National Pastime: U.S. History Through Baseball by Martin C. Babicz and Thomas W. Zeiler

Abstract

Reviewed by: National Pastime: U.S. History Through Baseball by Martin C. Babicz and Thomas W. Zeiler David Lucander Martin C. Babicz and Thomas W. Zeiler. National Pastime: U.S. History Through Baseball. Lanham, Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield, 2017. 277 pp. Cloth, $36.00. The game of baseball and the United States are so intertwined that pointing this fact out is a veritable cliché. From its beginnings in the antebellum era, baseball has been “a window through which we can examine and clarify American history” (ix). This remains as true for us today as it was for Walt Whitman in the 1850s. Then and now, the game reflects many of the developments that made modern America. Some of the parallels between sport and society include the professionalization and specialization of labor, the rise of various reform movements, demographic shifts, globalization, and the spread of revolutionary technologies that changed the way we consume media. Martin C. Babicz and Thomas W. Zeiler’s National Pastime: U.S. History Through Baseball is a fact-laden survey of the game’s history that seeks to wed baseball history and American history in a neatly organized single-volume. This is the newest installment in the increasingly prestigious American Ways Series and is rooted in academia, but the book is a crossover text that targets a general reading audience. The fifteen generally chronologically arranged chapters are roughly twelve pages each, making it an unintimidating read and a quick study for those who are specialists in sports history. There are only two endnotes in the entire monograph, but a lengthy bibliographical essay directs readers to the vast amount of readily accessible books used in the research for this study. Roughly half of the book’s fifteen chapters are devoted to baseball’s early history, with names like Henry Chadwick, Alexander Cartwright, Alexander Spaulding, and Cap Anson being central to the narrative. This early history is essential, but the disproportionate emphasis on the game’s earliest era could be difficult for younger readers to connect with because this past seems so far [End Page 184] removed from the game that they know. Absent from this is even a mention of recent Hall of Famers Nolan Ryan or Carlton Fisk and the cultural significance of their personas. This imbalance also manifests in the omissions of generationally famous moments such as Dirk Denkinger’s missed call in the 1985 Cardinals-Royals World Series, the significance of curse-breaking championships by the Red Sox and Cubs, and the deep symbolism of Mariano Rivera’s retirement as the last player to wear uniform number 42. “Babe Ruth and the Roaring Twenties” is one of the book’s strongest chapters. In this section, the authors most concretely connect the subject of baseball with broader societal events. Babe Ruth “personified” much of what we know about this era by being “big, loud, and rambunctious, like the decade itself ” (89). This period of previously unprecedented prosperity is marked by the rapid growth of cities, a tremendous rise of immigration, the flaunting of excess, and technological innovations in mass media. All of this led to the creation of celebrity, and Babe Ruth fit the bill perfectly. Another especially strong section is a chapter on the Negro Leagues. Jackie Robinson has unquestionably attained iconic status as an American hero, but the general public is veritably unaware of the African American ballplayers and business people who came before him. The authors fill this lacunae by shining the spotlight on Gus Greenlee, Satchel Paige, Cool Papa Bell, and Josh Gibson. These figures should be household names and carry the kind of cultural esteem that Babe Ruth, Cy Young, and Stan Musial enjoy. By contextualizing the Negro Leagues within the history of Plessy v. Ferguson, the Great Migration, and the Harlem Renaissance, Babicz and Zeiler tell a story of survival and resilience in the face of Jim Crow. Various appendices constitute over forty pages of National Pastime. These franchise histories, and charts of playoff results are interesting to have on hand, but this valuable space could have been allocated to incorporate more detailed historical analysis. For instance, the short-lived Player’s League is discussed alongside the 1892 Homestead Steel Strike...