Description
Book SynopsisVaught's deeply researched exploration of baseball's rural roots helps explain its enduring popularity.
Trade ReviewThis highly readable book makes clear that rural baseball has always been every bit as central to the American experience as has its metropolitan counterpart. Choice The author has opened a window onto a rich area of exploration and understanding in rural history and into the complex relationships between Americans and baseball. -- Jim McCabe Association for Living History, Farm, and Agricultural Museums A refreshing and thoughtful addition to the history of baseball. -- September 2013, George Kirsch Journal of American History While baseball thrives on statistics, this book is an absorbing read not for the numbers... but for the social and historical issues it brings to the forefront. -- Bob D'Angelo The Tampa Tribune Vaught's book is a masterwork... What makes this book particularly noteworthy is the author's rich knowledge of America's agricultural past. That alone is worth the price of admission. -- Roger I. Abrams American Historical Review For those interested in baseball's place in local history, whether in rural or regional terms, this is an extraordinarily good book. -- Benjamin G. Rader Annals of Iowa A solidly researched and well-written piece of history, one that fills a large void in our understanding of baseball's significant role in American life, particularly away from the big city lights... Baseball enthusiasts should find this book of interest, and university instructors of U.S. cultural history courses could use chapters as supplementary reading. -- Thomas Saylor Minnesota History The Farmers' Game would enhance any academic library's sports history collection... The Farmers' Game can be group with the works of Jules Tygiel as clear-eyed analyses of how the sport and its historical context illuminate each other. -- Chistopher DeRosa New York History The Farmers' Game is a sympathetic yet straightforward account of a pastoral game. Periods of prosperity and famine have always come to farmers as regularly and unexpectedly as streaks have to batters, though the stakes are almost never as high for the player. For its pointing out the symmetry in those alternately joyful and grievous experiences, and for much else, we are indebted to David Vaught's excellent book. -- Chris Beneke Journal of Southern History A critical, well-researched, and well-written analysis of the relationship between agrarian American and baseball. -- Joel S. Franks NINE: A Journal of Baseball History and Culture Provocative. -- Daniel Borus Reviews in American History
Table of ContentsAcknowledgments
Introduction: Abner Doubleday and Baseball's Idol of Origins
1. Playing Ball in Cooperstown in the Formative Years of the American Republic
2. Baseball and the Transformation of Rural California
3. Multicultural Ball in the Heyday of Texas Cotton Agriculture
4. The Making of Bob Feller and the Modern American Farmer
5. The Milroy Yankees and the Decline of Southwest Minnesota
6. Gaylord Perry, the Spitter, and Farm Life in Eastern North Carolina
Epilogue: Vintage Ball
Notes
Essay on Sources
Index
