Sport and Revolutionaries

Sport and Revolutionaries PDF Author: John Nauright
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317519485
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 186

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Book Description
This collection examines the role of sport in the lives of key revolutionary thinkers and leftist activists. In contrast to those who take a more romantic view of sport and believe in its apolitical nature, the eight essays help make clear how sport has served as a site for political activism and the revolutionary thought and practices of such individuals as Henry Mayers Hyndman, Vladimer Ilyich Lenin, Fidel Castro, Ernesto 'Che' Guevara, Harry Edwards, Charles Perkins, and Darius Dhlomo. Written by noted scholars with long publication lists, the essays in turn provide insights into the close connection among sport, politics, and revolutionary movements in countries varying widely in their history, governmental policies, and treatment of individuals and groups. Taken as a whole, the essays, which adopt a very broad definition of revolutions, are written with the hope of encouraging more serious thought regarding the transformative potential of sports which can be both individually liberating and responsible for co-opting the lower classes and helping maintain power among the political and economic elite in capitalistic as well as socialist societies. This bookw as published as a special issue of the International Journal of the History of Sport.

Baseball Revolutionaries

Baseball Revolutionaries PDF Author: John Erardi
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781798058046
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 300

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Book Description
Celebrate the 150th anniversary of professional baseball with the amazing 1869 Red Stockings, the team that made baseball famous. Led by two giants of the game, brothers Harry and George Wright, and backed by a city crazy about its baseball, the Red Stockings win every game, play on both coasts, and revolutionize a sport that was only beginning to establish itself as the National Pastime. Follow the story of how a second-class amateur team from Cincinnati, isolated from the baseball hotbeds of the East, became the first openly professional team, dominated its more established competition, and became the first sports team in America to receive national acclaim. Meet the players and civic leaders behind the Red Stockings revolution, relive their key games, and experience life and travel in 1869. Then learn about the team's shocking demise after the 1870 season. The Red Stockings paved the way for the major league baseball of today, and this is the most complete look at their story.

Marvin Miller, Baseball Revolutionary

Marvin Miller, Baseball Revolutionary PDF Author: Robert F Burk
Publisher: University of Illinois Press
ISBN: 0252096703
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 353

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Book Description
Marvin Miller changed major league baseball and the business of sports. Drawing on research and interviews with Miller and others, Marvin Miller, Baseball Revolutionary offers the first biography covering the pivotal labor leader's entire life and career. Baseball historian Robert F. Burk follows the formative encounters with Depression-era hard times, racial and religious bigotry, and bare-knuckle Washington and labor politics that prepared Miller for his biggest professional challenge--running the moribund Major League Baseball Players Association. Educating and uniting the players as a workforce, Miller embarked on a long campaign to win the concessions that defined his legacy: decent workplace conditions, a pension system, outside mediation of player grievances and salary disputes, a system of profit sharing, and the long-sought dismantling of the reserve clause that opened the door to free agency. Through it all, allies and adversaries alike praised Miller's hardnosed attitude, work ethic, and honesty. Comprehensive and illuminating, Marvin Miller, Baseball Revolutionary tells the inside story of a time of change in sports and labor relations, and of the contentious process that gave athletes in baseball and across the sporting world a powerful voice in their own games.

The Hidden Game of Baseball

The Hidden Game of Baseball PDF Author: John Thorn
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022627683X
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 453

