- Paperback: 384 pages
- Publisher: Princeton University Press; New edition edition (2 Feb 1998)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0691058857
- ISBN-13: 978-0691058856
- Product Dimensions: 22.7 x 14.5 x 2.1 cm
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 5,264,930 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- See Complete Table of Contents
| |||||||||||||||
Did you know you can trade in your old books for an Amazon.co.uk Gift Card to spend on the things you want? Plus, get an extra £5 Gift Certificate when you trade in books worth £10 or more before June 30, 2012. Visit the Books Trade-In Store for more details. |
Product details |
More About the Author
Product Description
Review
An astute examination of how baseball emerged as the national pastime. . . . Things liven up when [White] looks at the gambling and cheating that were a part of the game early in the century, and when he examines the growth and economic importance of night baseball and of radio and TV broadcasts. . . . Baseball cognoscenti will find plenty to chew on here. -- "Kirkus Reviews
Mr. White, an affectionate but agreeably dry-eyed student of the game . . . is unfailingly interesting about the influence of Hank Greenberg and Joe DiMaggio on American attitudes about ethnicity, on the business culture of an industry in which competitors also are partners, on the evolution of the relationship between major league teams and the journalists who cover them. . . . Mr. White's insights are frequently accompanied by fascinating facts. . . . -- George F. Will, The New York Times Book Review
Remarkable. This is one of the first books about baseball that doesn't confuse the game with the author's lost boyhood, his failure to connect with Dad, or the end of American innocence. . . . one of the most original studies of baseball in years. -- Jesse Berrett, LA Weekly
. . . perceptively examines the ways baseball mirrored a changing American society in the first half of this century. . .White paints an especially vivid picture of the evolution of the ballpark from a small wooden structure; through the concrete-and-steel boom of 1908-15. . .White is also strong on the pervasiveness of gambling and game-throwing, and how baseball's barons responded by inventing the rhetoric of its pure, pastoral roots. . . . -- Jeff Z. Klein, New York Newsday
This book should provide real insight into [baseball's] glorious past, and why it is no accident that we remember that past as glorious. -- Richard J. Tofel, The Wall Street Journal
[White] is poignant in his description of the decline of the pastoral setting, as a new generation of owners found profit in suburbia. This study represents the best of serious research into American baseball history. -- Sol Gittleman, Journal of Interdisciplinary History
Mr. White, an affectionate but agreeably dry-eyed student of the game . . . is unfailingly interesting about the influence of Hank Greenberg and Joe DiMaggio on American attitudes about ethnicity, on the business culture of an industry in which competitors also are partners, on the evolution of the relationship between major league teams and the journalists who cover them. . . . Mr. White's insights are frequently accompanied by fascinating facts. . . . -- George F. Will, The New York Times Book Review
Remarkable. This is one of the first books about baseball that doesn't confuse the game with the author's lost boyhood, his failure to connect with Dad, or the end of American innocence. . . . one of the most original studies of baseball in years. -- Jesse Berrett, LA Weekly
. . . perceptively examines the ways baseball mirrored a changing American society in the first half of this century. . .White paints an especially vivid picture of the evolution of the ballpark from a small wooden structure; through the concrete-and-steel boom of 1908-15. . .White is also strong on the pervasiveness of gambling and game-throwing, and how baseball's barons responded by inventing the rhetoric of its pure, pastoral roots. . . . -- Jeff Z. Klein, New York Newsday
This book should provide real insight into [baseball's] glorious past, and why it is no accident that we remember that past as glorious. -- Richard J. Tofel, The Wall Street Journal
[White] is poignant in his description of the decline of the pastoral setting, as a new generation of owners found profit in suburbia. This study represents the best of serious research into American baseball history. -- Sol Gittleman, Journal of Interdisciplinary History
Product Description
At a time when many baseball fans wish for the game to return to a purer past, G. Edward White shows how seemingly irrational business decisions, inspired in part by the self-interest of the owners but also by their nostalgia for the game, transformed baseball into the national pastime. Not simply a professional sport, baseball has been treated as a focus of childhood rituals and an emblem of American individuality and fair play throughout much of the twentieth century. It started out, however, as a marginal urban sport associated with drinking and gambling. White describes its progression to an almost mythic status as an idyllic game, popular among people of all ages and classes. He then recounts the owner's efforts, often supported by the legal system, to preserve this image.
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.
Inside This Book
(Learn More)
First Sentence
ON APRIL 14, 1911, shortly after midnight, a fire swept through the wooden grandstand of the Polo Grounds, the field where the New York Giants baseball club of the National League of Professional Baseball Clubs played its home games. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
ON APRIL 14, 1911, shortly after midnight, a fire swept through the wooden grandstand of the Polo Grounds, the field where the New York Giants baseball club of the National League of Professional Baseball Clubs played its home games. Read the first page
Explore More
Concordance
Browse Sample PagesConcordance
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
Tag this product(What's this?)Think of a tag as a keyword or label you consider is strongly related to this product.
Tags will help all customers organise and find favourite items. |
Sell a Digital Version of This Book in the Kindle Store
If you are a publisher or author and hold the digital rights to a book, you can sell a digital version of it in our Kindle Store.
