Understanding Baseball: A Textbook

The study of baseball history and culture shows the national pastime to be a forum of debate where issues of sport, labor, race, character and the ethics of work and play are decided. An understanding of baseball calls for consideration of different perspectives.

This very readable textbook offers insights into baseball history as a subject worthy of scholarly attention. Each chapter introduces a specific disciplinary approach--history, economics, media, law and fiction--and poses representative questions scholars from these fields would consider.

Instructors considering this book for use in a course may request an examination copy here.

Trey Strecker is an assistant professor of English and sports studies at Ball State University in Muncie, Indiana. He is the editor of the scholarly journal NINE: A Journal of Baseball History & Culture and has published two anthologies.

Steven P. Gietschier is an associate professor of history at Lindenwood University. He managed the research center of The Sporting News from 1986 until 2008, wrote the annual "Year in Review" essay in The Baseball Guide, and edited The Complete Baseball Record Book for five years.

Mitchell Nathanson is a professor of legal writing in the Jeffrey S. Moorad Center for the Study of Sports Law at Villanova University School of Law.