Tag: baseball

Summer anthropologies #2: Leslie White goes to a baseball game (Part 3)

By Ryan | October 13, 2023

In the last post of this installment of the summer anthropologies series, I ended with the point that major league baseball (MLB) is an annual demonstration of autocratic corporate power. If that’s the case, I asked, why would anyone go? Well, humans are complicated. Take my case. I grew up playing baseball since I was about four or five years old. I played it all the time, went to MLB games when I had the chance, collected baseball cards, played {+}

Summer anthropologies #2: Leslie White goes to a baseball game (Part 2)

By Ryan | August 16, 2023

In part one of this installment, I mentioned Leslie White’s call to expand the purview of anthropology and take a closer look at things like baseball. I agree. White’s preliminary theory was that baseball, as a cultural institution, promoted national solidarity and unity: “No matter who you are, what you are, or where you are, if you are a fan you ‘belong.’” Nope. If you look at the history of baseball at that time, and before, White’s argument about the {+}

Summer anthropologies #2: Leslie White goes to a baseball game (Part 1)

By Ryan | August 4, 2023

A couple months ago, just after the 2023 baseball season started, I was sitting in the upper deck behind home plate at Oracle Park in San Francisco, California. It is a great view. I was there to watch the Giants play against the Los Angeles Dodgers with about 30,000 or so other people. This was the first MLB game I’d been to in about three decades. It was nice being back after so long. Things that I’d forgotten about all {+}

Summer anthropologies: beaches and baseball

By Ryan | June 26, 2023

All the grades are in, summer is here, and we can all start ‘relaxing’ by lining up a bunch of unrealistic work expectations. Finally. One of my goals is to get back to short form writing that is not owned, controlled, moderated, or in any way beneficial to or complicit with the once functional platform known as Twitter. Recently, someone on that platform said something along the lines of ‘If you start writing more than a few lines here, write {+}