Baseball

American society never had an aristocracy, a state-sponsored church, or a rigid class system. What it does have is baseball. Now, in Baseball: A History of America's Game, Benjamin Rader reexamines the story of the pastime that helped shape American society. From baseball's days as "the only game in town" through today's wave of Hollywood sports nostalgia, America's greatest heroes have been ballplayers - Babe Ruth, Joe Dimaggio, Jackie Robinson, Hank Aaron. Rader. Analyzes baseball's mythology - one complete with rites, shrines, and even a creation myth. For decades, Rader suggests, a city's ball club was perhaps the fullest expression of its identity. Today, in the era of suburbia, Soloflex, and slow-motion replays, America has changed, and baseball's role with it. Yet in many ways the game's essence has stayed quietly constant: Three strikes, three outs. The confrontation of pitcher versus batter. The illicit temptation of the. Bookmaker. The drama of the bottom of the ninth. Now as before, baseball remains America's game. This is the first book to show why.

First sentence: In 1858, three years before the first shots were fired in the nation's terrible civil war, baseball excitement in the New York City area mounted to a fever pitch.

Year

1992

Language

English

Publisher

University of Illinois Press

Editions

8

Pages

272

ISBN

9780252063954

Data source: Wikidata