National Pastime

Martin C. Babicz teaches history at the University of Colorado Boulder for the Sewall Hall History & Culture Residential Academic Program, the Communications & Society Residential Academic Program, and the History Department. Dr. Babicz teaches several courses on American History including America through Baseball. He is the author of a chapter exploring the historiography of sports and pastimes of the 1920s in A Companion to Warren G. Harding, Calvin Coolidge, and Herbert Hoover (2014).Thomas W. Zeiler is a professor of history at the University of Colorado at Boulder where he directs the Program in International Affairs. He teaches and researches on U.S. foreign policy, diplomatic history, globalization, World War II, and sports history. Among the courses he teaches is America through Baseball. Dr. Zeiler’s books include Ambassadors in Pinstripes: The Spalding World Baseball Tour and the Birth of the American Empire (Rowman & Littlefield).

Historians Babicz and Zeiler (both, Univ. of Colorado) set out to connect baseball to US history by developing a chronological framework that allows them to intertwine the game of baseball with the larger currents of US history. Beginning in the 19th century, the game and institution of baseball developed right along with the larger cultural themes of the country. As industrialization became dominant in the US, it affected the game of baseball. Babicz and Zeiler apply this paradigm to the labor movement, WW I, the 1920s, WW II, and civil rights. The final chapter is dedicated to the globalization of baseball and serves to tie the different periods of history together. This book, part of the American Ways series, meets its goal of connecting specific topics to the major events of US history. Along with George Vecsey's Baseball: A History of America's Favorite Game (2006), historians now have two sources that place baseball in a historical US context.Summing Up: Highly recommended. All public and academic levels/libraries.

• AcknowledgmentsForewordChapter 1: Baseball in Tocqueville’s America (To 1870)Chapter 2: The Industrialization of Leisure (1871 to 1883)Chapter 3: Color and Global Barriers (1865 to 1918)Chapter 4: The American Labor Movement & the Players’ League (1884 to 1891)Chapter 5: Progressivism and the American League (1892 to 1903)Chapter 6: Normalcy and the Black Sox Scandal (1904 to 1922)Chapter 7: Babe Ruth and the Roaring Twenties (1920 to 1929)Chapter 8: Segregation and the Negro Leagues (1896 to 1949)Chapter 9: Baseball and the Great Depression (1929 to 1940)Chapter 10: Baseball Goes to War (1941 to 1945)Chapter 11: Jackie Robinson and Civil Rights (1946 to 1987)Chapter 12: The Postwar American Century (1945 to 1964)Chapter 13: Change and Revolution (1960 to 1975)Chapter 14: Baseball in Post-Industrial America (Since 1975)Chapter 15: A Global Game (Since 1865)Epilogue: TraditionsBibliographic Essay