The Farmers' Game: Baseball in Rural America

Neuausgabe 2013
ISBN: 978-1-4214-0755-5
Verlag: Johns Hopkins University Press

Buch, Englisch, 232 Seiten, Format (B × H): 152 mm x 229 mm, Gewicht: 386 g

How rural America shapes America’s favorite pastime.

Winner of the SABR Baseball Research Award of the Society for American Baseball Research

Anyone who has watched the film Field of Dreams can’t help but be captivated by the lead character’s vision. He gives his struggling farming community a magical place where the smell of roasted peanuts gently wafts over the crowded grandstand on a warm summer evening just as the star pitcher takes the mound.

Baseball, America’s game, has a dedicated following and a rich history. Fans obsess over comparative statistics and celebrate men who played for legendary teams during the "golden age" of the game. In The Farmers' Game, David Vaught examines the history and character of baseball through a series of essay-vignettes. He presents the sport as essentially rural, reflecting the nature of farm and small-town life.

Vaught does not deny or devalue the lively stickball games played in the streets of Brooklyn, but he sees the history of the game and the rural United States as related and mutually revealing. His subjects include nineteenth-century Cooperstown, the playing fields of Texas and Minnesota, the rural communities of California, the great farmer-pitcher Bob Feller, and the notorious Gaylord Perry.

Although—contrary to legend—Abner Doubleday did not invent baseball in a cow pasture in upstate New York, many fans enjoy the game for its nostalgic qualities. Vaught's deeply researched exploration of baseball's rural roots helps explain its enduring popularity.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Vaught, David

Fachgebiete

• Sozialwissenschaften Sport | Tourismus | Freizeit Sport Geschichte des Sports
• Sozialwissenschaften Soziologie | Soziale Arbeit Spezielle Soziologie Agrarsoziologie
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Weltgeschichte & Geschichte einzelner Länder und Gebietsräume Geschichte einzelner Länder Amerikanische Geschichte
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Geschichtliche Themen Mentalitäts- und Sozialgeschichte
• Sozialwissenschaften Sport | Tourismus | Freizeit Sport Ballsportarten Badminton Baseball

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Acknowledgments
Introduction: Abner Doubleday and Baseball's Idol of Origins
1. Playing Ball in Cooperstown in the Formative Years of the American Republic
2. Baseball and the Transformation of Rural California
3. Multicultural Ball in the Heyday of Texas Cotton Agriculture
4. The Making of Bob Feller and the Modern American Farmer
5. The Milroy Yankees and the Decline of Southwest Minnesota
6. Gaylord Perry, the Spitter, and Farm Life in Eastern North Carolina
Epilogue: Vintage Ball
Notes
Essay on Sources
Index

Über Autor(innen)

Vaught, David
David Vaught is a professor of history at Texas A&M University. He is the author of Cultivating California: Growers, Specialty Crops, and Labor, 1875–1920, also published by Johns Hopkins.

David Vaught is department head and professor of history at Texas A&M University. His four books include After the Gold Rush: Tarnished Dreams in the Sacramento Valley and Cultivating California: Growers, Specialty Crops, and Labor, 1875–1920, both published by Johns Hopkins.