Sandlot Seasons: Sport in Black Pittsburgh (Sport and Society) [Paperback]

Rob Ruck (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

Ruck (History, Chatham Coll.) has written a fascinating account of sport in the Iron City's black community. Focusing on 20th-century sandlot baseball, he argues that teams like the Pittsburgh Crawfords "fulfilled vital social and community functions and served as a political arena . . . in which black struggles for recognition and equality were symbolically waged . . . " Making excellent use of oral history interviews, Ruck goes beyond mere sports trivia. He paints a vivid portrait of an urban black society and its love affair with a sporting life it produced and controlled. Highly recommended for educated laypeople and students of American social history. Anthony O. Edmonds, History Dept., Ball State Univ., Muncie, Ind.
Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

• Paperback: 280 pages
• Publisher: University of Illinois Press (June 1, 1993)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0252063422
• ISBN-13: 978-0252063428
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,211,837 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Rob Ruck, Senior Lecturer in the History Department at the University of Pittsburgh, is the author of Sandlot Seasons: Sport in Black Pittsburgh, The Tropic of Baseball: Baseball in the Dominican Republic, Rooney: A Sporting Life, and the recently released Raceball: How the Major Leagues Colonized the Black and Latin Game. His documentary work includes Kings on the Hill: Baseball's Forgotten Men, which won an Emmy for Cultural Programming, and The Republic of Baseball: Dominican Giants of the American Game. He was on the committee that elected eighteen players from the Caribbean and the Negro Leagues to the Hall of Fame in 2006 and recently served as an advisor for Viva Beisbol, the permanent exhibit on Latinos at the Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York. An undergraduate at Yale University, who did his doctoral work at the University of Pittsburgh, Rob lives in Pittsburgh with his wife Maggie Patterson, his co-author for the Rooney book.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Informative and interesting, June 24, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Sandlot Seasons: Sport in Black Pittsburgh (Sport and Society) (Paperback)

This book was a natural selection for me, given my Pittsburgh heritage and a life-long interest in baseball. The work surpassed my expectations and I would recommend it highly, even to those who have less interest than I do in baseball and in the Negro Leagues specifically. Ruck's finest achievement in this book may be his setting of the Pittsburgh Crawfords and the Homestead Grays in the context of Pittsburgh culture at the time. He devotes a good portion of the early part of the book to covering the patterns of migration into the city during the industrial age, and by doing so he truly brings the city to life, especially for those who are familiar with its layout today. Pittsburgh is an unusual city because of the ethnic residential pockets that were formed at the specific time that the mills and the mines were being filled, and those migrations leave their stamp on the city even now. I can't honestly declare this book to be a page-turner for someone who has never been to Pittsburgh, or who cares nothing about Satchel Paige, Josh Gibson, or Gus Greenlee, but if you ever do walk the Hill in Pittsburgh and want to know more about what produced those remarkable achievements, this book is a wonderful source.

4.0 out of 5 stars Needed background, January 30, 2010

By 

Ms. Pocketbook (Tempe, AZ USA) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Sandlot Seasons: Sport in Black Pittsburgh (Sport and Society) (Paperback)

Was looking for a book that said something more than a paragraph about Gus Greenlee and this fit the bill. Bought a jacket for my son for xmas with Greenlee Field on the back and needed the history to go with it. This book delivered!

5.0 out of 5 stars great buy, January 9, 2007

By 

S. Destfino - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

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This review is from: Sandlot Seasons: Sport in Black Pittsburgh (Sport and Society) (Paperback)

this was something i had to buy for a class and i didn't want to read it. my fiance' picked it up and got into it so then i decided to give it a try, and it is really interesting. it's easy to read and really informative - especially if you have any investment in pittsburgh or black sports.