Baseball's deep, continual integration into American society is the theme in this book. [It] consists of independent chapters that focus on how society shaped the game, and vice versa, during specific periods of American history.
The Columbus Dispatch
The book tracks baseball's journey as it adjusts to
and is modified byeconomic and social changes in America, the ... Read moreinvention of the radio and TV, the westward migration, etc.The San Francisco Chronicle
An engaging foray into the ways in which Americans have enjoyed and interpreted baseball throughout several generations of its existance.
Doubletake
The essays here cover baseball from the 1850s to the present, and Tygiel's incisive style is apparent in each. Tygiel brings to life such interesting though little remembered individuals as Henry Chadwick, whom Tygiel deems the founder of baseball statistics.
Library JournaL
In this collection of nine essays, [Tygiel has] gathered energetic and cogent discussions of the game. The National Game shows how the earlier version of baseball played in New York became the basis for the modern game.... Adjusting to the New Order fascinates with a portrait of Henry Chadwick, the inventor of the stat.... Perhaps the finest, The Homes of the Braves explores how the movement of teams in the 1950's and 1960's, starting with the Braves' move from Boston to Milwaukee in 1953, reflected America's changing demographics.
Publishers Weekly
Tygiel demonstrates...that baseball, far from being a freak show at the periphery of the country's public and important business, has been part and parcel of that business throughout its history.... Just as we can no longer isolate popular culture from the larger culture of which it is a part, so we must acknowledge and explore the deeper meanings of aspects of our lives that previously were scanted or ignored. Baseball, which is indeed our 'national game' unto this day, is one of these, and [this book] treats it with the seriousness it deserves.
The Washington Post Book World
A collection of essays by baseball's preeminent historian...Tygiel comments on different stages of baseball history as reflections of the economic, social and technological trends of their respective periods.
The Seattle Times
Show Less