Our Game
An American Baseball History
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- $12.99
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- $12.99
Publisher Description
This entertaining history blends anecdote, incident, and analysis as it chronicles the story of our national pastime.
Charles C. Alexander covers the advent of the first professional baseball leagues, the game's surge in the early twentieth century, the Golden Twenties and the Gray Thirties, the breaking of the color line in the late forties, and the game's expansion to its current status as a premier team sport. He describes changing playing styles and outstanding teams and personalities but also demonstrates the many connections between baseball--as game, sport, and business--and the evolution of tastes, values, and institutions in the United States.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Alexander ( Ty Cobb ) teaches baseball history at Ohio University. This information-laden volume probably is intended as a classroom text but it also will appeal to the general reader. While not giving the last word on the game, Alexander offers insights into its evolution in the 19th century, including the struggle over whether the owners of teams would control the organized sport, and the way beseball changed during our century--from the low-scoring, hit-and-run contests of yore to the homerun explosion of the 1920s to the synthesis reached today (typified by players like Jose Canseco). Off-the-field developments like the demise of the reserve clause also are covered in this concise but thorough survey.