Learn more
Customer Reviews
There are no customer reviews yet on Amazon.co.uk.
5 star
4 star
3 star
2 star
1 star
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
5 reviews
7 of 8 people found the following review helpful
Good general book for the baseball historian
22 Feb 2000
Format:Paperback
G. Edward White's book, Creating the National Pastime, examines the changes in major league baseball during the first half of the 1900's. The slow acceptance of radio, night baseball, black players, the rise of the commissioner's office, and the ironclad nature of the reserve clause are among the topics looked at in the book. The book does a good job examining some of the changes that took place between 1903 and 1953 in baseball that we take for granted today (night baseball, steel and concrete ballparks, etc.), but does get tedious at times with its wealth of somewhat arcane information. Overall, a pretty solid (if not always engrossing) read.
5 of 6 people found the following review helpful
How did Major League Baseball (MLB) Emerge in the First Decades of the Twentieth Century as the Preeminent Sport?
7 Feb 2006
Format:Paperback
G. Edward White, a professor of law at the University of Virginia, draws together seven major threads to craft a useful explanation of how, as the subtitle states, "Baseball Transforms Itself, 1903-1953." Basically this is a book of essays, one each on (1) the ballparks; (2) gambling, the "Black Sox" scandal, and the appointment of a commissioner; (3) the Negro Leagues; (4) night baseball; (5) baseball journalism; (6) baseball on the radio; and (7) ethnicity and baseball. These chapters are self-contained and offer interesting perspectives on MLB. Two overview chapters dealing with MLB during the first half of the twentieth century, and a conclusion on the decline of the national pastime, complete the book.
White asserts that baseball emerged from lower class roots in the nineteenth century to become the centerpiece of sport by a new leisure class. There are important reasons for this, he believes, and so these essays probe them. As might be expected of a law professor, White finds the strength of MLB's emergence resting on legal frameworks. The game itself was contradictory to industrial America of the early twentieth century and it had to erect legal bulwarks to thrive. The courts allowed these, even encouraged them. The reserve clause, binding a player to a team even if no valid contract had been signed, was clearly a legal structure controlling both players and the market. Franchise rights to territories, radio broadcast conventions, the anti-trust exemption that MLB still enjoys, the prohibition on African American players, owners' abilities to blacklist players and control virtually every other aspect of their business situation, and after 1920 the all-powerful commissioner all served to create a stable business environment that, as long as it remained in place, allowed MLB to thrive.
So consumed with the nostalgia that they used to gain these advantages, MLB owners eventually came to believe it themselves and their positions ossified on virtually every issue. They resisted change of any type and successful innovations such as night baseball and broadcast over the radio proved difficult to implement. White is at his best when analyzing race and ethnicity in MLB, and his chapters on the Negro Leagues and on ethnicity, revolving around Hank Greenburg and Joe DiMaggio, is among the best in the book. The decline of MLB in the 1950s and 1960s is poignantly described as the pastoral setting so carefully created by the owners, with lots of help from politicians, writers, and others, came crashing down and the realities of the modern world intruded on the diamond in ways not seen before. "Creating the National Pastime" is an interesting and somewhat idiosyncratic work, but one of great substance and insight.
White asserts that baseball emerged from lower class roots in the nineteenth century to become the centerpiece of sport by a new leisure class. There are important reasons for this, he believes, and so these essays probe them. As might be expected of a law professor, White finds the strength of MLB's emergence resting on legal frameworks. The game itself was contradictory to industrial America of the early twentieth century and it had to erect legal bulwarks to thrive. The courts allowed these, even encouraged them. The reserve clause, binding a player to a team even if no valid contract had been signed, was clearly a legal structure controlling both players and the market. Franchise rights to territories, radio broadcast conventions, the anti-trust exemption that MLB still enjoys, the prohibition on African American players, owners' abilities to blacklist players and control virtually every other aspect of their business situation, and after 1920 the all-powerful commissioner all served to create a stable business environment that, as long as it remained in place, allowed MLB to thrive.
So consumed with the nostalgia that they used to gain these advantages, MLB owners eventually came to believe it themselves and their positions ossified on virtually every issue. They resisted change of any type and successful innovations such as night baseball and broadcast over the radio proved difficult to implement. White is at his best when analyzing race and ethnicity in MLB, and his chapters on the Negro Leagues and on ethnicity, revolving around Hank Greenburg and Joe DiMaggio, is among the best in the book. The decline of MLB in the 1950s and 1960s is poignantly described as the pastoral setting so carefully created by the owners, with lots of help from politicians, writers, and others, came crashing down and the realities of the modern world intruded on the diamond in ways not seen before. "Creating the National Pastime" is an interesting and somewhat idiosyncratic work, but one of great substance and insight.
6 of 8 people found the following review helpful
Baseball history at its best
13 July 2000
Format:Hardcover
Expensive yes. But every line is loaded with facts. The detail about Shoeless Joe is better than anywhere. Old time stadiums? No finer discussion. Baseball on the radio? What a great introduction to the subject.
This is a commanding book. You will read it if you start.
Were these reviews helpful?
Let us know
Listmania!
Look for similar items by category
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
- Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
- I am the Author, and I want to comment on my book.
- I am the Publisher, and I want to comment on this book.
|
