How Baseball Explains America

Examining the connection between baseball and our society as a whole, How Baseball Explains America is a fascinating, one-of-a-kind journey through America's pastime. Longtime USA TODAY baseball editor and columnist Hal Bodley explores just how essential baseball is to understanding the American experience. He takes readers into the Oval Office with George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton as the former presidents share their thoughts on the game, he looks at the changes that America's Greatest Generation ushered in, as well as examining baseball's struggle with performance enhancing drugs alongside America's war on drugs.

An unabashedly celebratory explanation of America's love affair with baseball and the men who make it possible, this work sheds light on topics such as the role Jackie Robinson's signing with the Dodgers played in the civil rights movement, how baseball's westward expansion mirrored the growth of our national economy, labor strife, baseball families, the international explosion of the game, and even the myriad ways in which movies, music, and baseball are intrinsically tied. It is a must read for anyone interested in more fully understanding not only the game but also the nation in which it thrives.

Hal Bodley is a columnist for MLB.com and has covered baseball since 1958. He is a former columnist for USA Today and is the founder and former president of the Associated Press Editors Association and has served as a broadcast analyst for CBS, CNN, and NBC. He has won 30 regional and national writing awards and was elected to the Delaware Sports Hall of Fame and the Delaware Baseball Hall of Fame. He lives in Belleair Beach, Florida. George Will is a world-renowned newspaper columnist, journalist, and author. He was awarded the 1977 Pulitzer Prize for Commentary.