Friday, May 3, 2019
Baseball Goes West:
The Dodgers, the Giants, and the Shaping of the Major Leagues
Lincoln Mitchell
Political analyst, pundit, educator and author of “Baseball Goes West: The Dodgers, the Giants, and the Shaping of the Major Leagues” (Kent State University Press, 2018) and five other books.
Lincoln Mitchell will argue that when the Dodgers and Giants left New York for California in 1957, they set in motion changes that allowed Major League Baseball to become the national and eventually international business it is today. Ripple effects of California’s 20th-century baseball boom include a new acceptance of Latino players; the demise of the Negro Leagues; the Pittsburgh Pirates’ competitiveness throughout the 1970s in part by embracing African-American players; and ongoing challenges for small-market teams.