Full Description
Celebrated as a democratic space for all Americans, the major league ballpark in fact privileged the middle- and upper-class white male fan while tacitly marginalizing poor urban residents and people of color. Seth S. Tannenbaum examines how the game's economically and socially stratified system reflected changing understandings of urban space, inclusion, and the body politic.
Major League Baseball owners and executives masked exclusion and division by touting the game's accessibility and instituting few overtly discriminatory policies. Affluent white males enjoyed a comfortable, safe space that reinforced their status as the prototypical American citizen. At the same time, ballparks relocated in response to how these favored fans felt about cities. Tannenbaum traces this journey from the urban locales of the Polo Grounds and Yankee Stadium through the suburban-oriented Dodger Stadium and Houston Astrodome to the cloistered fantasy of city life offered by Camden Yards. As he shows, owners' pursuit of greater profits incorporated existing barriers that helped shape the structure of modern parks.
A revealing social history, Bleacher Seats and Luxury Suites revises the persistent myth of the ballpark as an egalitarian melting pot.
Contents
1. INTRODUCTION: INCLUSION, EXCLUSION, AND THE BASEBALL FAN
EXPERIENCE IN AMERICAN SOCIETY
2. CREATING THE "EGALITARIAN" BALLPARK EXPERIENCE: HOT DOGS
AND DIVISIONS AT THE POLO GROUNDS
3. MORE ACCESS NECESSITATES MORE TIERS: INCREASED INCLUSION AND
INCREASED DIVISION AT YANKEE STADIUM
4. SUBURBAN-STYLE GATED COMMUNITY BASEBALL: WHITEWASHING
THE CITY AT DODGER STADIUM
5. A HYPER-DIVIDED AMERICAN EXPERIENCE: THE HOUSTON ASTRODOME
PERFECTS SUBURBAN BASEBALL
6. URBAN CHIC: BASEBALL RETURNS TO A CAREFULLY CONTROLLED
APPROXIMATION OF URBAN LIFE AT CAMDEN YARDS
7. EPILOGUE: BASEBALL AND THE CITY IN THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY
