Baseball as America : Seeing Ourselves Through Our National Game - Hardcover

National Baseball Hall Of Fame; National Geographic

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0792264649 ISBN 13: 9780792264644

Publisher: National Geographic, 2002

Synopsis

Baseball As America examines how the American landscape, our language, literature, entertainment, food, and summertime living all bear the mark of a 19th-century game that has become intertwined with our nation's values and aspirations. Baseball As America is the official companion volume to the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum's unprecedented national traveling exhibition. Features more than 200 original and archival photographs that bring the game to life on its pages. Perfect for every baseball fan, indeed every American, Baseball As America is a comprehensive panorama of the game America has grown up with.

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Reviews

Packed with over 200 photographs, this companion to the upcoming national tour of pieces from the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum celebrates the sport from its mythical 19th-century beginnings to the 2001 retirement of modern icons Tony Gwynn and Cal Ripken. Familiar images abound (Ty Cobb's slide into third base, children playing sandlot ball, etc.), but the central focus is on artifacts: uniforms, scorecards and boxes of Wheaties, the bats used in record-breaking home runs and the handwritten manuscript of "Take Me Out to the Ball Game." FDR's letter urging the resumption of games after Pearl Harbor and a baseball found in the World Trade Center debris poignantly underscore America's consistent salute to and dependence upon its national pastime. But while functioning much like a museum, itself, the volume is more than simply an exhibition catalogue. Essays and stories some newly written for this collection feature dozens of writers, players and personalities from Walt Whitman to Dave Barry, Jackie Robinson to Paul Simon, and examine the game's cultural and historical significance. Readers won't find here an in-depth exploration as in Geoffrey Ward/ Ken Burns's Baseball: An Illustrated History, but the range of topics is exhaustive. The less glamorous aspects of baseball's history such as segregation and the cancellation of the 1994 World Series are given equal playing time alongside the worship of diamond deities and the celebration of the game's historical moments. This entertaining presentation, divided into groupings on baseball as ritual, freedom, opportunity and innovation, is a must for anyone who proudly echoes Tom Brokaw's sentiment as he writes "remember the final two words in our national anthem: `play ball!' " (Mar.)Forecast: Due to appear on shelves in time for baseball season, this PBS companion will sell hugely.

Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: National Geographic
• Publication date: 2002
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0792264649
• ISBN 13: 9780792264644
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 320