Trustees of Indiana University
Baseball Fever: Early Baseball in Michigan by Peter MorrisReview by: Jeffrey SmithIndiana Magazine of History, Vol. 100, No. 3 (SEPTEMBER 2004), pp. 263-264Published by: Trustees of Indiana UniversityStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/27792561 .
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REVIEWS 263
greater parity before 1970 strains the
issue.
Although early river modification
programs were unable to reverse a
downward trend of river commerce,
the nine-foot channel has opened the
upper river to considerable barge traffic. It has also completed a major overhaul of the natural river. While
obviously sympathetic to the river's
environment, Afinson ends optimis
tically by pointing out that the most
recent transformation has benefitted
habitat and water quality as part of an ecologically sensitive river man
agement program. Americans, he ar
gues, are "unwilling to accept either
the loss of the river's ecosystem or the
loss of the river as a transportation
artery" (p. 292). Fulfilling this dual
expectation is the challenge faced by river managers.
Craig E. Colten is a professor of ge
ography at Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge. His books include The American Environment: Interpretations
of Past Geographies (1992, co-editor),
Transforming New Orleans and its En
virons: Centuries of Change (2000, edi
tor), and "An Unnatural Metropolis: Wresting New Orleans from Nature"
(forthcoming in 2005).
Baseball Fever
Early Baseball in Michigan
By Peter Morris
(Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2003. Pp. , 300. Illustrations, notes, appendices, select bibliography, indices. Clothbound, $55.00; paperbound, $24.95.)
What was there about baseball (given the number of urban eastern fads to
fizzle in the Midwest), asks Peter
Morris in his new study of baseball in Michigan, that allowed it to catch on west of the Appalachians, and how
did it happen? Morris is interested in
discerning how baseball evolved dur
ing a critical period in its history? the two decades preceding the found
ing of the National League in Febru
ary 1876?by deeply examining one
distinct area (in this case, the state of
Michigan). Michigan is a good choice in many respects. The state was home
to enough towns with sufficient popu
lations, a large city (Detroit) that did not overpower the others, and enough fairs and other events to generate
plenty of tournaments and spectators.
This work demonstrates that baseball was becoming a "national sport" well
before the advent of the first all-pro fessional team in 1869.
Baseball reflected much about the tension between American ideals and
reality, as Morris demonstrates. Seen
as a country boys' game that was still
played in idyllic settings of green grass and fresh air, the sport fit into the
Jeffersonian ideal of an agricultural nation. However, it gained popular
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264 INDIANA MAGAZINE OF HISTORY
ity in the East and Detroit alike. Ini
tially played by either elites or the
upwardly mobile in cities under the most gentlemanly of rules, it quickly became a game in which youth, strength, and speed mattered far more
than courtesy on the field; imagine, if
you will, Roger Clemens apologizing for throwing a close pitch to Mike Piazza?as he might have in 1857,
pitching for the Detroit Franklins. While initially a mere game played by clubs for fun and occasionally to de termine who paid for dinner, baseball became a game where men pursued more tangible gains.
While focusing primarily on games and tournaments, Morris is clearly
interested in figuring out why this elitist game, played by and for real or
aspiring gentlemen, soon appealed to a broader base of spectators. For one
thing, the old chivalry fell by the way side within just a few years of the end of the Civil War, replaced by a greater
emphasis on winning. Professional
ization shifted the focus to finances,
recruiting players, and gaining com
petitive edges. Soon the playing field was enclosed and spectators were
charged for admission. Paradoxically, this trend helped baseball build a sense of community among specta
tors. Interestingly, local fans were
even willing to tolerate imported pro fessional players and ringers on their own teams so long as they won games
and beat their rivals in neighboring towns, suggesting that rooting for the
local team created a greater sense of
community. Morris describes a pro cess whereby baseball became a tool in building boosterism, community competitive spirit, and a sense of be
longing, as playing and watching ball
games spread from town to town and from fathers to sons.
This book uses pre-National League baseball as a prism through which to see the dovetailing of emerg
ing Gilded Age values with changing views about leisure and play. This
story would be lost had Morris tried to tackle it on a scale any larger than that of a state, because the nuances
of local competition and of the ebb and flow of popularity would be bur ied under the story of emerging pro fessional teams, as is the case with
most histories of baseball during this
period. The book might have been shortened by omitting the lists of
players or by summarizing the results of yearly tournaments, but it would have lost its appeal as a closely de tailed case study of the way in which baseball became the "national pas time."
Jeffrey Smith is professor of history at Lindenwood University in St.
Charles, Missouri. He has written ex
tensively on the history of baseball,
particularly on the relationship be tween progressive reform and the rise of industrial league teams. He lives in
St. Louis, three miles from Busch Sta dium.
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