Book Report on Baseball: A History of America's Game by Benjamin G. Rader In "Baseball: A History of America's Game", the Author Benjamin G. Rader discusses the history of baseball and how it developed to present day. Rader explains how baseball started as a simple game consisting of no rules besides the players using a stick to hit a ball and its constant evolution to what the game is today. He also displays several issues which America's favorite sport has had while developing into the complex sport it is today. Although baseball has had several trials and tribulations throughout its history, it still remains America's favorite pastime.
Rader states that baseball was founded by Abner Doubleday in 1839 at Cooperstown, New York. In the next couple decades, the game developed the simple concept of bases. After having bases introduced into the game, the kids in bigger cities started club based teams which played each other. These teams started to develop a personal passion and respect for baseball which led them to adopt written rules. He conveys the idea of fellowship within the team and how the players celebrated all aspects of the game. He gives an example of a club team called the New York Knickerbockers and how they celebrated with their opponents and teammates whether they won or l...
... middle of paper ...
...itchers who started out by only being allowed to throw under hand and now presently they are able to about five to ten different types of pitches overhand. Several records also have been broken like Mark McGwire breaking Roger Maris's thirty seven year old homerun record.
Baseball has been of the longest living sports in our world today. The game started with the idea of a stick and ball and now has become one of the most complex sports known in our society. Several rules and regulations have been added to help enhance the game for everyone. Although baseball has endured several issues during its history and development of the game the game has still been a success throughout the world.
Nemee, David. “100 Years of Major League Baseball.” Lincolnwood, Illinois: Publications Infernational, Ltd, 200. Print.
way they have been handled, the drug and alcohol abuse, and the strikes that have plagued baseball.
As in all areas of social culture, African Americans denied of a shared walk through baseball history with whites turned to making their own history on the playing diamond of an ever-changing America. " African Americans recognized that they had the talent to throw and catch round horsehide objects almost as soon as t...
Most people might just assume that baseball is a boring game played with two teams that have nine players on each side, who both take turns hitting and going on defense. People sometimes think that the game is only nine innings, and the team with the most amount of runs in the end wins. But there is so much more to it than that and it's all thanks to mathematics. I have especially noticed this due to my personal engagement with baseball, it is the main sport I play and I play almost everyday for about 2 hours a day. I play for Stratford high school and baseball has had a large impact on my life which is a big reason why I wanted to do this particular topic. I love baseball and have played it for
Professional baseball started in 1869 and developed into the game we know today as America?s past time. Baseball was a part of the American identity.
You may have heard that Abner Doubleday invented baseball in Cooperstown, New York, during the summer of 1839 but he didn’t. It actually turns out that the real history of baseball is more complicated than Abner Doubleday. This dates back in the united states during the 1800’s.
Baseball is a unique sport in many different ways. It is the only major competitive sport that has no time limit. The success of a player is determined on how well he can play as an individual and how well the team plays along with him. There are many rules that determine the success of a player’s performance. A baseball game is played with two teams and each team is permitted 25 players per team; however this is only true for professional teams. There are three parts to baseball: offense, pitching, and defense.
First off, the knuckle ball. It is called the hardest pitch to hit. A pitch that seemingly floats like a butterfly and then magically drops into the strike zone, dumbfounding the batter and almost always resulting in a strike out. But how is this pitch actually thrown? The name of the pitch essentially entails how the pitch is thrown, the pitcher curls his fingers into his hand, placing the knuckles of his fingers on the ball, and releasing the ball in this manner and fashion. But why does this work? It comes down to the position of the laces. By throwing the ball off the pitcher’s knuckles, the ball exhibits no spin throughout the entire duration of the pitch. This allows different lift forces within the air is passes to exert themselves upon the ball. By doing this, the ball is subject to different planar movements as a result of different lift forces manifesting themselves upon the baseball that is thrown. In a simplistic explanation, this is why a knuckle ball “knuckles” as it is thrown.
In the early 20th century, baseball became the first professional sport to earn nationwide attention in America. Because it was our first national professional team sport, because of its immense popularity, and because of its reputation as being synonymous with America, baseball has been written about more than any other sport, in both fiction and non-fiction alike. As baseball grew popular so did some of the sportswriters who wrote about the game in the daily newspaper. Collectively, the sportswriters of the early 20th century launched a written history of baseball that transformed the game into a “national symbol” of American culture, a “guardian” of America’s traditional values, and as a “gateway” to an idealized past. (Skolnik 3) No American sport has a history as long—or as romanticized—as that of the game referred to as our “national pastime.”
Since the sport first emerged, baseball and America have shared the same values, responded to the same events, and struggled with the same social and economic issues. To learn of the ideals concerning the sport of baseball in America, is to know the heart and mind of America. Baseball developed before the Civil War but did not achieve professional status until the 1870s (The Baseball Glove, 2004). In 1871, the National Association of Professional Baseball Players was formed. Unfortunately, the organization ran into financial hardships and was abandoned in 1875.
Americans began playing baseball on informal teams, using local rules, in the early 1800s. By the 1860s, the sport, unrivaled in popularity, was being described as America's "national pastime." Alexander Joy Cartwright of New York invented the modern baseball field in 1845. Alexander Cartwright and the members of his New York Knickerbocker Base Ball Club devised the first rules and regulations for the modern game of baseball.
Tygiel, Jules. 2001; 2000. Past time: Baseball as history. Oxford England; New York: Oxford University Press.
In the beginning there were players like Ty Cobb who hit .300 for 23 consecutive years, and the 'flying dutchman' Honus Wagner. Pitchers like the 'christian gentleman' Christy Mathewson, and the winningest pitcher in history Cy Young. In the years when the only Yankees were the people in the north and there was an upstart franchise called the American League there was a pitcher, his name was Walter Johnson. Known as the 'big train' because of his high powered fastball which was unequaled in all of baseball Johnson was a poor Kansas farm-hand who became one of the best pitchers baseball has ever been lucky to have ever seen, and he was on one of the worst teams in the history of baseball.
A travel of over 3000 miles for some, a 210 mile drive for me, just to arrive at the biggest gathering of over 1,500 twelve year olds; all just to play baseball. The only place that would be suitable for such an event is Cooperstown Dream Parks, every baseball players heaven. Cars have come to Cooperstown from everywhere for this week long tournament. I met children my age from all over the United states. I became friends with kids from Ohio, Illinois, California, I even met a player from Puerto Rico who barely spoke any english. The windows of everyone 's car decorated with the names and numbers of teams and players. Excited baseball teams spill from their Barracks and hustle toward the already crowded seating area. Festive music played over
Baseball was first introduced into the American culture, by English immigrants in the early 18th century, and its popularity slow grew. It wasn’t until the Civil War the popularity of the game spread, and both Union and Confederate soldiers played baseball during lulls in the fighting. After Gen. Robert E. Lee surrendered to Gen. Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Courthouse, soldiers from both the Army of Northern Virginia (Confederate) and the Army of the Potomac (Union) played baseball. (Schackelford Jul 4, 2009) This was the beginning of the American people love of Baseball began. It was also the first mention of baseball being the national game. During the bloodiest war in our countries history Baseball was there to help the two sides heal. It was another fourteen years till 1879 when Football would be invented.