Touching Base: Professional Baseball and American Culture in the Progressive Era

Sport and Society

by Steven A. Riess

The revised and expanded edition of  Touching Base  examines the myths, realities, symbols, and rituals of America's national pastime. Steven Riess details the relationships among urban politics, communities, and baseball while exploring how Progressive Era sensibilities shaped debates over issues like Sunday games, ballpark construction, and promotion of the games. Focusing on Atlanta, New York, and Chicago, Riess looks at all the participants--from spectators to owners to players--in analyzing how baseball both influenced and mirrored broader society.

Genres: Baseball, History, Sports

328 pages, Paperback

First published November 1, 1980

About the author

A leading authority on the history of sports in modern America, Steven A. Riess is the former the Bernard Brommel Distinguished Research Professor in the Department of History at Northeastern Illinois University. A graduate of New York University, he earned his masters and doctorate degrees at the University of Chicago.

Reviews

[Chip Rickard]

An interesting book focusing on the relationship between major league baseball and society mainly in the 19th century. It's not a narrative where something happens in 1869 then something else happens in 1876 etc. The book focuses on three cities: New York City, Chicago and, surprisingly, Atlanta which didn't have a major league team until the 1960s. The endnotes are thorough and very informative. The author suggested that ball parks may have burned down in the 19th century because people who were against playing baseball on Sundays burned them down.