The Tropic of Baseball: Baseball in the Dominican Republic [Paperback]

Rob L. Ruck (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 1, 1999

In a new afterword Rob Ruck looks at the current state of baseball in the country that has produced Sammy Sosa and many other major league stars.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

Unlike John Krich's survey of all Latin America in El Beisbol ( LJ 5/1/89), this looks only at the half-island nation which sent Hall of Famer Juan Marichal and other stars to the big leagues. Ruck ( Sandlot Seasons: Sport in Black Pittsburgh, LJ 1/15/87) traces baseball's 100 years there against the story of foreign economic domination and Trujillo repression. Though expensive for some libraries, this is a valuable study and should be in all serious collections.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Review

"In the Dominican Republic . . . baseball reigns supreme. San Pedro de Macorís, on the island’s southeast coast, has produced more major league ballplayers per capita than any other town in the world. According to former big leaguer Pedro Gonzalez, ‘Every boy grows up with a bat and a ball—it’s the first present a male baby gets in his crib.’ . . . Ruck offers not only the flavor of Dominican baseball but a spirited and carefully crafted account of the past and present of this complicated game. . . . A rarity in sports history."—Journal of American History

(Journal of American History )

"Fans should want to know why such a little Caribbean island has so much baseball talent. . . . On this literally dirt-poor island, baseball is the Dream, the Salvation, the stabilizing societal force. . . . Baseball is all there is."—Baseball America

(Baseball America )

"Impressive . . . captures the spirit of the sport as it is played in the Dominican Republic."—Journal of Sport History

(Journal of Sport History )

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 217 pages
• Publisher: Bison Books; 2nd edition (February 1, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0803289782
• ISBN-13: 978-0803289789
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,108,538 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #53 in Books > History > Americas > Caribbean & West Indies > Dominican Republic

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.