Baseball and Cultural Heritage

From Walt Whitman branding the game America's national pastime through modern best-selling biographies by the likes of Howard Bryant and Jane Levy, baseball has perhaps generated more prose than any other sport in the United States. This is also true in American cinema, which is laden with classic films about baseball. The game is cemented into American identity to such an extent that Ken Burns's iconic documentary series Baseball remains a perennial conversation point for sports fans of a certain age cohort. As the twenty-fourth book in the Cultural Heritage Studies series, Gregory Ramshaw and Sean Gammon's coedited volume Baseball and Cultural Heritage builds on a rich body of literature that examines such representations by exploring “how baseball's past is used” (1) through ballpark food, monuments, stadium design, and overall spectator experiences. Together, these broader aspects of the game are transmitted across generations and constitute the heritage that binds this collection of essays together. Moreover, Baseball and Cultural Heritage offers valuable insights about how to build and sustain a connection to the nostalgic past while adapting to new audiences and different sensibilities than those of the analog era.A particular strength of Baseball and Cultural Heritage is the international dimension of its subject matter and the multinational perspectives of its authors. The game is played on four continents and in the Caribbean, which makes baseball's heritage as diverse as the people who enjoy it. Chapters about baseball in South Korea, Brazil, England, Japan, and a variety of Latin American countries correctly emphasize the importance of place as essential for understanding the unique ways that baseball is experienced in those locales. “The history of any sport,” writes contributor Felipe Bertazzo Tobar, “cannot be separated from its geography” (149). This poignant observation helps explain the cheering traditions of individual teams in the Korean Baseball Organization, the special place of Hanshin Koshien Stadium in Japanese baseball, and in Tobar's own essay, how immigrants brought the game with them to Brazil.Leslie Heaphy's contribution about women in baseball and a piece coauthored by Benjamin J. Downs and Adam G. Pfleegor about the Negro Leagues share an important message for front offices. In both instances, the authors note that there are often rich but overlooked histories that can be presented by major and minor league teams with plaques, monuments, and photograph displays at the ballpark. This gesture toward inclusivity elevates underappreciated local histories and acknowledges a more accurate heritage where women have long been part of the game and African Americans have always found ways to accomplish excellence despite so many barriers. Specifically, Downs and Pfleegor recommend that the Yankees, White Sox, Pirates, Guardians, and Nationals (Senators) find ways to highlight the Negro League greats who played on their rented fields while those respective Major League Baseball teams were away. Similarly, Heaphy sees an opportunity for amateur and professional fields to be named for local players who were associated with the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League or female ballplayers who earned Olympic medals. Moreover, she recognizes the value of merchandise as important for gaining wider visibility of women in baseball. Heaphy argues that selling things, whether bobbleheads or jerseys, matters—and what is available to be purchased says a lot about whose place in the game we see as important. There is much room for growth, and it should happen because society, in general, is trending toward being more intentionally inclusive. Evidence of this can be seen in the attention given to women's sports at all levels, many teams having an LGBTQ+ pride game, and Bob Kendrick's inspiring success in building the National Negro Baseball Museum in Kansas City. It would not take much for major or minor league teams to research the connections players have to their respective locales and present these as a legitimate part of the game's heritage at that specific place or within the broader region. Heaphy would be disappointed to learn that there is no mention of the Vassar Resolutes anywhere at the minor league stadium just thirteen miles from the college campus that hosted the first all-female team back in 1876. Favorable responses to the Kansas City Royals’ embrace of the Negro League Monarchs with special uniforms illustrate the interest convergence of a team seeking to make profits while building positive public relations, telling a more accurate and inclusive story of baseball's heritage in that city.Telling stories about the past and self-consciously embracing its lessons while inhabiting the present is essential for transforming history into a genuine heritage. In a chapter about proper handling of statues when a team moves to a new ballpark, Chris Stride recognizes that for people to identify with history, “it needs to be about more than just statistics and must include a deeper local resonance” (218). This is perhaps the most important lesson in this collection of essays. It reminds us that before a heritage can be celebrated or commodified, it must be built, preserved, and honored

Archaeology · Cultural heritage · American Sports and Literature · History · Sport and Mega-Event Impacts · Sports, Gender, and Society