Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Introduction
- 1 The rules of baseball
- 2 Baseball in literature, baseball as literature
- 3 Babe Ruth, sabermetrics, and baseball’s politics of greatness
- 4 Not the major leagues: Japanese and Mexican Americans and the national pastime
- 5 Baseball and the color line: from the Negro Leagues to the major leagues
- 6 Baseball and war
- 7 Baseball and the American city
- 8 Baseball at the movies
- 9 The baseball fan
- 10 Baseball and material culture
- 11 Global baseball: Japan and East Asia
- 12 Global baseball: Latin America
- 13 Cheating in baseball
- 14 Baseball’s economic development
- 15 Baseball and mass media
- A guide to further reading
- Index
15 - Baseball and mass media
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 July 2011
- Frontmatter
- Introduction
- 1 The rules of baseball
- 2 Baseball in literature, baseball as literature
- 3 Babe Ruth, sabermetrics, and baseball’s politics of greatness
- 4 Not the major leagues: Japanese and Mexican Americans and the national pastime
- 5 Baseball and the color line: from the Negro Leagues to the major leagues
- 6 Baseball and war
- 7 Baseball and the American city
- 8 Baseball at the movies
- 9 The baseball fan
- 10 Baseball and material culture
- 11 Global baseball: Japan and East Asia
- 12 Global baseball: Latin America
- 13 Cheating in baseball
- 14 Baseball’s economic development
- 15 Baseball and mass media
- A guide to further reading
- Index
Summary
However vague and selective memory may be, baseball coverage began with print, added radio and television, and thus ferried the game to faraway homes, stores, and cars. As early as 1859, writers – “scribes,” in the age's argot – described amateur teams playing at the White Lott, or Ellipse, between the White House and Washington Monument. Deem them Coronado, or Cortez. In 1861, Abraham Lincoln became President, playing hooky to watch ball on the Ellipse. By the 1880s, amateur pitcher William Howard Taft pined for the major leagues, settling for Lincoln's post. In 1909, Taft saw his first game as President. “It was interrupted by cheering,” read The Washington Post , “which spread from the grandstand to the bleachers as the crowd recognized him.” At 300 pounds, he was hard to miss.
Lincoln and later Taft governed as America turned from wilderness to settlement, agrarian to manufacturing, Eastern Seaboard to Westward-Ho. In 1876, nearly eight in ten lived on farms or in towns that relied on agriculture. By 1900, cities had surged in the industrial postwar boom. In one part of lower Manhattan, nearly 1,000 persons an acre filled tenements. To succeed, they needed to learn English. The best way was to read.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Cambridge Companion to Baseball , pp. 221 - 240Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2011