These nine essays selected by Lawrence Baldassaro and Richard A. Johnson present for the first time in a single volume an ethnic and racial profile of American baseball. These essayists show how the gradual involvement by various ethnic and racial groups reflects the changing nature of baseball - and of American society as a whole - over the course of the twentieth century. Although the sport could not truly be called representative of America until after Jackie Robinson broke the color line in 1947, fascination with the ethnic backgrounds of the players began more than a century ago when athletes of German and Irish descent entered the major leagues in large numbers. In the 1920s, commentators noted the influx of ball-players of Italian and Slavic origins and wondered why there were not more Jewish players in the big leagues. The era following World War II, however, saw the most dramatic ethnographic shift with the belated entry of African American ballplayers. The pattern of ethnic succession continues as players of Hispanic and Asian origin infuse fresh excitement and renewal into the major leagues.
Frederick Ivor-Campbell, ""The Many Fathers of Baseball: Anglo-Americans and the Early Game"" Larry R. Gerlach, ""German Americans in Major League Baseball: Sport and Acculturation"" Richard F. Peterson, ""'Slide, Kelly, Slide': The Irish in American Baseball"" Jules Tygiel, ""Unreconciled Strivings: Baseball in Jim Crow America"" Lawrence Baldassaro, ""Before Joe D: Early Italian Americans in the Major Leagues"" Steven A. Riess, ""From Pike to Green with Greenberg in Between: Jewish Americans and the National Pestime"" Neal Pease, ""Diamonds out of the Coal Mines: Slavic Americans in Baseball"" Samuel O. Regalado, ""The Latin Quarter in the Major Leagues: Adjustment and Achievement"" Joel S. Franks, ""Baseball and Racism's Traveling Eye: The Asian Pacific American Experience
Lawrence Baldassaro, a professor of Italian and comparative literature and director of the University Honors Program at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, is the editor of The Ted Williams Reader. Richard A. Johnson has served as the curator of the Sports Museum of New England since 1982. His seven books include DiMaggio: An Illustrated Life, The Twentieth-Century Baseball Chronicle, Red Sox Century, and Boston Braves.
