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in what ways has baseball impacted the early history (pre 1900) of the united states if it has at all. if thats too hard i would also like to know if any players in that time have done anything with their baseball fame to affect history

2007-10-24 17:05:29 · 3 answers · asked by Greg L 2 in Sports Baseball

3 answers

Baseball had an effect on WWII. Many of the best players left the game to fight for our country. This not only opened up the majors to players that would never have had a chance to play, but let the the All-American Girls Baseball League and introduced baseball to many countries in Europe, Asia and Africa, which carried on with the Korean and Vietnam conflicts and the Cold War.

As for pre-1900, the Archibald "Moonlight" Graham story comes to mind. Kids from all over would come to a town just to play baseball. Once there, they would get jobs, find women, and settle down, thus creating families that would not have ordinarily happened without the game of baseball bringing those people together. Some, like Archie, became doctors and other VIPs and forever changed the course of history in their little acre of God's green Earth.

2007-10-24 18:24:29 · answer #1 · answered by pricehillsaint 5 · 1 0

I don't think it affected the history of the country. It's probably the other way around.

The National League was formed in 1876. I think you could argue that a couple of important forces were at play by then. One, the rise of cities. America was becoming less and less rural by then, and the cities were growing in population. It was now (in 1876) possible to form a league with cities competing against cities.

Two, the rise of leisure time. The Industrial Revolution was in full flight by the end of the 1800's, and productivity was up. In some cases, particularly through the rise of unions, people had leisure time. They could either play sports like baseball, or go watch them.

Both of those changed the landscape drastically. Throw in the fact that railroads allowed teams to play opponents in other cities on a regular basis (impossible before that), and the ingredients were in place for the rise of pro baseball and essentially all sports.

The other person is correct about Robinson, certainly the most significant figure in baseball history in terms of the country. The pressure to integrate was getting stronger after World War II -- you mean blacks could fight and die for the country but not play baseball? -- and Robinson came aboard at that point. There are plenty of other people involved in that fight of course, but Robinson certainly had a very public and important role.

2007-10-24 17:47:57 · answer #2 · answered by wdx2bb 7 · 1 0

Moe Berg (a catcher) was a Spy for the military during overseas barnstorming tours to Japan before we entered the war.

2007-10-24 21:55:41 · answer #3 · answered by Lefty 7 · 0 0

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