BASEBALL FROM BELOW: HOW AMERICA’S PASTIME BECAME A HEMISPHERIC CULTURAL PHENOMENON

Search for this publication on Google Scholar
Gallemore, M. (2015). BASEBALL FROM BELOW: HOW AMERICA’S PASTIME BECAME A HEMISPHERIC CULTURAL PHENOMENON. Unc Charlotte Electronic Theses And Dissertations.
Download PDF

Analytics

323 views ◎
207 downloads ⇓


Abstract

The game of baseball has rarely changed since its beginnings, and its resultant ascent to the United States national pastime has done little to change the fundamentals of the sport. However, there have been significant shifts in the demographics of Major League Baseball. Latino players have seen their numbers jump up to 26.9% (2012) from single digits in the 1960s, while African-American players peaked at 18.5% two decades after desegregation, but has since fallen to the current (2012) level of 7.2%. The goal of this research project is to determine the cause for the rise in the numbers of foreign-born Latino baseball players appearing in the United States’ top baseball league. Previous historiography on the subject has suggested that U.S. neocolonial patterns led to baseball’s wild spread across parts of Latin America; consequently, these patterns contribute to the significant influx of foreign-born Latinos debuting in Major League Baseball. What has not been examined extensively is the effect economic factors have on the rise and fall of the number of players moving to Major League Baseball. Data was compiled to produce a database through SPSS (IBM Statistical Package for the Social Sciences) that tested this possibility; consequently, it was determined that economic health does not have a significant effect on the number of debuts of foreign-born players in Major League Baseball. While economic factors cannot be ruled out, it is not a significant enough standalone variable to explain the migration of foreign-born Latino baseball players to the United States.

Details
Author

Gallemore, Michael

Title

BASEBALL FROM BELOW: HOW AMERICA’S PASTIME BECAME A HEMISPHERIC CULTURAL PHENOMENON

Physical Description

1 online resource (66 pages) : PDF

Date

2015

Degree Granting Institution

University of North Carolina at Charlotte

Abstract

The game of baseball has rarely changed since its beginnings, and its resultant ascent to the United States national pastime has done little to change the fundamentals of the sport. However, there have been significant shifts in the demographics of Major League Baseball. Latino players have seen their numbers jump up to 26.9% (2012) from single digits in the 1960s, while African-American players peaked at 18.5% two decades after desegregation, but has since fallen to the current (2012) level of 7.2%. The goal of this research project is to determine the cause for the rise in the numbers of foreign-born Latino baseball players appearing in the United States’ top baseball league. Previous historiography on the subject has suggested that U.S. neocolonial patterns led to baseball’s wild spread across parts of Latin America; consequently, these patterns contribute to the significant influx of foreign-born Latinos debuting in Major League Baseball. What has not been examined extensively is the effect economic factors have on the rise and fall of the number of players moving to Major League Baseball. Data was compiled to produce a database through SPSS (IBM Statistical Package for the Social Sciences) that tested this possibility; consequently, it was determined that economic health does not have a significant effect on the number of debuts of foreign-born players in Major League Baseball. While economic factors cannot be ruled out, it is not a significant enough standalone variable to explain the migration of foreign-born Latino baseball players to the United States.

Genre

masters theses

Subjects--Topics

Area studies
History

Subjects--Places

Latin America

Degree

M.A.

Keywords

Baseball
Cuba
Major League Baseball
United States
Venezuela

Subject Area

Latin American Studies

Advisor(s)

Weeks, Gregory

Committee Members

Buchenau, Jürgen
Andrés, Benny

Degree Note

Thesis (M.A.)--University of North Carolina at Charlotte, 2015.

Rights Statement

This Item is protected by copyright and/or related rights. You are free to use this Item in any way that is permitted by the copyright and related rights legislation that applies to your use. For other uses you need to obtain permission from the rights-holder(s). For additional information, see http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/.

Rights Holder Information

Copyright is held by the author unless otherwise indicated.

Identifier

Gallemore_uncc_0694N_10861

Permalink

http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.13093/etd:837