|
Books > Sport & Leisure > Sports & outdoor recreation > Ball games > Baseball
A. G. Spalding was a key figure in the professionalization and
commercialization of American sports. Co-founder of baseball's
National League, owner of the Chicago White Stockings (later the
Cubs), and founder of a sporting goods business that made him a
millionaire, Spalding not only willed baseball to be our national
pastime but also contributed to making sport a significant part of
American life.
This biography captures the zest, flamboyance, and creativity of
Albert Goodwell Spalding, a man of insatiable ego, a showman and
entrepreneur, whose life illuminated the hopes and fears of
19th-century Americans. It is a vivid evocation of the vanished
world of 19th-century baseball, recreating a time when it was
transformed from a game played on unkempt fields to modern
style.
Blending scientific fact and sports trivia, Robert Adair examines what a baseball or player in motion does-and why. How fast can a batted ball go? What effect do stitch patterns have on wind resistance? How far does a curve ball break? Who reaches first base faster after a bunt, a right- or left-handed batter? The answers are often surprising -- and always illuminating. This newly revised third edition considers recent developments in the science of sport such as the neurophysiology of batting, bat vibration, and the character of the "sweet spot." Faster pitchers, longer hitters, and enclosed stadiums also get a good, hard scientific look to determine their effects on the game. Filled with anecdotes about famous players and incidents, The Physics of Baseball provides fans with fascinating insights into America's favorite pastime.
The influence of baseball heritage in society and culture
Baseball's past has been lauded, romanticized, and idealized, and
much has been written about both the sport and its history. This is
the first volume to explore the understudied side of baseball-how
its heritage is understood, interpreted, commodified, and performed
for various purposes today. These essays reveal how baseball's
heritage can be a source of great enjoyment and inspiration,
tracing its influence on constructed environments, such as stadiums
and monuments, and food and popular culture. The contributors
discuss how its heritage can be used to address social, political,
and economic aims and agendas and can reveal tensions about whose
past is remembered and whose is laid aside. Contributors address
race and racism in the sport, representations of women in baseball,
ballparks as repositories for baseball's heritage, and the role of
museums in generating the game's heritage narrative. Providing
perspectives on the social impact and influence of baseball in the
United States, Canada, Japan, South Korea, Brazil, the Caribbean,
and the United Kingdom, Baseball and Cultural Heritage shows how
the performance of baseball heritage can reflect the culture and
heritage of a nation. A volume in the series Cultural Heritage
Studies, edited by Paul A. Shackel
|
|