June 3, or Wednesday if you please, marked the beginning of a sacred holiday. No, not the birthday of Anderson Cooper. June 3 saw the first game in the ritual-rich battle for […]
Category: sports history
Authors speak and sign at Printers Row
For the tenth consecutive year, the University of Illinois Press will have a large presence at the Chicago Tribune Printers Row Lit Fest. Festival goers can visit the University of […]
The Simmons brand
In recent days the big sports media news revolved around ESPN’s Bill Simmons, one of its most popular personalities. Simmons started years ago as the independent Sports Guy, a bro-friendly, […]
Cheat feat
This morning our scandal-addled zeitgeist turns its attention to professional football, where the New England Patriots stand accused, and more or less convicted, of deflating balls for a playoff game […]
The Babe’s enchanted lid
Today we celebrate the release of David W. Zang’s poignant and hilarious sports memoir I Wore Babe Ruth’s Hat: Field Notes from a Life in Sports. Long celebrated as one […]
Baseball on Trial honored
Baseball on Trial by Nathaniel Grow is co-winner of the 2015 Larry Ritter Book Award from the Society of American Baseball Research. The award recognizes the best new baseball book […]
Q&A with Before the Ivy author Laurent Pernot
Laurent Pernot is the executive vice chancellor of the City Colleges of Chicago. Pernot came to the U.S. as a Chicago-area foreign-exchange student in 1988 and caught ’89 Cubs playoff fever. […]
Face the Nation
Pitchers and catchers continue to report to their Grapefruit and Cactus League destinations. Back in the snowy east, an uneasy leviathan stirs from its winter slumber. Months of singing a […]
The cardboard of spring
Baseball cards once provided a beloved adjunct to the National Pastime, one that really formed a brick in that ivy-covered wall we call the Zeitgeist. In those bygone days, the young […]
Baseball on Trial wins American Legal History book award
Congratulations to Nathaniel Grow. Grow’s UIP book Baseball on Trial: The Origin of Baseball’s Antitrust Exemption is the winner of the David J. Langum, Sr. Prize in American Legal History/Biography […]
Diamonds are a reader’s best friend
We have entered that mid-February time when catchers and pitchers report to spring training to prepare for the baseball season. To don the tools of ignorance. To pretend to run […]
NFL Films founder changed the way we see the game
Without Ed Sabol, the Dallas Cowboys might not be known as “America’s Team” and those goofy sports bloopers would not be a staple of rainy weekends. More importantly, the way Americans […]