Beautifully designed and carefully curated, a fascinating collection of the things that shaped the way we live and play in America What artifact best captures the spirit of American sports? The bat Babe Ruth used to hit his allegedly called shot, or the ball on which Pete Rose wrote, "I'm sorry I bet on baseball"? Could it be Lance Armstrong's red-white-and-blue bike, now tarnished by doping and hubris? Or perhaps its ancestor, the nineteenth-century safety bicycle that opened an avenue of previously unknown freedom to women? The jerseys of rivals Larry Bird and Magic Johnson? Or the handball that Abraham Lincoln threw against a wall as he waited for news of his presidential nomination? From nearly forgotten heroes like Tad Lucas (rodeo) and Tommy Kono (weightlifting) to celebrities like Amelia Earhart, Muhammad Ali, and Michael Phelps, Cait Murphy tells the stories of the people, events, and things that have forged the epic of American sports, in both its splendor and its squalor. Stories of heroism and triumph rub up against tales of discrimination and cheating. These objects tell much more than just stories about great games-they tell the story of the nation. Eye-opening and exuberant, A History of American Sports in 100 Objects shows how the games Americans play are woven into the gloriously infuriating fabric of America itself.

Co-authored by two of the world’s foremost experts on sports culture, one American and one European, this book draws on both the outsider’s perspective and that of the insider to explain American sports culture. With extensive use of examples and illustrations, the development of American sport from the nineteenth century until the present day is explained with reference to political, social, gender and economic issues.

First published in 1864, this book presents a lively portrait of indoor and outdoor amusements in the 19th century--from games played with homemade toys to baseball as a new pastime. Also included are chapters on card games, arithmetical and scientific stumpers, and puzzles. Over 1,000 illustrations.

A collection of black-and-white photographs showing fans taking in America's sporting events, and represents the social landscape at the height of the Vietnam War.

American Sports is a comprehensive, analytical introduction to the history of American sports from the colonial era to the present. Pamela Grundy and Benjamin Rader outline the complex relationships between sports and class, gender, race, religion, and region in the United States. Building on changes in the previous edition, which expanded the attention paid to women, African Americans, Native Americans, and Latinos, this edition adds numerous sidebars that examine subjects such as the Black Sox scandal, the worldwide influence of Jack Johnson, the significance of softball for lesbian athletes, and the influence of the point spread on sports gambling. Insightful, thorough, and highly readable, the new edition of American Sports remains the finest available introduction to the myriad ways in which sports have reinforced or challenged the values and behaviors of Americans, as well as the structure of American society.

America loves sports. This book examines and details the proof of this fascination seen throughout American society—in our literature, film, and music; our clothing and food; and the iconography of the nation. This momentous four-volume work examines and details the cultural aspects of sport and how sport pervasively reflects—and affects—myriad aspects of American society from the early 1900s to the present day. Written in a straightforward, readable manner, the entries cover both historical and contemporary aspects of sport and American culture. Unlike purely historical encyclopedias on sports, the contributions within these volumes cover related subject matter such as poetry, novels, music, films, plays, television shows, art and artists, mythologies, artifacts, and people. While this encyclopedia set is ideal for general readers who need information on the diverse aspects of sport in American culture for research purposes or are merely reading for enjoyment, the detailed nature of the entries will also prove useful as an initial source for scholars of sport and American culture. Each entry provides a number of both print and online resources for further investigation of the topic.

This collection illustrates the expansiveness of an interdisciplinary approach to the study of sport. While rooted in anthropology, these essays consider American sports in their social, economic, cultural and political aspects, charting their evolution. The book draws from history, sociology, and political science; as well as considering the relationship between the developed and developing world; and culture and masculinity. The first part of the book considers the local and global interplay of professional baseball, covering: Major League Baseball’s impact on the Dominican Republic nationalism and baseball on the Mexican/US border the globalizing forces of baseball as an industry. The second part of the book is concerned with the cultural examination of the responsiveness of masculinity to social and cultural forces, examining: the exaggerated world of bodybuilders in Southern California the cross-cultural comparisons of male behaviour on a bi-national baseball team in Mexico the historical examination of Jews in American sport. This book was previously published as a special issue of Sport in Society