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Book Review
Canada and the United States
| Thomas W. Zeiler. Ambassadors in Pinstripes: The Spalding World Baseball Tour and the Birth of the American Empire. Lanham, Md.: Rowman and Littlefield. 2006. Pp. xiv, 217. Cloth $75.00, paper $24.95.
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| Over the last few years, Major League Baseball marketing strategists and general managers have been obsessed with the idea of "spreading" the game of baseball to China: namely, selling a billion caps and China Central Television (CCTV) broadcast rights and finding the Chinese version of Ichiro Suzuki or Chien-Ming Wang. Boston Red Sox president Larry Lucchino was even dubbed by the Associated Press "a Marco Polo of the major leagues" for his commitment to this national mission. |
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One hundred and nineteen years ago, when Americans were far less convinced of their nation's place in globalizing hierarchies of culture, Albert Spalding organized a world baseball tour designed similarly to "extend an American presence in the world" (p. xiii). Between October 1888 and April 1889, the Chicago White Stockings and an "All-America" team of professionals played fifty-four games across the United States and in New Zealand, Australia, Ceylon, Egypt, Italy, France, England, Scotland, and Ireland, covering 32,000 miles in their travels. |
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