Spalding's World Tour: The Epic Adventure that Took Baseball Around the Globe - And Made it America's Game

Description

In October 1888, Albert Goodwill Spalding-baseball star, sporting-goods magnate, promotional genius, serial fabulist-departed Chicago on a trip that would take him and two baseball teams on a journey clear around the globe. Their mission had two goals: to fix the game in the American consciousness as the purest expression of the national spirit, and to seed markets for Spaldings products near and far. In the process, these first cultural ambassadors played before kings and queens, visited the Coliseum and the Eiffel Tower, and took pot shots with their baseballs at the great Sphinx in Egypt. Their expedition is chronicled with dash and wit in Spaldings World Tour, a riveting story of baseball and the man...who brought it into the 20th century. (Newsweek)

Mark Lamster is senior acquisitions editor at Princeton Architectural Press in New York. His writing on baseball, history, design, and architecture has appeared in numerous publications, including the New York Times, the New York Times Book Review, Metropolis, I.D., and Architecture. Lamster lives in New York City and is an active member of the Society of American Baseball Research.