Reading Baseball: Books, Biographies, and the Business of the Game
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American baseball is a child’s game played by adults, transformed from an amateur to a professional pursuit celebrated as a national pastime with an ability to generate ever increasing, untold wealth. Like other competitive team sports, baseball is a labor-intensive industry. Its production cannot be enhanced by substituting machines for players, downsizing or going off-shore−making players into devices at the disposal of employers who produce tangible products.
Robert C. Berry, William B. Gould, and Paul D. Staudohar have said, “The magic that is sports is fast fleeting ... Players as actors are both the machinery and the product ... It is not just that athletes are part of the game. They are the game.”
Author and scholar Braham Dabscheck delves into some of baseball's most important topics, including the business of the game: industrial and labor relations, Curt Flood, law, and organized baseball; social commentary biographies: the work of Stephen Jay Gould and Ken Burns, for example; and culture of the game as it has spread across the globe to places like Australia, Japan, and Latin America. Reading Baseball is both insightful and remarkable and is a valuable companion to any student or enthusiast of sport.