Examining the connection between baseball and our society as a whole, How Baseball Explains America is a fascinating, one-of-a-kind journey through America's pastime. Longtime USA TODAY baseball editor and columnist Hal Bodley explores just how essential baseball is to understanding the American experience. He takes readers into the Oval Office with George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton as the former presidents share their thoughts on the game, he looks at the changes that America's Greatest Generation ushered in, as well as examining baseball's struggle with performance enhancing drugs alongside America's war on drugs. An unabashedly celebratory explanation of America's love affair with baseball and the men who make it possible, this work sheds light on topics such as the role Jackie Robinson's signing with the Dodgers played in the civil rights movement, how baseball's westward expansion mirrored the growth of our national economy, labor strife, baseball families, the international explosion of the game, and even the myriad ways in which movies, music, and baseball are intrinsically tied. It is a must read for anyone interested in more fully understanding not only the game but also the nation in which it thrives.

A revealing look at the history of women's exclusion from America's national pastime

Baseball has joined America and Japan, even in times of strife, for over 150 years. After the "opening" of Japan by Commodore Perry, Sayuri Guthrie-Shimizu explains, baseball was introduced there by American employees of the Japanese government tasked with bringing Western knowledge and technology to the country, and Japanese students in the United States soon became avid players. In the early twentieth century, visiting Japanese warships fielded teams that played against American teams, and a Negro League team arranged tours to Japan. By the 1930s, professional baseball was organized in Japan where it continued to be played during and after World War II; it was even played in Japanese American internment camps in the United States during the war. From early on, Guthrie-Shimizu argues, baseball carried American values to Japan, and by the mid-twentieth century, the sport had become emblematic of Japan's modernization and of America's growing influence in the Pacific world. Guthrie-Shimizu contends that baseball provides unique insight into U.S.-Japanese relations during times of war and peace and, in fact, is central to understanding postwar reconciliation. In telling this often surprising history, Transpacific Field of Dreams shines a light on globalization's unlikely, and at times accidental, participants.

" Baseball is a very complicated sport, from tagging up to stealing bases to intentional walks, has a recurring focal point--the duel between pitcher and batter--that lies at the heart of the game. This book explains the game from scratch, while also educating the reader as to the game's important place in American history and culture"--

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.

Following his H is for Home Run: A Baseball Alphabet, Brad Herzog once again steps to the plate to bring the game of baseball to fans of every age. Using numbers as its backdrop, Full Count: A Baseball Number Book goes behind the batter's box and into the dugout to explain game basics and showcase historic moments. Starting with the signal for a fastball (1), to the miles-per-hour speed on some of the fastest pitches ever thrown (100+), Full Count counts out the players, the plays, and pulse-stopping moments in America's favorite sport. Brad Herzog has won several awards from the Council for the Advancement and Support of Education. He has published more than two dozen books, including his sports alphabet books, H is for Home Run: A Baseball Alphabet and K is for Kick: A Soccer Alphabet. Brad lives on California's Monterey Peninsula. Following successful careers as a commercial illustrator and a wildlife artist, Bruce Langton started illustrating children's books. His books include P is for Putt: A Golf Alphabet and Win One for the Gipper: America's Football Hero. Bruce lives in Granger, Indiana.

Discusses the ideology of baseball, professional baseball and urban politics, politics, ballparks, and the neighborhoods, social reform, and baseball as a source of social mobility.