridge Introduction to George Orwell (2012), and his baseball books include A Whole New Game: Off the Field Changes in Baseball, 1946-1960 (1999) and The 1964 Phillies: The Story of Baseball’s Most Memorable Collapse (2005).
Rossi. . . succeeds in producing a highly readable, quickly-paced
narrative that adeptly juxtaposes baseball alongside several
classic themes in U.S. history. The book should be well-received by
students, scholars, or fans new to thinking about sport and
American history as interrelated.
*Sport in American History*
The higher education community is just plain lucky to have John
Rossi as a member. Rossi’s book enlightens readers and provides an
authentic narrative of American history, our vices and virtues,
through the prism of American baseball. He’s a scholar, a
historian, and a consummate narrator. Above all, he is a
disciplined scholar who knows how to tell a story. He makes history
what it should be: alive.
*Solomon Gittleman, professor, Tufts University, and author of
Reynolds, Raschi and Lopat: New York's Big Three and Great Yankee
Dynasty of 1949-1953*
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