Baseball at war

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Douglas Stark

"Wartime Basketball tells the story of basketballs survival and development during World War II and how those years profoundly affected the games growth after the war. Prior to World War II, basketballprofessional and collegiatewas largely a regional game, with different styles played throughout the country. Among its many impacts on home-front life, the war forced pro and amateur leagues to contract and combine rosters to stay competitive. At the same time, the U.S. military created base teams made up of top players who found themselves in uniform. The war created the opportunity for players from different parts of the country to play with and against each other. As a result, a more consistent form of basketball began to take shape"--Publisher's website.

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Frederick Turner

The author examines the first baseball season after World War II, including "a World Series culminated in the seventh game by Enos Slaughter's legendary dash from first to home."

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Junwei Yu

"Despite the political instability characterizing twentieth-century Taiwan, the value of baseball in the lives of Taiwanese has been a constant since the game was introduced in 1895. The game first gained popularity on the island under the Japanese occupation, and that popularity continued after World War II despite the withdrawal of the Japanese and an official lack of support from the new state power, the Chinese Nationalist Party. The remarkable success of Taiwanese Little League teams in the 1970s and 1980s cemented Taiwan's relationship with the game." "Taiwanese native Junwei Yu's Playing in Isolation presents a comprehensive account of that relationship. While giving due credit to the great successes in Taiwanese baseball, Yu also addresses the scandals and controversies that have plagued the sport, including game fixing, improper recruitment practices, and the age-deception fiasco that tainted Taiwan's seventeen Little League World Series wins. In addition Yu draws attention to the influence traditional culture exerts on parental support of sports versus education and more sedentary occupations." "Drawing on detailed research and personal experience, Yu provides a rare, honest look at the reality of baseball in Taiwan and offers an insider's perspective on a unique part of baseball history."--BOOK JACKET.

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David Cataneo

Here are the recollections of forty-five baseball fansordinary people who have had baseball as a part of their lives for as long as they can remember. From age seventeen to ninety-four, from Elizabeth, New Jersey, to Raytown, Missouri, to Seattle, Washington, their stories create as unique a portrait of baseball as you can imagine. Here is a blind technician who thrilled to the sound of Bob Murphy calling the Mets; a Cuban-American who reveled in his Mickey Mantle scrap-books; a nun who went to the Texas Rangers' fantasy camp; a Japanese-American who played ball in detainment camps during World War II. Completely entertaining, poignant, surprising, evocative, opinionated, these reminiscences are the truest form of baseball history - of America's history -that we could ever hope to read.