Reviewed by: Baseball and American Culture: A History by John P. Rossi Justin W. R. Turner John P. Rossi, Baseball and American Culture: A History. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2018. 280 pp. Paper, $28.00. Seeking to place baseball's history in the context of America's major cultural developments, John Rossi takes a broad look across more than one hundred fifty years of the national pastime. Having taught a college course on this topic for three decades, Rossi believes that "one can study American history through the development of baseball" (xi), and over the course of ten chronological [End Page 255] chapters he highlights how issues including wars, economic booms and busts, urbanization, and race, affected baseball. Each chapter concludes with questions for consideration, as well as accompanying documents—typically excerpts from scholarly articles—to underscore certain topics, making the book classroom-friendly. Rossi's early chapters trace baseball's origins and evolution over the late nineteenth century. Just as the nation entered a new era after the Civil War, baseball, though born in the antebellum age, grew in popularity amid the industrialization that followed. Rossi shows how baseball's early barons reflected the post-war culture of "ruthless competition, rationalizing business practices, and a smart emphasis on the bottom line" (29). One example was William Hulbert, who in 1876 organized the National League and implemented standardized scheduling and rules to enforce player contracts—eventually leading to the reserve clause. Rossi also reveals how baseball conformed to social developments in this era. The most successful professional clubs sprang up in metropolitan centers, and afternoon games catered to the middle classes in the nation's growing cities. Furthermore, in the late 1880s, baseball began to mirror the racially-segregated public spaces of Jim Crow. After 1887, the game's most infamous unwritten rule kept African American players out of the white Major League Baseball (MLB) for six decades. In the twentieth century, professional baseball entered its golden age. Rossi details how consolidation and cooperation, most notably the National and American Leagues' 1903 agreement creating the World Series, bolstered both circuits. As America escaped the economic tumult of the 1890s, growing urban infrastructure, including mass transportation and new ballpark construction, also aided the game. The 1910s were still tentative, however. The MLB survived the upstart Federal League's challenge with help from the federal judiciary, which exempted baseball from anti-trust legislation. Furthermore, had it not ended in November 1918, the First World War would likely have preempted the 1919 baseball season, a campaign memorable for all the wrong reasons. Rossi is particularly insightful here, and shows how an environment of mistrust, stemming from player pay disputes after the 1918 World Series, bred the Black Sox scandal. Peace, prosperity, and power—the last from Babe Ruth and Kenesaw Mountain Landis, pushed baseball's 1920s surge. While Ruth's home runs drew attention, Landis, appointed Major League Baseball's first commissioner in 1920, looked to restore integrity. He banned the eight Chicago players implicated in the 1919 scandal, but also worked to mitigate owner leverage over players by voiding unfair contracts. Rossi labels Landis "a typical product of the Progressive Era, someone who believed that good government was good politics" [End Page 256] (118). He does not note the irony of Landis's selection occurring the same month that Warren G. Harding's election signaled progressivism's demise. A doubleheader of difficulties, from the Great Depression to the Second World War, forced baseball to adapt and innovate in the 1930s and 1940s. Rossi traces how several signature features, such as radio broadcasts, night games, the All-Star Game, postseason awards, and the Hall of Fame, were born from the need to enhance baseball's mid-century profile. After the war, which vanquished the Nazis' racial ideology, baseball confronted its own prejudice. Rossi lauds the game's integrating African American players, beginning in 1947, as surpassing most contemporary American institutions, but does not deny the financial and competitive advantages behind it. Postwar suburban growth also put new economic pressure on franchises, prompting relocation and expansion. On the Dodgers' and Giants' moves, Rossi places scant blame on Walter O'Malley, less on Horace Stoneham...
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Apr 19, 2017
Ian Caine + 2
Open Access
