Spalding's World Tour
Subtitle: The Epic Adventure that Took Baseball Around the Globe - And Made It America's Game
Publisher: PublicAffairs; Public Affairs
Published: April 3, 2006
Place of publication: New York
Language: eng
Format: Hardcover
Number of pages: 368
ISBN-13: 9781586483111
Subjects: c 1800 to c 1900; Sports & Recreation; Baseball; Sports; USA; United States; Baseball - History; 19th century; 20th century; History
First sentence: IT WAS ANOTHER FAMOUS SON OF CHICAGO, THE ARCHITECT Daniel H. Burnham, who advised, "Make no little plans; they have no magic to stir men's blood."
Description: In October 1888, Albert Goodwill Spalding -- baseball star, sporting goods magnate, promotional genius, serial fabulist -- departed Chicago on a trip that would take him and 20 of the game's greatest players on a journey around the globe. Their mission: to bring baseball, and with it the American way, to the four corners of the earth. Spalding hoped this international adventure would fix the game of baseball in the American consciousness as the purest expression of the national spirit, and at the same time seed the world's markets for his nascent sporting goods empire. To boost interest, he brought along an ill-fated "aerialist" who would leap from a hot-air balloon before each game; a young African-American minstrel; and stars such as New York Giants shortstop John Ward. In the course of their 30,000 mile journey, Spalding and this motley group of cultural ambassadors played before kings and queens, visited the Coliseum and the Eiffel Tower, and took pot shots with their baseballs at the great Sphinx in Egypt. Upon their triumphant return, they were greeted as heroes by the likes of Mark Twain, Theodore Roosevelt, and Benjamin Harrison. Getting themselves into scrapes and narrowly escaping international incident all around the globe, these innocents abroad gave the world an early peek at the American century just around the corner. - Jacket flap.

Details the thirty thousand mile goodwill tour by Albert Goodwill Spalding and twenty of baseball's greatest players to introduce baseball and the American way of life to the world, and bring business to his nacent sporting goods company along the way.
Table of contents: title: Map of the tour; title: Prologue : A galaxy of stars; title: Baseball's Barnum; title: The Chicago fake?; title: Going West; title: A land of milk and honey; title: At play with the King of the Cannibal Islands; title: Kiwis and kangaroos; title: Rickshaws and pyramids; title: On the continent; title: In the presence of royalty; title: Return of the heroes; title: Stupidity, avarice, treachery; title: Epilogue : The globe trotters club; title: Appendix 1 : The Spalding tourists; title: Appendix 2 : Game results of the tour