Baseball and Cultural Heritage

The

influence of baseball heritage in society and culture



Baseball's

past has been lauded, romanticized, and idealized, and much has been written

about both the sport and its history. This is the first volume to explore the

understudied side of baseball--how its heritage is understood, interpreted,

commodified, and performed for various purposes today.



These

essays reveal how baseball's heritage can be a source of great enjoyment and

inspiration, tracing its influence on constructed environments, such as

stadiums and monuments, and food and popular culture. The contributors discuss

how its heritage can be used to address social, political, and economic aims

and agendas and can reveal tensions about whose past is remembered and whose is

laid aside. Contributors address race and racism in the sport, representations of

women in baseball, ballparks as repositories for baseball's heritage, and the

role of museums in generating the game's heritage narrative.



Providing

perspectives on the social impact and influence of baseball in the United

States, Canada, Japan, South Korea, Brazil, the Caribbean, and the United

Kingdom, Baseball and Cultural Heritage

shows how the performance of baseball heritage can reflect the culture and

heritage of a nation.



A volume

in the series Cultural Heritage Studies, edited by Paul A. Shackel