American Sports and Games
First World Series: How Baseball Opened the American Century
TweetShareShareNo sport framed 20th century American culture more than baseball. In fact, America’s story–how we worked, what we believed, the battles we fought and the glory we shared–is found in the game. From the rise of a new industrialized economy to racism (against Jew, Italian, blacks) to celebrity culture, baseball was there. And every time…
Read MoreThe Race of the First Kentucky Derby
TweetShareShareToday is the 146th anniversary of America’s most storied horse race: the Kentucky Derby. The winning jockey was Oliver Lewis aboard a horse name Aristides. We have forgotten how black Americans, in the beginning, not only ran these thoroughbreds but also cared for them. In this first running of the Kentucky Derby, thirteen out of…
Read MoreThe Mouse Hits the Big 4-0!
TweetShareShare On April 27, 1981, I was a senior in high school. In six weeks I would graduate and leave home for good. At the time I was typing my papers on an electric typewriter. In graduate school I bought my first desktop computer and learned the misery of early MS-DOS computing. In the mid-1990s…
Read MoreBaseball’s First Pitch!
TweetShareShare Although connected to British games like “rounders” and cricket, American baseball was a novelty. A boys game that men played on a “field” in the cities. It’s a game without a clock. A game of “threes” and “three squared” (bases, outs, innings, players). It’s the only game where the defense controls the ball. It’s…
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