Hostname: page-component-55f67697df-zpzq9 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-05-10T16:04:03.014Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Is Baseball a Global Sport? America's ‘National Pastime’ as Global Field and International Sport

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 May 2025

William W. Kelly
Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Core share and HTML view are not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button.

I claim that Base Ball owes its prestige as our National Game to the fact that as no other form of sport it is the exponent of American Courage, Confidence, Combativeness; American Dash, Discipline, Determination; American Energy, Eagerness, Enthusiasm; American Pluck, Persistency, Performance; American Spirit, Sagacity, Success; American Vim, Vigor, Virility.

Type
Research Article
Information
Asia-Pacific Journal , Volume 6 , Issue 5 , May 2008 , e4
Creative Commons
Creative Common License - CCCreative Common License - BYCreative Common License - NCCreative Common License - ND
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivatives licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is unaltered and is properly cited. The written permission of Cambridge University Press must be obtained for commercial re-use or in order to create a derivative work.
Copyright
Copyright © The Authors 2008

References

Appadurai, A. (1995) ‘Playing With Modernity: The Decolonization of Indian Cricket.’ In Breckenridge, Carol A., Consuming modernity: Public culture in a South Asian world, Pp. 23–48. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.Google Scholar
Bhabha, H. (1984) ‘Of mimicry and man: The ambivalence of colonial discourse,’ October 28: 125–133.Google Scholar
Bjarkman, P. C. (1994) Baseball with a Latin beat: A history of the Latin American game. Jefferson, NC and London: McFarland and Company.Google Scholar
Bjarkman, P. C. (2005) Diamonds around the globe: The encyclopedia of international baseball. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brown, B. (1990) ‘Waging baseball, playing war: Games of American imperialism,’ Cultural Critique 17, 51–78.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brown, B. (1991) ‘The meaning of baseball in 1992 (With notes on the post-American),’ Public Culture 4(1), 43–69.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Crepeau, R. C. (1982) ‘Pearl Harbor: A Failure of Baseball?’ Journal of Popular Culture 15(4), 67–74.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dyreson, M. (2003) ‘Globalizing the nation-making process: Modern sport in world history,’ International Journal of the History of Sports 20(1): 91–106.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dyreson, M. 2005 ‘Prologue: The paradoxes of American insularity, exceptionalism and imperialism,’ International Journal of the History of Sport 22(6): 938–945.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Eastman, B. (2005) ‘Rejected America: Adolfo Luque, American interventionism and Cubanidad,’ International Journal of the History of Sport 22(6): 1136–1172.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
The Economist (No byline) (1996) ‘Throw till your arm drops off,’ The Economist, 28 September.Google Scholar
Elfers, J. E. (2003) The tour to end all tours: The story of Major League Baseball's 1913-1914 World Tour. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press.Google Scholar
Gems, G. R. (2006) The athletic crusade: Sport and American cultural imperialism. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press.Google Scholar
Giulianotti, R. and Robertson, R. (2004) ‘The globalization of football: A study in the glocalization of the “serious life”,’ British Journal of Sociology 55(4): 545–568.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Guttmann, A. and Thompson, L. (2001) Japanese sport: A history. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press.Google Scholar
Gmelch, G. (ed.) (2006) Baseball without borders: The international pastime. Lincoln and London: University of Nebraska Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Guthrie-Shimizu, S. (2004) ‘For love of the game: Baseball in early U.S.-Japanese encounters and the rise of a transnational sporting fraternity,’ Diplomatic History 28(5): 637–662.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kelly, J. D. (2006) The American game: Capitalism, decolonization, world domination, and baseball. Chicago: Prickly Paradigm Press.Google Scholar
Kelly, W. W. (1998) ‘Blood and Guts in Japanese Professional Baseball.’ In Linhart, S. and Fruhstuck, S. (editors), The culture of Japan as seen through its leisure, pp 95–112. Albany: State University of New York Press.Google Scholar
Kelly, W. W. (2000) ‘The spirit and spectacle of school baseball: mass media, statemaking, and ‘edutainment' in Japan, 1905-1935.' In Umesao, T., Kelly, W. W. and Kubo, M. (editors), Japanese civilization in the modern world XIV: information and communication, Pp. 105–116. Senri: National Museum of Ethnology.Google Scholar
Kelly, W. W. (2006) ‘Japan: The Hanshin Tigers and professional baseball in Japan.’ In Gmelch, G. (editor), Baseball without borders: The international pastime, Pp. 22–42. Lincoln and London: University of Nebraska Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Klein, A. M. (1991) Sugarball: The American game, the Dominican dream. New Haven: Yale Press Press.Google Scholar
Klein, A. M. (1997) Baseball on the border: A tale of two Laredos. Princeton: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Klein, A. M. (2006) Growing the game: The globalization of Major League Baseball. New Haven and London: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
LaFeber, W. (2002) Michael Jordan and the new global capitalism. New York: W. W. Norton.Google Scholar
Lamster, M. (2006) Spalding's world tour: The epic adventure that took baseball around the globe–and made it America's game. New York: Public Press Press.Google Scholar
Morris, A. D. (2004) ‘Baseball, history, the local and the global in Taiwan.’ In Jordan, D.K., Morris, A.D., and Moskowitz, M.L. (editors), The minor arts of daily life: Popular culture in Taiwan. Pp. 326–381. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press.Google Scholar
Murdock, G. P. (1948) ‘Waging baseball on Truk,’ Newsweek 32(9): 69–70.Google Scholar
Nakagawa, K. Y. (2001) Through a diamond: 100 Years of Japanese American baseball. San Francisco: Rudi Publications.Google Scholar
Reaves, J. A. (2002) Taking in a game: A history of baseball in Asia. Lincoln, NB: University of Nebraska Press.Google Scholar
Roden, D. F. (1980) ‘Baseball and the quest for national dignity in Meiji Japan,’ American Historical Review 85(3): 511–534.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Spalding, A. G. (1889) ‘In the field papers. Base-ball.,’ The Cosmopolitan 7(6): 603–612.Google Scholar
Spalding, A. G. (1911) America's national game: Historic facts concerning the beginning, evolution, development and popularity of base ball: with personal reminiscences of its vicissitudes, its victories and its votaries. New York: American Sports Publishing Company.Google Scholar
Warner, G. A. (1997) ‘Japanese baseball: A whole new ballgame,’ Orange County (CA) Register, Section 1, page 7. September 28.Google Scholar