AG Spalding’s preoccupation with making baseball America’s game began perhaps in 1874 when he toured Great Britain with the White Stockings. The trip achieved limited success, but its potential led Spalding to plan another, more vast trip in 1888. He gathered the Chicago White Stockings and various opposing players called the All-American team, and set […]
Author: Mary Craig
AG Spalding And The Birth Of America’s Game
For decades, baseball has been known as America’s Game, and many young fans have been raised reciting the 1975 Chevrolet commercial that placed baseball in the American pantheon with apple pie and hot dogs. In 1889, concerning this connection, Walt Whitman wrote, “it’s our game: that’s the chief fact in connection with it: America’s game: […]
Behind Every Successful Baseball Promotion Is A Woman
Through Ladies’ Days and Girls’ Nights, baseball has long tried to appeal to women, achieving varying degrees of success. For many of these promotions, it is men who have pieced them together, often resulting in backlash as current female fans feel patronized or ignored. Though baseball has had a tough job marketing to women, it […]
How The Cubs Kickstarted Advanced Statistics
The year was 1938, 25 years before the popularization of “nerd”, the place was Wrigley Field, three stories and six hours away from his mom’s basement, and the man was Coleman Griffith, father of sports psychology. Long before there was BAM or WAR1 or DRA, there was Coleman Griffith, a camera, 154 daily reports, and […]
Dexter Fowler and Baseball as a Tool of Slavery
In October, Dexter Fowler made history as the first black Cub to play in the World Series. Concerning that fact, Fowler said it would not have been possible without Jackie Robinson, and it was something he would carry with himself. Over the weekend, he received backlash for his innocuous comments concerning the present administration’s travel […]
Wrigley Field and the Birmingham Campaign
The Birmingham Campaign began in the spring of 1963 to directly address the violent and deep segregation in Birmingham, Alabama. After a month of heavy protests, including sit-ins and rallies, the city came to an agreement with Martin Luther King Jr. and the other Campaign heads on May 11th. The Birmingham Truce Agreement sought to […]
Sam Jones And The Golden Toothpick
It’s always ones of baseball’s greatest gifts to fans (and writers) when one game or moment stands as a summary of a player’s career. Popular plays include Jeter’s flip in game 3 of the 2001 ALDS, “The Catch” by Willie Mays, and Nolan Ryan punching Robin Ventura. In 1955, Cubs pitcher Sam Jones created another […]
Remembering Buck O’Neil
There has always existed an immense difficulty in portraying great men, in boiling them down to several quotes or anecdotes that get misplaced and misrepresented through time. It is perhaps even more difficult to capture the lives of good men, who exist in subtler forms transferred from person to person in hidden conversations and the […]
Arthur Goldberg and The Reserve Clause
“After 12 years in the major leagues, I do not feel that I am a piece of property to be bought and sold irrespective of my wishes” – Curt Flood Arthur Goldberg was born in Chicago to immigrant Jewish parents from Ukraine. Although his father was highly educated, he could only find work as a […]
Ernie Banks And The Meaning Of Baseball
Being a baseball fan is incredibly time-consuming. Not only do you have to set aside 3 hours every day for the game, you also have to set aside time in the summer to think of excuses to miss gatherings and appointments in favor of watching baseball and in the winter to spend moping about the […]