Examining the Cultural History of American Baseball

Left to right: Professor Patrik McGreevy and Professor Robert Ross

The Prince al Waleed bin Talal Center for American Studies and Research (CASAR) hosted a lecture in West Hall on November 13 by Professor Robert Ross on the controversial issue of cultural production in relation to the game of American baseball. Entitled "Contradictions of the Industrial Production of Culture: Nineteenth-century American Baseball and the Rise and Fall of the 1890 Players' League," the lecture delineated in Marxist terminology the different parameters defining the economic disparity between baseball team administrators and the players themselves.

Ross explained that in November of 1889, the American Players' League saw light with the efforts of its stellar player, John Montgomery Ward. Earlier in 1885, Ward, who had earned "an injunction restraining his mobility" as a player, had formed the Brotherhood of Professional Baseball Players in an effort to "unionize the players and promote their best interests." Ross said the Players' league had stipulated that a player could not be traded or released outright to other teams without his prior consent. The original league teams, as Ross cited them, were the Boston Reds, the Brooklyn Wonders (Ward's team), the Buffalo Bisons, the Chicago Pirates, the Cleveland Infants, the New York Giants, the Philadelphia Quakers, and the Pittsburgh Burghers.

The Players' league, however, folded in 1890 after only one season, due to corruption on the administrative level. Ross ascribed the fall of the league to the contradiction between its proclaimed objective of safeguarding players' interests and its ultimate "failure to really respect the rights of players" whose very performance was itself the lucrative cornerstone of the baseball game.

Baseball players by the turn of the nineteenth century had become marketable commodities, garnering nationwide attention through the games themselves as well as the large array of commercial and memorabilia products bearing their names. However, the players had few rights and were poorly reimbursed in relation to the profits made. Ross concluded that American baseball fans today need to continue examining the cultural production of baseball commodities and side-products, as well as the game itself as "a continuum of commodity production contiguous with the geography, culture, and economy of their country."

Ross earned his PhD from Syracuse University and holds a master's degree in geography from University College London. His research has concentrated on two general phenomena of contemporary and historical North American cities: the industrial production of culture and the production of public space. He is currently working on converting his dissertation on the professional baseball industry into book form.