The official companion, filled with stunning original and archival photographs, to the National Baseball Hall of Fame's groundbreaking four-year travelling exhibition pays tribute to America's favorite national pasttime by featuring more than thirty essays by writers, players, scholars, and fans, revealing how baseball has had a profound impact on the evolution of American culture. Reprint.

"Author Ken Mochizuki reads his award-winning book. There is some soft background music, and a few gentle sound effects, but the power of the words need little embellishment...This treasure of a book is well-treated in this format." - School Library Journal

One of the great bards of America's Grand Old Game gives a rousing account ofbaseball, from its pre-Republic roots to the present day.

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From its modest beginnings in rural America to its current status as an entertainment industry in postindustrial America enjoyed worldwide by millions each season, the linkages between baseball’s evolution and our nation’s history are undeniable. Through war, depression, times of tumultuous upheaval and of great prosperity – baseball has been held up as our national pastime: the single greatest expression of America’s values and ideals. Combining a comprehensive history of the game with broader analyses of America’s historical and cultural developments, National Pastime encapsulates the values that have allowed it to endure: hope, tradition, escape, revolution. While nostalgia, scandal, malaise and triumph are contained within the study of any American historical moment, we see in this book that the tensions and developments within the game of baseball afford the best window into a deeper understanding of America’s past, its purpose, and its principles.

Baseball America invented coverage of the baseball draft. So who better than Baseball America to chronicle 50 years of draft history? As the baseball draft grows in prominence and more and more fans connect winning on draft day to winning in the major leagues, the BA draft book takes you through 50 years of great draft stories and the biggest hits and misses in draft history. The Baseball America 50th Anniversary Draft Book combines all the information of a great reference title with all the great stories that make draft history so rich. For every year of the draft, from 1965-2015, you'll get a complete team by team draft list, with who signed and who didn't, who reached the big leagues and who washed out. And the draft lists are more than just lists; they also feature interesting tidbits on people who became prominent baseball or in other sports or other careers altogether. You'll get the story of the most prominent storylines and people for every year of the draft, as well as plenty of charts and photos to take you in-depth on every year. This book will feature lots of information that has never been publicly available before, especially with signing bonuses from the early days of the draft. It goes without saying that anyone who has an interest in the baseball draft will have to have this book, but anyone who loves good stories (longshots that became major league stars, touted phenoms who washed out) will find fun on every page of this book.

First-rate scholarship combined with extremely readable and interesting prose, this title should still retain its crown as the very best one-volume history of Baseball available.