Baseball Transforms Itself, 1903-1953
E-Book, Englisch, 384 Seiten, EPUB
ISBN: 978-1-4008-5136-2
Verlag: De Gruyter
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: Adobe DRM (»Systemvoraussetzungen)
Baseball grew up in the midst of urban industrialization during the Progressive Era, and the emerging steel and concrete baseball parks encapsulated feelings of neighborliness and associations with the rural leisure of bygone times. According to White, these nostalgic themes, together with personal financial concerns, guided owners toward practices that in retrospect appear unfair to players and detrimental to the progress of the game. Reserve clauses, blacklisting, and limiting franchise territories, for example, were meant to keep a consistent roster of players on a team, build fan loyalty, and maintain the game's local flavor. These practices also violated anti-trust laws and significantly restricted the economic power of the players. Owners vigorously fought against innovations, ranging from the night games and radio broadcasts to the inclusion of African-American players. Nonetheless, the image of baseball as a spirited civic endeavor persisted, even in the face of outright corruption, as witnessed in the courts' leniency toward the participants in the Black Sox scandal of 1919.
White's story of baseball is intertwined with changes in technology and business in America and with changing attitudes toward race and ethnicity. The time is fast approaching, he concludes, when we must consider whether baseball is still regarded as the national pastime and whether protecting its image is worth the effort.
Autoren/Hrsg.
Fachgebiete
Weitere Infos & Material
List of Illustrations
Preface
Introduction 3
Ch. 1 The Ballparks 10
Ch. 2 The Enterprise, 1903-1923 47
Ch. 3 The Rise of the Commissioner: Gambling, the Black Sox, and the Creation of Baseball Heroes 84
Ch. 4 The Negro Leagues 127
Ch. 5 The Coming of Night Baseball 160
Ch. 6 Baseball Journalists 190
Ch. 7 Baseball on the Radio 206
Ch. 8 Ethnicity and Baseball: Hank Greenberg and Joe DiMaggio 245
Ch. 9 The Enterprise, 1923-1953 275
Ch. 10 The Decline of the National Pastime 316
Notes 331
Index 355