Baseball History

Reflections on the intersection of civic and market, public and private, in the history of the National Pastime

Reflections on the intersection of civic and market, public and private, in the history of the National Pastime

Posts

What I taught: Baseball and American Culture: History, Literature, Cinema

I never delved as deeply as I'd wish on cinema and, especially, the literature side of this. Here's the syllabus. I'll be posting lots of stuff I produced for that class - a summer workshop, one week, five nights, 5.5 hours a night. A real slugfest.

baseball workshop for web.pdf

Interview on this course: note that the interviewer lets me briefly mention “baseball as the myth of industrializing America” but edits out everything I say about the topic. Good move; I'm sure I was incoherent.

Part One: From Fraternity to National League

If you'll recall, this was a one-week workshop and this was Monday's focus. I'll attach here the handout (with a short little essay at the end) and pdfs of the powerpoints I used.

Part one from Fraternity to National League outline.pdf

fraternity.pdf

ENCLOSURE.pdf

NATIONAL LEAGUE.pdf

Part Two: The rise of organized baseball: competition and collusion

This includes a short little essay on “the myth of industrializing America." I never did get this right but I do think there's something there. The last time I taught it, I think I made some advance. I'll try to include the fruits of that at some point

Part two rise of organized baseball.pdf

CAP@LAB.pdf

BBTrust.pdf

MCHGRD03.pdf

Part Three: Creating the National Pastime: Civic and Market at Odds

My favorite part of the course, gets at the civic-market conflict. Again, handout and pdfs of powerpoints.

part three creating the national pastime.pdf

DOUBDAY03.pdf

BALLPARK03.pdf

WRLDSRS05.pdf

CRISIS03.pdf