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.

Extract

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.

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.