Baseball and American Culture

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).

• AcknowledgmentsIntroductionChapter 1: Baseball’s OriginsAdditional Readings: Spalding’s Official Base Ball Guide 1908 and Bats, Balls, and Bullets: Baseball and the Civil War by George B. KirschChapter 2: Baseball Becomes a Business, 1876-1892 Additional Readings: Out at Home: Baseball Draws the Color Line by Jerry Malloy and Casey at the BatChapter 3: Monopoly Baseball and the Rise of the American League, 1891-1908Additional Readings: Race and Ethnicity in American Baseball: 1900-1919 by Steven A. Riess and Take Me Out to the Ball Game, 1908Chapter 4: Baseball’s Silver AgeAdditional Reading: Anatomy of a Murder: The Federal League and the Courts by Gary HaileyChapter 5: The Roaring Twenties and Baseball’s Golden AgeAdditional Readings: The Babe on Balance by Marshall Smelser and The Judge Who Ruled Baseball by Bruce WatsonChapter 6: Depression and World War II, 1931-1945Additional 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. PercocoChapter 7: Boom, Bust, and Expansion, 1946-1960Additional Reading: Blacks in Major League Baseball: The Experience of the First Generation, 1947-1961 by John Rossi Chapter 8: Baseball’s New Frontier, 1961-1977Additional 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 HirschChapter 9: The End of Baseball Innocence Additional Reading: The Quest of Marvin Miller: A Briefcase for a Lance by Lawrence RichardsChapter 10: Late Innings: Baseball Enters the New Century, 1994-2017Additional Reading: Totally Juiced: Confessions of a Former MVP by Tom VerducciIndexBibliographyAbout the Author

Author of the well-regarded The National Game, Rossi (emer., La Salle University) makes another contribution with his latest book, which combines sharp synthetic overviews, primary documents, and works by others delving into the sport. After examining baseball’s origins, Rossi easily courses through the late 19th century when baseball became a business, the emergence of both “monopoly baseball” and the American League, the period leading up to the Black Sox scandal, the Ruthian Golden Age of the 1920s, the era of the Great Depression and WW II, the rise and fall of fan bases along with expansion, the purported cessation of “baseball innocence,” and the past two decades when the game crashed and soared amid concerns about steroid use. Woven in are various readings, including two poems (“Casey at the Bat” and “Take Me Out to the Ball Game”), an exploration of the impact of race and ethnicity, an account of the Federal League, a much acclaimed treatment of the Babe, a study of Judge Landis, correspondence between the commissioner and FDR, a nuanced take on Walter O’Malley, another one on Marvin Miller, and confessions of a “juiced” former MVP.Summing Up: Recommended. All readers.