Synopsis
A best-selling author and passionate baseball fan takes a tough-minded look at America’s most traditional game in our twenty-first-century culture of digital distraction
Baseball, first dubbed the “national pastime” in print in 1856, is the country’s most tradition-bound sport. Despite remaining popular and profitable into the twenty-first century, the game is losing young fans, among African Americans and women as well as white men. Furthermore, baseball’s greatest charm―a clockless suspension of time―is also its greatest liability in a culture of digital distraction.
These paradoxes are explored by the historian and passionate baseball fan Susan Jacoby in a book that is both a love letter to the game and a tough-minded analysis of the current challenges to its special position―in reality and myth―in American culture. The concise but wide-ranging analysis moves from the Civil War―when many soldiers played ball in northern and southern prisoner-of-war camps―to interviews with top baseball officials and young men who prefer playing online “fantasy baseball” to attending real games.
Revisiting her youthful days of watching televised baseball in her grandfather’s bar, the author links her love of the game with the informal education she received in everything from baseball’s history of racial segregation to pitch location. Jacoby argues forcefully that the major challenge to baseball today is a shortened attention span at odds with a long game in which great hitters fail two out of three times. Without sanitizing this basic problem, Why Baseball Matters remind us that the game has retained its grip on our hearts precisely because it has repeatedly demonstrated the ability to reinvent itself in times of immense social change.
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About the Author
Susan Jacoby is the author of eleven previous books, including the New York Times best-seller The Age of American Unreason, The Great Agnostic, and Alger Hiss and the Battle for History. She is a frequent contributor to national publications, including the Times and the Washington Post.
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Why Baseball Matters (Why X Matters Series)
Published by
Yale University Press, 2019
ISBN 10: 0300244401
ISBN 13: 9780300244403
Used
Soft cover
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Soft cover. Condition: Very Good. No Jacket. 1st Edition. Susan Jacoby grew up watching televised baseball in her grandfather's bar. She links her love of the game with the informal education she received in everything from baseball's history of racial segregation to pitch location. She argues that baseball's greatest challenge today is a shortened attention span at odds with a long game in which great hitters fail two out of three times. In very good condition. I have more than 50 books by and about baseball fans, over 90 publications by and about women in baseball, and 265 items on the Negro Leagues and Black Sports in stock. Discounts are available when you purchase multiple items on the same order. Seller Inventory # ABE-1562347016002
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Why Baseball Matters
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Paperback. Condition: New. A clean crisp well preserved 2018 Yale University Press softcover in a fine tight binding. Little to no shelf wear. Text is bright and free of marks or underlining. Fast shipping in a secure book box mailer with tracking. A best-selling author and passionate baseball fan takes a tough-minded look at America's most traditional game in our twenty-first-century culture of digital distraction Baseball, first dubbed the "national pastime" in print in 1856, is the country's most tradition-bound sport. Despite remaining popular and profitable into the twenty-first century, the game is losing young fans, among African Americans and women as well as white men. Furthermore, baseball's greatest charm--a clockless suspension of time--is also its greatest liability in a culture of digital distraction. These paradoxes are explored by the historian and passionate baseball fan Susan Jacoby in a book that is both a love letter to the game and a tough-minded analysis of the current challenges to its special position--in reality and myth--in American culture. The concise but wide-ranging analysis moves from the Civil War--when many soldiers played ball in northern and southern prisoner-of-war camps--to interviews with top baseball officials and young men who prefer playing online "fantasy baseball" to attending real games. Revisiting her youthful days of watching televised baseball in her grandfather's bar, the author links her love of the game with the informal education she received in everything from baseball's history of racial segregation to pitch location. Jacoby argues forcefully that the major challenge to baseball today is a shortened attention span at odds with a long game in which great hitters fail two out of three times. Without sanitizing this basic problem, Why Baseball Matters remind us that the game has retained its grip on our hearts precisely because it has repeatedly demonstrated the ability to reinvent itself in times of immense social change. Seller Inventory # 81