NTRODUCTION hink about baseball for a moment What comes to mind Childhood experiences from Little League such as the thrill of sliding into home plate or the anguish of being tagged out on sec ond Staying up late to watch a game on TV with friends and family Going to see a game in person with the sharp shouts of souvenir vendors the crisp crack of the bat and the crowd's cheers and chants Around the world and especially for many in America there is a deep and emotional component to the game As former baseball commissioner A Bartlett Bart Giamatti said in his essay Green Fields of the Mind It breaks your heart It is designed to break your heart The game begins in the spring when everything else begins again and it blossoms in the summer filling the after noons and evenings and then as soon as the chill rains come it stops and leaves you to face the fall
INTRODUCTION Though by numbers alone baseball players managers and owners represent but a small facet of society and a male dominated facet at that the influence of the game extends far beyond the diamond In the United States where baseball has long occupied a spe cial place in the country s psyche it has also served as a kind of national mirror A country that prides itself on abiding by the rule of law America and baseball have grown up together guided by and sometimes falling short of the game s goals of good sportsmanship and fair play An early example of a moral lapse occurred nearly a century ago with the noto rious game fixing Black Sox Scandal of 1919 Happily a few decades later great strides forward were made as the issue of racial inte gration took center field and Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier by joining the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1947 As for recent headlines the rise of performance enhancing drug use calls into question how far Americans are willing to go to see new records set The staggering rise in salaries too has tested public goodwill
BASEBALL AND ITS GREATEST PLAYERS BA IUS A ball arcing into the stands brings the game of baseball to a whole new level of excitement for fans Here at Wrigley Field spectators become participants as they scramble for the ball at a 2010 game between the Chicago Cubs and the Milwaukee Brewers Chicago Tribunel McClatchy Tribune Getty Images
INTRODUCTION toward the sport In the era of free agency superstars can command salaries and endorse ments of more than 30 million dollars a year For some the schism between player incomes and those of the average fan national cen sus figures show that the median household income for 2009 hovered at around 50 thou sand dollars reflects not only the excess of the sports world but also a country increas ingly divided between rich and poor Going beyond America's shores this book documents the global reach of the sportſ in Latin America and Asia ecause from Cuba to Korea Venezuela to Japan baseball has millions of fans around the world But no matter where the game is played baseball is perennially about personalities statistics and of course athleticism As this concise volume brings readers back to the game's ori gins explaining the ins and outs of the sport it also highlights luminaries from Hank Aaron to Ichiro Suzuki exceptional players who have made baseball the game it is today Although baseball legend Yogi Berra famous for his one liners said of the game In baseball you don't know nothing Baseball and Its Greatest Players provides a brief but insightful look at the game so that readers will indeed come away knowing
