Chasing Baseball: Our Obsession with Its History, Numbers, People and Places »

Writer and consultant Dorothy Seymour Mills is the author of seventeen books. The first female historian in the Society for American Baseball Research, she is a member of the Association for Women in Sports Media. She lives in Naples, Florida.

Despite worries about baseball's decline, deep interest in memorabilia, fantasy baseball, exhibits, and the games themselves indicate the sport is surviving steroid scandals, negative publicity, and the perception that the game is more nostalgia than a part of current popular culture. This book shows that while basketball and football might enjoy wider popularity today, no sport elicits the passion—or inspires the slightly off-kilter, obsessive behavior—that baseball does.

Library Journal

Mills is a veteran baseball author, but much was in uncredited assistance to her husband, the late pioneering baseball scholar Harold Seymour. Now she presents her own first-person examination of the assumptions that surround baseball—e.g., its American origins and its necessary masculinity. Elegantly and calmly, she sets us straight, crediting other SABR researchers along the way. In Part 1, "A Manly Pursuit," she casts a clear light on such trends as fantasy baseball, growing even as the watching of baseball itself has declined, with sandlot, street, and amateur baseball almost extinct. She reminds us that baseball, as our national pastime, has represented our country at its most disturbing, supporting not only segregation in the past but "faith nights" now, which impose evangelical Christianity on passively consenting fans. In Part 2, "A Womanly Pursuit," Mills notes the women who have in fact played baseball, albeit excluded from the MLB and subject to ridicule, and the responsibility of collegiate sports and the Little League in shunting women into softball. A fascinating read that will be especially inspiring for women who love the game.

Foreword Richard C. Crepeau 1

Preface 5

Part 1 A Manly Pursuit

1 Our National Game 11

2 The Amateur Spirit 22

3 Our Heroes 36

4 The Pantheon 48

5 Go Figure 64

6 Is Baseball the God Game? 81

7 Baseball and Our Other National Sports: Business 94

8 Brakes on Our Pursuit 109

Part-2 A Womanly Pursuit

9 Can woman Be Baseball Stars 131

10 Girls and Women Who Excelled 144

11 Girls Are Children, Too 157

12 The Courage of Baseball Women 173

13 What Baseball Discrimination is Like 186

14 Women Fans Follow Their Passion 200

15 Baseball women of the Future 216

Conclusion 228

Bibliography 231

Index 249