Big Leagues: Professional Baseball, Football, and Basketball in National Memory

What is behind America’s enduring love affair with professional baseball, football, and basketball? Big Leagues traces the evolution of these team sports from unlikely beginnings to multibillion-dollar businesses that still arouse widespread passion. We love these sports, Fox argues, because they evolve within long, repeating cycles that leave them stable at their cores. Ballplayers, like their games, don’t change much. They remain children with a ball and juvenile in their attitudes toward sex, drink, and drugs, as well as toward superstitions and practical jokes.

Fox candidly illustrates the shenanigans of old-time and newer players, contradicts some accepted wisdom on the origins and early histories of the games, and includes a controversial account of the history of black athletes in America. He also surveys the world of fandom, examines the “big money” explosion, and dares to project the future.