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Book Description
The acclaimed classic on the statistical analysis of baseball records in order to evaluate players and win more games. Long before Moneyball became a sensation or Nate Silver turned the knowledge he’d honed on baseball into electoral gold, John Thorn and Pete Palmer were using statistics to shake the foundations of the game. First published in 1984, The Hidden Game of Baseball ushered in the sabermetric revolution by demonstrating that we were thinking about baseball stats—and thus the game itself—all wrong. Instead of praising sluggers for gaudy RBI totals or pitchers for wins, Thorn and Palmer argued in favor of more subtle measurements that correlated much more closely to the ultimate goal: winning baseball games. The new gospel promulgated by Thorn and Palmer opened the door for a flood of new questions, such as how a ballpark’s layout helps or hinders offense or whether a strikeout really is worse than another kind of out. Taking questions like these seriously—and backing up the answers with data—launched a new era, showing fans, journalists, scouts, executives, and even players themselves a new, better way to look at the game. This brand-new edition retains the body of the original, with its rich, accessible analysis rooted in a deep love of baseball, while adding a new introduction by the authors tracing the book’s influence over the years. A foreword by ESPN’s lead baseball analyst, Keith Law, details The Hidden Game’s central role in the transformation of baseball coverage and team management and shows how teams continue to reap the benefits of Thorn and Palmer’s insights today. Thirty years after its original publication, The Hidden Game is still bringing the high heat—a true classic of baseball literature. Praise for The Hidden Game “As grateful as I was for the publication of The Hidden Game of Baseball when it first showed up on my bookshelf, I’m even more grateful now. It’s as insightful today as it was then. And it’s a reminder that we haven’t applauded Thorn and Palmer nearly loudly enough for their incredible contributions to the use and understanding of the awesome numbers of baseball.” —Jayson Stark, senior baseball writer, ESPN.com “Just as one cannot know the great American novel without Twain and Hemingway, one cannot know modern baseball analysis without Thorn and Palmer.” —Rob Neyer, FOX Sports

In the Best Interests of Baseball

In the Best Interests of Baseball PDF Author: Andrew Zimbalist
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 0470128240
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 273

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Book Description
"The season's best book so far gets right to the heart of the game's survival at the organizational level." —The Boston Globe "A compelling examination of the national pastime as seen through the prism of the commissioner's office." —The Wall Street Journal "A thoughtful and objective analysis of baseball's labor and economic policy evolution. Interesting, relevant, and a good read." — Randy Levine, President of the New York Yankees and former chief labor negotiator for MLB "A tour de force. It's an incredibly interesting read that ends with a vision for the sport that is squarely on target and a clarion call to our industry." — John Henry, principal owner of the Boston Red Sox and member of the MLB Executive Committee "Those who are determined to have Selig's head on a stick will be disappointed; rational baseball fans will rejoice in this tough but fair view of a decent man in a thankless job." — John Thorn, coauthor of Total Baseball "This thoroughly researched book by one of the foremost authorities on sports business is an oral history of the game through the Office of the Commissioner. Zimbalist provides a fascinating look at the game's history and those who have helped shape it." —mlb.com, April 3, 2006 "The best baseball book I've read in forty years." —Mike Murphy, 670 The Score, Chicago

The Sports Revolution

The Sports Revolution PDF Author: Frank Andre Guridy
Publisher: University of Texas Press
ISBN: 1477321837
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 431

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Book Description
Introduction -- Sports in the shadow of segregation -- Spaceships land in the Texas prairie -- The outlaws -- We've come a long way to Houston -- Labor and lawlessness in Rangerland -- Sexual revolution on the sidelines -- The Greek, the Iceman, and the Bums -- Slammin' and jammin' in Houston -- Conclusion: the revolution undone.

A People's History of Baseball

A People's History of Baseball PDF Author: Mitchell Nathanson
Publisher: University of Illinois Press
ISBN: 0252093925
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 298

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Book Description
Baseball is much more than the national pastime. It has become an emblem of America itself. From its initial popularity in the mid-nineteenth century, the game has reflected national values and beliefs and promoted what it means to be an American. Stories abound that illustrate baseball's significance in eradicating racial barriers, bringing neighborhoods together, building civic pride, and creating on the field of play an instructive civics lesson for immigrants on the national character. In A People's History of Baseball, Mitchell Nathanson probes the less well-known but no less meaningful other side of baseball: episodes not involving equality, patriotism, heroism, and virtuous capitalism, but power--how it is obtained, and how it perpetuates itself. Through the growth and development of baseball Nathanson shows that, if only we choose to look for it, we can see the petty power struggles as well as the large and consequential ones that have likewise defined our nation. By offering a fresh perspective on the firmly embedded tales of baseball as America, a new and unexpected story emerges of both the game and what it represents. Exploring the founding of the National League, Nathanson focuses on the newer Americans who sought club ownership to promote their own social status in the increasingly closed caste of nineteenth-century America. His perspective on the rise and public rebuke of the Players Association shows that these baseball events reflect both the collective spirit of working and middle-class America in the mid-twentieth century as well as the countervailing forces that sought to beat back this emerging movement that threatened the status quo. And his take on baseball’s racial integration that began with Branch Rickey’s “Great Experiment” reveals the debilitating effects of the harsh double standard that resulted, requiring a black player to have unimpeachable character merely to take the field in a Major League game, a standard no white player was required to meet. Told with passion and occasional outrage, A People's History of Baseball challenges the perspective of the well-known, deeply entrenched, hyper-patriotic stories of baseball and offers an incisive alternative history of America's much-loved national pastime.

