Professor Lawrence Baldassaro

This book is made up of various pseudo-academic studies/ethnographies on baseball and it's role in the lives of various American ethnic groups.

The essays vary in quality, but most are at least decent in terms of readability and almost all are informative.. The high point is Jules Tygiel's insightful piece on the origin and development of the Negro leagues which should be read by anyone interest in baseball history.

Thankfully, although the authors are almost all professional historians and sociologists, there is very little emphasis on the academic holy trinity (race, class, gender), especially considering that this is a book ABOUT race and ethnicity. Most of the authors avoid any overt politicizing in their analysis which is welcome and, unfortunately, unexpected (given the disciplines involved).

For the most part we just learn heretofore unmentioned facts about interesting things like the number of Hispanics in pro ball during the 20s and how nicknaming practices changed among German ethnics. This is great, albeit rather nerdy, stuff for any baseball aficionado or amateur historian.

One notable exception is the chapter on Asian-Americans by Joel S. Franks. This chapter actually reads like a caricature of what we've come to expect from academic trinitarians. Franks indignantly opines about the tribulations of Asian immigrants via a spate of post modernist bullshit. Still, that a collection of essays by contemporary academic social theorists and historians contains only one unintelligible essay is a rather remarkable feat in and of itself.… (plus d'informations)