Journal – Week 3 35 D 60-69 F 0-59 TOTAL 100 Point totals are not definitive. Instructor reserves the right to adjust grades as he sees fit. COURSE AGENDA DAY ONE – THE MYSTIQUE OF BASEBALL Required Readings: Cambridge Companion to Baseball, Introduction Roger Angell, “The Interior Stadium” in The Summer Game (New York: Viking Press, 1972), 291-303. [PCCommon] Roger Angell, “The Web of the Game,” in Late Innings: A Baseball Companion (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1982), 361-379. [PCCommon] Richard Greenberg, “Mason’s monologue” in Take Me Out: A Play (New York: Faber and Faber, 2003), 35-38. [PCCommon] Donald Hall, “Baseball and the Meaning of Life,” in Fathers Playing Catch with Sons: Essays on Sport [Mostly Baseball] (New York: Laurel Books, 1986), 47-51. [PCCommon] Albert Spalding, The National Game (excerpt) in Nicholas Dawidoff, ed., Baseball: A Literary Anthology (Library of America, 2002), 46-52. [PCCommon] In-Class: Video: Ken Burns, Baseball, Inning 1, Our Game, 1840s-1900 (excerpt) You Tube: Abbott & Costello Who’s on First DAY TWO – BASEBALL’S ORIGINS AND RULES Required Readings: Cambridge Companion to Baseball, Chapter 1 Rader, Baseball: A History of America’s Game, Chapter 1
Optional Readings: Bill Felber, ed., Inventing Baseball: The 100 Greatest Games of the 19th Century (Phoenix: Society for American Baseball Research, 2013), 1-7, 10-12, 19-21, 36-38, 60-62, 65-67, 71-73, 77-78, 97-99, 116-118, 125-126, 149-151, 161-163, 222-224. [PCCommon] In-Class: Video: Signs of the Time PowerPoint: Day 3PP – 19th Century DAY FOUR – BASEBALL’S GOLDEN AGE, 1900-1945 Required Readings: Cambridge Companion to Baseball, Chapter 3 Rader, Chapter 7, Chapter 9, and Chapter 10 Optional Readings: Heywood Broun, “Ruth Comes Into His Own With 2 Homers, Clinching Second for Yanks, 4-2,” reprinted in Baseball: A Literary Anthology, ed. Nicholas Dawidoff (Library of America, 2002), 108-113. [PCCommon] Robert Creamer, “Revolution in Baseball: Ruth Reaches New York” and “Encore: Topping the Amazing Season,” in Babe: The Legend Comes to Life (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1974), 217-227, 237-243. [PCCommon] Eric Rolfe Greenberg, excerpt from The Celebrant (repr.; Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1993), 11-27. [PCCommon] W.C. Heinz, “The Rocky Road of Pistol Pete,” reprinted in Baseball: A Literary Anthology, ed. Nicholas Dawidoff (Library of America, 2002), 275-293. [PCCommon] Harold Seymour, “An Elected Czar,” in Baseball: The Golden Age (New York: Oxford University Press, 1971), [PCCommon] In-Class: Video: Ken Burns, Baseball, Inning 4, A National Heirloom, 1920-1930 (excerpt) PowerPoint: Day 4PP – Golden Age DAY FIVE - BASEBALL’S TIME OF TROUBLES, 1946-1968 Required Readings: Cambridge Companion to Baseball, Chapter 7 Rader, Chapter 12 and Chapter 13
DAY NINE - BASEBALL OFFICIATING Required Readings: Cambridge Companion to Baseball, Chapter 13 Rader, Chapter 8 Shaun McCready, “An Umpire School Diary” [PCCommon] Larry R. Gerlach, “History of Umpiring” at [also on PCCommon] Optional Readings: John Dowd, excerpts from “The Dowd Report,” Cover Sheet, Table of Contents, and pp. 1-6, 216-225, and “Agreement and Resolution” available at [PCCommon] Larry R. Gerlach, “Emmett Ashford,” in The Men in Blue: Conversations with Umpires (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1994), 265-287. [PCCommon] Keith Hernandez with Mike Bryan, excerpt from Pure Baseball in Baseball: A Literary Anthology, ed. Nicholas Dawidoff (Library of America, 2002), 707-711. [PCCommon] In-Class: Video: The Third Team DAY TEN - BASEBALL STATISTICS Required Readings: Phil Birnbaum, “A Guide to Sabermetric Research” at [also on PCCommon] Alan Schwarz, “The March of On-Base Percentage,” in The Numbers Game: Baseball’s Lifelong Fascination with Statistics (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2004), 215-233. [PCCommon] Jules Tygiel, “The Mortar of Which Baseball Is Held Together: Henry Chadwick and the Invention of Baseball Statistics” in Past Time: Baseball as History (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000), 15-34, 224-227. [PCCommon] Optional Readings: Roger Angell, “Box Scores” in The Summer Game (New York: Viking Press, 1972), 3-5. [PCCommon] Stephen Jay Gould, “The Extinction of the .400 Hitter,” in The Armchair Book of Baseball, ed. John Thorn (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1985), 144-151. [PCCommon] Michael Lewis, “The Science of Winning an Unfair Game,” in Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game (New York: Norton, 2003), 119-137. [PCCommon] Andy McCue, “Allan Roth,” Baseball Research Journal 43 (Spring 2014), 7-12. [PCCommon] David Nichols, “Expected Runs/Chances of Scoring Table” at [also on PCCommon]