The Sabermetric Revolution

The Sabermetric Revolution PDF Author: Benjamin Baumer
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
ISBN: 0812245725
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 208

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Book Description
The authors look at the history of statistical analysis in baseball, how it can best be used today and how its it must evolve for the future.

Baseball in the Garden of Eden

Baseball in the Garden of Eden PDF Author: John Thorn
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 0743294041
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 386

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Book Description
Think you know how the game of baseball began? Think again. Forget Abner Doubleday and Cooperstown. Did baseball even have a father--or did it just evolve from other bat-and-ball games? John Thorn, baseball's preeminent historian, examines the creation story of the game and finds it all to be a gigantic lie. From its earliest days baseball was a vehicle for gambling, a proxy form of class warfare. Thorn traces the rise of the New York version of the game over other variations popular in Massachusetts and Philadelphia. He shows how the sport's increasing popularity in the early decades of the nineteenth century mirrored the migration of young men from farms and small towns to cities, especially New York. Full of heroes, scoundrels, and dupes, this book tells the story of nineteenth-century America, a land of opportunity and limitation, of glory and greed--all present in the wondrous alloy that is our nation and its pastime.--From publisher description.

Baseball in Blue and Gray

Baseball in Blue and Gray PDF Author: George B. Kirsch
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 140084925X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 167

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Book Description
During the Civil War, Americans from homefront to battlefront played baseball as never before. While soldiers slaughtered each other over the country's fate, players and fans struggled over the form of the national pastime. George Kirsch gives us a color commentary of the growth and transformation of baseball during the Civil War. He shows that the game was a vital part of the lives of many a soldier and civilian--and that baseball's popularity had everything to do with surging American nationalism. By 1860, baseball was poised to emerge as the American sport. Clubs in northeastern and a few southern cities played various forms of the game. Newspapers published statistics, and governing bodies set rules. But the Civil War years proved crucial in securing the game's place in the American heart. Soldiers with bats in their rucksacks spread baseball to training camps, war prisons, and even front lines. As nationalist fervor heightened, baseball became patriotic. Fans honored it with the title of national pastime. War metaphors were commonplace in sports reporting, and charity games were scheduled. Decades later, Union general Abner Doubleday would be credited (wrongly) with baseball's invention. The Civil War period also saw key developments in the sport itself, including the spread of the New York-style of play, the advent of revised pitching rules, and the growth of commercialism. Kirsch recounts vivid stories of great players and describes soldiers playing ball to relieve boredom. He introduces entrepreneurs who preached the gospel of baseball, boosted female attendance, and found new ways to make money. We witness bitterly contested championships that enthralled whole cities. We watch African Americans embracing baseball despite official exclusion. And we see legends spring from the pens of early sportswriters. Rich with anecdotes and surprising facts, this narrative of baseball's coming-of-age reveals the remarkable extent to which America's national pastime is bound up with the country's defining event.

Sport and Revolutionaries

Sport and Revolutionaries PDF Author: John Nauright
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317519485
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 186

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Book Description
This collection examines the role of sport in the lives of key revolutionary thinkers and leftist activists. In contrast to those who take a more romantic view of sport and believe in its apolitical nature, the eight essays help make clear how sport has served as a site for political activism and the revolutionary thought and practices of such individuals as Henry Mayers Hyndman, Vladimer Ilyich Lenin, Fidel Castro, Ernesto 'Che' Guevara, Harry Edwards, Charles Perkins, and Darius Dhlomo. Written by noted scholars with long publication lists, the essays in turn provide insights into the close connection among sport, politics, and revolutionary movements in countries varying widely in their history, governmental policies, and treatment of individuals and groups. Taken as a whole, the essays, which adopt a very broad definition of revolutions, are written with the hope of encouraging more serious thought regarding the transformative potential of sports which can be both individually liberating and responsible for co-opting the lower classes and helping maintain power among the political and economic elite in capitalistic as well as socialist societies. This bookw as published as a special issue of the International Journal of the History of Sport.