History of Sports

Drawing from a 1760 book of British verses for children from a story entitled "Base-Ball," evidence that British youngsters played baseball a century before the game was organized in the U.S., which is part of an exhibit "John Bull and Uncle Sam: Four Centuries of British-American Relations" that opens at the Library of Congress in Washington Thursday Nov. 18, 1999. (AP Nov. 17, 1999)

Great Ball Court of the Mayans at Chichén Itzá in the Yucatan of Mexico built ca. 900 AD
Are Sports America's Religion? by Bruce Buursma, 1987
Ballparks by Munsey & Suppes on past, present and future baseball parks
Baseball, the Color Line, and Jackie Robinson, 1860s-1960s and Baseball Cards 1887-1914 from American Memory
Circus Maximus: Rome's Astrodome from History House
New York Yankees A Century of Champions from the Sporting News
Rickwood is nation's oldest stadium, in Birmingham AL
San Diego ballpark from Padres
Stadium page with photos
Stadium postcards
Stadiums list from Yahoo
Super Bowl as Religious Festival by Joseph L. Price, 1988
Tiger Stadium replacements diagrams from Detroit News
Total Baseball Online

Local:

Films:

Eight Men Out (1988) and Remember the Titans (2000) and The Rookie (2002)

Articles on reserve:

Baseball stadium growth is biggest in the sport's history from Kansas City Star, March 12, 2000
Jim Brown film by Spike Lee from New York Times, March 22, 2002
Super Bowl as Mythic Spectacle
Winter Olympics 2002

Books and Articles:

Espy, Richard. The Politics of the Olympic Games: with an Epilogue, 1976-1980. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1981. 238 p.
Guttmann, Allen. From Ritual to Record: the Nature of Modern Sports. 1978. 198 p.
Guttmann, Allen. A Whole New Ball Game: an Interpretation of American Sports. Chapel Hill : University of North Carolina Press, 1988.
Guttmann, Allen. Games and Empires: Modern Sports and Cultural Imperialism. 1994. 275 p.
Guttmann, Allen. The Olympics, a History of the Modern Games. 2nd ed., 2002. 214 p.
Hietala, Thomas R. The Fight of the Century: Jack Johnson, Joe Louis, and the Struggle for Racial Equality. Armonk, N.Y. : M.E. Sharpe, 2002. 375 p.
Jennings, Andrew. Dishonored Games : Corruption, Money, and Greed at the Olympics. New York: Spi Books, 1992. 290 p.
Jennings, Andrew. The Great Olympic Swindle: when the world wanted its games back. London: Simon & Schuster, 2000. 390 p.
Nelson, Mariah Burton. The Stronger Women Get, the More Men Love Football: Sexism and the American Culture of Sports. New York : Harcourt Brace, 1994.
Oriard, Michael. King Football: sport and spectacle in the golden age of radio and newsreels, movies and magazines, the weekly & the daily press. Chapel Hill : University of North Carolina Press, 2001.
Pope, S.W. , ed. The New American Sport History: recent approaches and perspectives. Urbana : University of Illinois Press, 1997.
Rader, Benjamin G. American Sports: from the Age of Folk Games to the Age of Spectators. Englewood Cliffs, N.J. : Prentice-Hall, 1983 (Third Edition 1996).
Rader, Benjamin G. Baseball: A History of America's Game. 1992. 231 p.
Remnick, David. King of the World: Muhammad Ali and the Rise of an American Hero. 1998. 326 p.
Riess, Steven A. City Games: the Evolution of American Urban Society and the Rise of Sports. Urbana : University of Illinois Press, 1989.
Roberts, Randy. Papa Jack: Jack Johnson and the Era of White Hopes. New York: Free Press, 1983. 274 p.
Roche, Maurice. Mega-events and Modernity : Olympics and expos in the growth of global culture. London: Routledge, 2000. 281 p.
Senn, Alfred E. Power, Politics, and the Olympic Games. Champaign, IL : Human Kinetics, 1999. 315 p.
Sperber, Murray. Shake Down the Thunder: The Creation of Notre Dame Football. 1993. 634 p.
Wieting, Stephen G., ed. Sport and Memory in North America. London ; Portland, OR : F. Cass, 2001, includes the essay "The whole world isn't watching (but we thought they were): the Super Bowl and United States solipsism" by Christopher R. Martin and Jimmie L. Reeves

revised 1/26/03 by Schoenherr