The National Game: Baseball and American Culture [Paperback]

John P. Rossi (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 17, 2001

As a part of popular culture, sport has made a deep impression in American life. And nowhere is this clearer than in baseball, the game that seems to transcend generations and has made its way into our language and literature. In The National Game, John Rossi offers not only an expert overview of baseball over the past 175 years; he shows how the game has reflected and contributed to changes in American society over that time. The country grew up playing baseball, Mr. Rossi notes, but the professional game took hold in the cities of the Northeast just as the nation was transforming itself from a rural to an urban society. Essentially a middle-class attempt to create a club sport, the game began early on to integrate immigrant groups—and over the years it became an important pathway to acceptance for all kinds of outsiders. The National Game chronicles baseball's popular successes and financial failures; its interleague wars and continuing struggles between owners and players; and its accommodations to radio and television—without neglecting the colorful players and managers who have won the hearts of fans. For a readable, concise history of the game and its place in American culture, Mr. Rossi's book is hard to beat. With 10 black-and-white photographs.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Baseball may be just a game on the field, but off the field, its hold on the American heart, its place in American history, and its impact on American society are as powerful as a squad of clean-up hitters. For a pastime, this is serious stuff demanding serious reflection, and historian John P. Rossi steps up to provide it. Approaching his subject with the rigorous gravitas of an academician, the number-love of a statistician, the awe of a fan, and the inalienable right of all ticket-holders to offer analysis when the impulse strikes, his result mirrors a typical afternoon at the yard: The National Game sprinkles its share of action, intriguing fact, and observations that merit more amplification over a predictable and familiar narrative.

He tries to cover the bases, and he does. His examination of baseball's transition from a country game to a city game, and with it the enormously symbiotic role it played in introducing--and synthesizing--each new wave of immigrants into American culture, is splendid. He makes the game's often Byzantine business practices--going back to the 1870s--at least understandable, and he takes some good cuts at the implications of the Black Sox scandal, the legacy of Babe Ruth, Jackie Robinson's crossing of the color line, the tangled web of the reserve clause and free agency, the game's flight to the suburbs, and its return to downtown. For a concise introduction--"concise" and "introduction" must be stressed here--to baseball history, The National Game does its job; it's the literary equivalent of a solid utility infielder. Ironically, by trying to touch as many bases as he does, Rossi also spreads himself thin. That, in a nutshell, is the upside and downside of trying to compress a couple of centuries' worth of names, dates, events, trends, facts, fables, myths, and interpretation into just a couple of hundred pages. --Jeff Silverman --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Publishers Weekly

Rossi delivers a brisk, straightforward overview of baseball's evolution, following popular developments that have altered both the game and the business since the sport's inception as a popular hobby more than 150 years ago. He argues that baseball, more than any another sport and many national institutions, is intrinsically linked to American social change because its evolution has been shaped by so many of the issues that affected a modernizing America: labor relations, ethnicity, class, race, the economy, the power of the press and the significance of tradition. Rossi follows developments within the game and then suggests how these have helped or hurt it in the eyes of the fans, using both anecdotal information and broad statistical categories like attendance records and organization profits. Individuals are less important here than trends. Club owners, in all their varieties, show up throughout baseball history as active forces in this evolution, sometimes unknowingly, often unwillingly. Business decisions change tradition (the Brooklyn Dodgers move West) and even play (the American League adds the designated hitter to match National League attendance levels). Well-read fans of both baseball lore and American history may find that the overview approach results in significant gaps and generalizations, and there is little discussion of baseball's impact on American culture. Rossi, who teaches American history at La Salle University, is more interested in the story of baseball's style of evolution--how baseball reacted to the economic or social state of the nation, and how the game fared with fans in the wake of those reactions.
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 256 pages
• Publisher: Ivan R Dee (December 17, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1566634164
• ISBN-13: 978-1566634168
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.2 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.5 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #255,152 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #43 in Books > Education & Reference > Encyclopedias > Sports

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Mainly for the serious baseball fan, April 20, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: The National Game: Baseball and American Culture (Hardcover)

This is probably different than most baseball books you may have read. This isn't a wistful recollection of Babe Ruth, Jackie Robinson, and the Big Red Machine. In fact, the owners are more of a focus of this book than the players. You will learn how baseball, the economy, and social life throughout American history have often been intertwined. It's as much a history book as a baseball book.

While the book covers all of baseball's time periods, the best parts cover the sport's beginnings in the mid-1800s through the 1930s. The author seemed to especially skimp on the chapters covering 1970 to today. Also, this book includes tons of numbers, and as such, might prove to be tedious reading for the casual fan. Perhaps some additional pictures or other graphics could have been included to break up the chapters a little better.

I wouldn't call this my favorite sports book of all time, but it's certainly worth reading.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Good summary of baseball history, but lacking, June 7, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: The National Game: Baseball and American Culture (Hardcover)

A quality, readable short history of baseball. However in only 200+ pages this book is superficial in its treatment of major events. I am not sure to whom Mr. Rossi was directing his book. It was too brief to be a book for serious fans, and probably best for the casual fan. Clearly it was well researched and well written. I find the best baseball books focus on an era and weave more of the current events into the book. Summer of 49, The Boys of Summer, and A Clever Base-Ballist(1880's) are examples of these type of books. Mr. Rossi set out to write a survey of many eras and I do not fault him for that lofty purpose. However it seems that he had an opportunity to write a more full treatment of each era covered.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Quick Read on Baseball's History, March 25, 2001

By 

C. W. Emblom "Bill Emblom" (Ishpeming, Michigan USA) - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The National Game: Baseball and American Culture (Hardcover)

No, this is not an all encompassing history of baseball, but if you are looking for a quick read on baseball's history this book would be perfect for you. I finished it in two sittings, but I feel the author knows what he is talking about and it is worth five stars. Author Rossi correctly points out that baseball's problems, for the most part, are not new ones. He correctly points out that baseball's future is up in the air at this time, and unlike decades past, baseball is faced with other sports as competition for the interests of individuals. The problem of unequal television revenue among the different teams ranks as the key problem that baseball owners must solve. The book is easy reading, but for a book that is 235 pages long the author does a great job covering baseball's history. It will be a keeper in my extensive library of baseball books.