America's National Game is a book by Albert Spalding, published in 1911 detailing the early history of the sport of baseball. Much of the story is told first-hand, since Spalding had been involved in the game, first as a player and later an administrator, since the 1850s. In addition to his personal recollections, he had access to the records of Henry Chadwick, the game's first statistician and archivist. Spalding was, however, known to aggrandise his role in the major moments in baseball's history.
Famous quotes containing the words america, national and/or game:
“All this stuff you heard about America not wanting to fight, wanting to stay out of the war, is a lot of horse dung. Americans, traditionally, love to fight. All real Americans love the sting of battle.... Americans play to win all the time. I wouldn’t give a hoot in hell for a man who lost and laughed. That’s why Americans have never lost—and will never lose—a war, because the very thought of losing is hateful to Americans.”
—Francis Ford Coppola (b. 1939)
“It is to be lamented that the principle of national has had very little nourishment in our country, and, instead, has given place to sectional or state partialities. What more promising method for remedying this defect than by uniting American women of every state and every section in a common effort for our whole country.”
—Catherine E. Beecher (1800–1878)
“People’s affections can be as thin as paper; life is like a game of chess, changing with each move.”
—Chinese proverb.