Baseball Film in Postwar America

Ron Briley is assistant headmaster and teaches history at Sandia Preparatory School in Albuquerque, New Mexico, where he has taught for more than thirty years. His baseball essays have been published in the annuals for the Cooperstown Symposium and in such journals as Baseball History and Nine. He is the author of several books and lives in Albuquerque.

• Table of ContentsPreface      Introduction: The Post-World War II Consensus and the Baseball Film Genre      1. The Babe Ruth Story (1948) and the Myth of American Innocence      2. Taming Rosie the Riveter: Take Me Out to the Ball Game (1949)      3. Getting a Leg Up in Postwar America: The Stratton Story (1949)      4. The American Dream in Service of the Cold War and Civil Rights Movement: The Jackie Robinson Story (1950)      5. Hollywood and Assimilating the American Indian Through Sport: Jim Thorpe: All-American (1951)      6. The Retreat to Nostalgia: Grover Cleveland Alexander, Ronald Reagan, and The Winning Team (1952)      7. Education Ain’t No Stumbling Block to Mobility: Dizzy Dean and The Pride of St. Louis (1952)      8. Baseball and Supernatural Intervention: It Happens Every Spring (1949), Angels in the Outfield (1951), and Rhubarb (1951)      9. Baseball Enlists in the Cold War: Strategic Air Command (1955)      10. Jimmy Piersall and Freedom from Want: Fear Strikes Out (1957)      11. The Devil Made Me Do It: Damn Yankees (1958)      12. Back to the Future: Safe at Home! (1962) Within the American Consensus      Chapter Notes      Bibliography      Index