Recommended: Booklist   Long before multi-million dollar contracts, player  endorsements and corporate sponsored stadiums, baseball was played for  the sheer love of the game. This is the story of Kansas baseball but it  could be any fledgling prairie state where baseball was played along  dusty roads for the local crowd. 
  Town Teams: Bigger than  Baseball explores America’s Game at the turn of the twentieth century,  when men would labor and sweat in the factories, oil fields and farms  from sun-up to sundown, six days a week. But come Sunday, they clashed  on the scorching hot baseball field for bragging rights, pride and a  whole lot more.
  This historical documentary reaches beyond the  astonishing popularity of the game and examines the origins and  importance of baseball. Town teams created local heroes, assimilated  immigrants, unified society and even became a weapon in the battle  between towns for economic power. Town teams baseball weaved its way  into the very fabric of US culture, making Town Teams: Bigger than  Baseball.   |