Much More Than a Game: Players, Owners, and American Baseball since 1921
As a microcosm of society, organized baseball has survived its share of battles over racism, pay inequity, unionizing and scandals. Here, Burk, chair of the history department at Muskingum College, follows up Never Just a Game: Players, Owners, and American Baseball to 1920 with an in-depth look at the sport as a business from its post-WWI golden age to beyond the 1994 players' strike. With the increasing globalization of baseball, Burk argues for a future of greater economic predictability and increased on-field-off-field cooperation ("the players' own interests might prove best served by agreeing to a new partnership in which labor peace and a formal coequal role in industry decisions was gained in exchange for accepting reasonable leaguewide minimum and maximum payrolls"). The author divides the past 80 years into two discrete periods: the first, the "paternalistic era," and the second, the "inflationary era," which began when baseball, and the nation, were forever changed by the civil rights movement and a generation unafraid to question authority. As he chronicles the history of baseball's labor movement (the section describing the conditions minority players had to endure in the '40s and '50s is especially interesting), Burk focuses on the major people like Curtis Flood, who accused the league of conspiracy when he was traded, and Fay Vincent, who alienated players and team owners during his reign as baseball commissioner a focus that significantly animates his heavily detailed narrative. (Mar. 5) Forecast: Although primed for publication just before Opening Day 2001, Burk's exhaustive analysis is geared for a keen but ultimately small readership among the legions of baseball book-buying enthusiasts; despite its energetic title, stores should anticipate only modest sales.Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.