Baseball As America

Baseball As America: Seeing Ourselves Through Our National Game

Exploring the relationship between baseball and American culture, character and values, Baseball As America: Seeing Ourselves Through Our National Game is a lavishly illustrated collection of some of the most entertaining and thought-provoking writing about the game emblematic of our national character.

Baseball As America: Seeing Ourselves Through Our National Game (National Geographic, ISBN 0-7922-6464-9, March 2002), developed by the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum, investigates baseball's extraordinary relationship with American culture from its early roots to today. Distinguished writers trace the way the game has reflected American dreams and aspirations and examine the lives and achievements of its heroes and their devoted fans.

Baseball As America: Seeing Ourselves Through Our National Game tells this story through seven sections reflecting such formative phenomena as immigration, popular culture, integration and technology and reveals how baseball has served as a public reflection of, and, at times, a catalyst for the evolution of American society. The publication illuminates and exemplifies these themes by incorporating a wide range of materials from the unparalleled collections of the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum.

Composed of 320 pages and over 200 illustrations, the book is a unique compendium featuring 45 newly-commissioned and 30 classic essays, commentaries and literature from a wide spectrum of writers, commentators, scholars and humorists. Commissioned pieces include: news anchor Tom Brokaw on baseball's importance to wartime America; filmmaker Penny Marshall on the making of A League of Their Own; best-selling novelist John Grisham on the significance of baseball to children; architect David Rockwell on designing stadium interiors for fans; chef and cookbook author Molly O'Neill on the primal importance of the hot dog to baseball; and baseball writer Roger Kahn on the Brooklyn Dodgers; among many others. The classic pieces include singer/songwriter Paul Simon on Joe DiMaggio as an icon; Pulitzer Prize-winning humor columnist Dave Barry on the most resonant baseball story of 1960; and writer Roger Angell on the destruction of the Polo Grounds; to note a few. Jules Tygiel, author of Past Time: Baseball As History and a recent biography of Jackie Robinson, has written the introduction to the book and a series of essays on the themes explored throughout.

The book features many rare, seldom-seen photographs, including: Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig advertising "Babe Ruth" underwear; John F. Kennedy throwing out a ceremonial first pitch; and a team picture of the legendary Negro Leagues' Pittsburgh Crawfords. Also featured are pictures of some of the most revered objects from the Hall of Fame collections such as: the legendary Doubleday baseball; a baseball and Yogi Berra's catcher's mitt used in Don Larsen's perfect World Series game (1956); and a turnstile from the Polo Grounds, among others.