Big Leagues: Professional Baseball, Football, and Basketball in National Memory - Softcover

Fox, Stephen R.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0803268963 ISBN 13: 9780803268968

Publisher: Bison Books, 1998

Synopsis

What is behind America’s enduring love affair with professional baseball, football, and basketball? Big Leagues traces the evolution of these team sports from unlikely beginnings to multibillion-dollar businesses that still arouse widespread passion. We love these sports, Fox argues, because they evolve within long, repeating cycles that leave them stable at their cores. Ballplayers, like their games, don’t change much. They remain children with a ball and juvenile in their attitudes toward sex, drink, and drugs, as well as toward superstitions and practical jokes.

Fox candidly illustrates the shenanigans of old-time and newer players, contradicts some accepted wisdom on the origins and early histories of the games, and includes a controversial account of the history of black athletes in America. He also surveys the world of fandom, examines the “big money” explosion, and dares to project the future.

About this title

About the Author:

Stephen Fox is an independent scholar who lives in Massachusetts. He has written such highly praised books as The Mirror Makers: A History of American Advertising and Its Creators and Blood and Power: Organized Crime in Twentieth-Century America.

From Publishers Weekly:

This collection of nine original essays on America's major spectator sports by the author of Blood and Power contains much information that even dedicated fans are unlikely to know. In the first piece, "Going Airborne," Fox makes the point that all three games increased their popularity when they got the ball off the ground via the home run, forward pass and jump shot. Other chapters examine fandom, the impact of black athletes in speeding up game play and what Fox terms "National Teams," the Yankees of the '20s and '30s, the Green Bay Packers and the Boston Celtics of the '60s. He gives brief but nonetheless comprehensive histories of the three sports and concludes with "Big Money," showing the effects of booze, drugs and unlimited, freely available sex on individuals from economically deprived backgrounds. Photos not seen by PW. Author tour.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Bison Books
• Publication date: 1998
• ISBN 10: 0803268963
• ISBN 13: 9780803268968
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 522