Baseball: The People's GameThe People's Game - Softcover

Harold Seymour; Dorothy Z. Seymour

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0195069072 ISBN 13: 9780195069075

Publisher: Oxford University Press, 1991

Synopsis

In Baseball: The People's Game, Dorothy Seymour Mills and Harold Seymour produce an authoritative, multi-volume chronicle of America's national pastime. The first two volumes of this study -The Early Years and The Golden Age -won universal acclaim. The New York Times wrote that they "will grip every American who has invested part of his youth and dreams in the sport," while The Boston Globe called them "irresistible."

Now, in The People's Game, the authors offer the first book devoted entirely to the history of the game outside of the professional leagues, revealing how, from its early beginnings up to World War II, baseball truly became the great American pastime. They explore the bond between baseball and boys through the decades, the game's place in institutions from colleges to prisons to the armed forces, the rise of women's baseball that coincided with nineteenth century feminism, and the struggles of black players and clubs from the later years of slavery up to the Second World War.

Whether discussing the birth of softball or the origins of the seventh inning stretch, the Seymours enrich their extensive research with fascinating details and entertaining anecdotes as well as a wealth of baseball experience. The People's Game brings to life the central role of baseball for generations of Americans.

Note: On August 2, 2010, Oxford University Press made public that it would credit Dorothy Seymour Mills as co-author of the three baseball histories previously "authored" solely by her late husband, Harold Seymour. The Seymours collaborated on Baseball: The Early Years (1960), Baseball: The Golden Age (1971) and Baseball: The People's Game (1991).

About this title

About the Author

Harold Seymour, Cornell University Ph.D., was a college history professor for more than fifteen years. He knows baseball firsthand through his experience as a batboy for the Brooklyn Dodgers, high school PSAL player, college captain, organizer and manager of amateur and semipro teams, and major-league bird dog.

Dorothy Seymour Mills is the author or co-author of 25 books, including historical novels and children's books. She is a member SABR, the North American Society for Sports History, and the Association for Women in Sports Media.

Review

"No one has done more to document the history of baseball than Harold Seymour....unique. Never before has so much information about baseball outside of the major and minor leagues been assembled between two covers, so much....Along the way he tells wonderful stories....[T]he remarkable breadth and richness of detail in Baseball: The People's Game will make it an essential reference work for historians of leisure, recreation, and sport for many years."--Warren Goldstein, The Journal of American History

"Must reading for all lovers of the game and should be absolutely required for those who presume to meddle with its well-being and future....Significant not only for the history it tells, which is rich, detailed and lavishly researched, but for the questions it raises about baseball as a game and as a United States institution."--New York Times Book Review

"For three decades Harold Seymour has been not merely the most respected of the game's historians but also the standard-setter against whose work all other have been weighed....Both does [baseball] justice and pays it tribute."--Washington Post

"A scholarly, but very accessible, in-depth treasure-trove of baseball information and lore."--Kirkus Reviews

Edition details

• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Publication date: 1991
• ISBN 10: 0195069072
• ISBN 13: 9780195069075
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 672