More Than a Pastime: An Oral History of Baseball Fans

ISBN-13: 9780786493814 / Angielski / Miękka / 2014 / 263 str.

William Freedman

Opis

Basing his claims on more than 130 in-depth interviews with baseball fans from ages 10 to 80, the author arrives at some extraordinary conclusions about the prismatic richness of the fan's experience of baseball and its importance in his or her life. The responses, 40 of which are reproduced in this oral history, suggest three major hypotheses: that how the youthful fan regards the game is a resonant expression of his personality, his family and social situation, and his fundamental needs; that baseball, far more than a pastime or idle entertainment, serves a number of extremely important emotional and developmental functions--moral, social, aesthetic, and psychological--in the lives of its younger fans; and that one of baseball's less frequently heralded virtues is its extraordinary richness, its capacity to turn a different face to almost every fan and to satisfy that remarkably wide range of personalities, backgrounds, and needs. What these interviews suggest and what the author's introductory sections argue is that to its most ardent young fans, baseball is not only a source of great and lasting pleasure, but an important socializing agent and a vital expression and determinant of character.

Spis treści

Table of Contents:

• Preface 1
• Introduction 3
• 1 Moral Landscape, Mentor, Proof 37
• 2 Striving for Excellence and Perfection 69
• 3 Empowerment 87
• 4 The Contained Aesthetic Object, the Mirroring Work of Art 110
• 5 Not Just Fathers and Sons 127
• 6 A Sense of Belonging 145
• 7 Identification 172
• 8 Formation of Identity and Character 198
• 9 Rescue, Fun, and All the Rest: A Concluding Miscellany 216
• Epilogue 233
• Bibliography 243
• Index 249