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:
“What you have to do is enter the fiction of America, enter America as fiction. It is, indeed, on this fictive basis that it dominates the world.”
—Jean Baudrillard (b. 1929)
“All men are lonely. But sometimes it seems to me that we Americans are the loneliest of all. Our hunger for foreign places and new ways has been with us almost like a national disease. Our literature is stamped with a quality of longing and unrest, and our writers have been great wanderers.”
—Carson McCullers (1917–1967)
“The savage soul of game is up at once—
The pack full-opening various, the shrill horn
Resounded from the hills, the neighing steed
Wild for the chase, and the loud hunter’s shout—
O’er a weak, harmless, flying creature, all
Mixed in mad tumult and discordant joy.”
—James Thomson (1700–1748)