Hostname: page-component-68c7f8b79f-xc2tv Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2026-01-01T16:30:30.009Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Breaking Barriers and Coded Language

Watching Politics of Race at the Ballpark

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2026

Thomas D. Bunting
Thomas D. Bunting*
Affiliation:
Shawnee State University
*
E-mail: tbunting@shawnee.edu
Get access

Abstract

Drawing on recent literature on political spectatorship, I show how sport, and baseball in particular, can both illuminate and shape American politics. Following the history of racial segregation and immigrant assimilation in baseball, one sees that it mirrors American race politics on the whole. I argue that Jackie Robinson and the desegregation of baseball changed both American politics and the horizons within which citizens think. Although it is tempting to focus on this positive and emergent moment, I argue that for the most part, looking at the history of race in baseball shows instead coded language that reinforces racial stereotypes. This example of baseball and race shows how powerful spectatorship can be in the democratic world. Spectatorship need not be passive but can be an important sphere of activity in democratic life.

Keywords

baseballdemocratic theoryracespectatorshipsportpolitics

Information

Type
Research Article
Information
Democratic Theory , Volume 5 , Issue 1 , June 2018 , pp. 62 - 80
Copyright
Copyright © Berghahn Books 2018

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

Aristotle. 1984. The Politics. Translated by Carnes Lord. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Avramenko, Richard. 2011. Courage: The Politics of Life and Limb. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Benhabib, Seyla. 2002. The Claims of Culture: Equality and Diversity in the Global Era. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bernstein, Ross. 2008. The Code: Baseball's Unwritten Rules and Its Ignore-at-Your-Own- Risk Code of Conduct. Chicago, IL: Triumph Books.Google Scholar
Bodley, Hal. 2013. “Retiring No. 42 One of Baseball's Greatest Moments.” Accessed February 16, 2015.Google Scholar
Burgos, Adrian. 2007. Playing America's Game: Baseball, Latinos, and the Color Line, American Crossroads. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Butterworth, Michael L. 2010. Baseball and Rhetorics of Purity: The National Pastime and American Identity During the War on Terror, Rhetoric, Culture, and Social Critique. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Canetti, Elias. 1984. Crowds and Power. New York: Farrar Straus Giroux.Google Scholar
Curvin, Robert. 1982. “Remembering Jackie Robinson.” New York Times Magazine. Accessed July 14, 2016.Google Scholar
Diadiun, Ted. 2016. “Let Chief Wahoo Opponents Be Offended on Their Own Time and Leave the Rest of Us Alone. Cleveland.com. Accessed June 15, 2016.Google Scholar
Eagleman, Andrea M. 2011. “Stereotypes of Race and Nationality: A Qualitative Analysis of Sport Magazine Coverage of MLB Players.” Journal of Sport Management 25: 156–168.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Encina, Eduardo A. 2015. “O's VP John Angelos: ‘Ball Game Irrlelevant’ When Compared to Poor's Plight.” Baltimore Sun. http://www.baltimoresun.com/sports/orioles/bs-sp-orioles-john-angelos-tweets-0427-20150426-story.html.Google Scholar
Evans, Christopher H. 2002. “Baseball as Civil Religion: The Genesis of an American Creation Story.” In The Faith of Fifty Million: Baseball, Religion, and American Culture, ed. Christopher Hodge Evans and William R. Herzog, xx. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press.Google Scholar
Felder, Adam, and Seth, Amitin. 2012. “How MLB Announcers Favor American Players Over Foreign Ones.” Atlantic. Accessed July 20, 2016.Google Scholar
Ferrucci, Patrick, Jr., Edson C. Tandoc, Chad E. Painter, and J. David, Wolfgang. 2016. “Foul Ball: Audience-Held Stereotypes of Baseball Players.” Howard Journal of Communications 27 (1): 68–84.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fishkin, James S. 1995. The Voice of the People: Public Opinion and Democracy. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Foer, Franklin. 2004. How Soccer Explains the World: An Unlikely Theory of Globalization. New York: Harper Collins.Google Scholar
Gelven, Michael. 1994. War and Existence: A Philosophical Inquiry. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press.Google Scholar
Gmelch, George. 2016. Playing with Tigers: A Minor League Chronicle of the Sixties. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press.Google Scholar
Green, Jeffrey E. 2010. The Eyes of the People: Democracy in an Age of Spectatorship. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Gutmann, Amy, and Dennis, Thompson. 2004. Why Deliberative Democracy? Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Habermas, Jürgen. 1995. “Reconciliation through the Public Use of Reason: Remarks on John Rawls's Political Liberalism.” Journal of Philosophy 92 (3): 109–131.Google Scholar
Heaphy, Leslie. 2011. “Baseball and the Color Line: From the Negro Leagues.” In The Cambridge Companion to Baseball, ed. Leonard, Cassuto and Stephen, Partridge, xxiii. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Huizinga, Johan. 1970. Homo Ludens: A Study of the Play Element in Culture. London: Maurice Temple Smith Ltd.Google Scholar
Kernell, Samuel. 1997. Going Public: New Strategies of Presidential Leadership, 3rd ed. Washington, DC: CQ Press.Google Scholar
Kyle, Donald G. 2007. Sport and Spectacle in the Ancient World, Ancient Cultures. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishers.Google Scholar
Le, Bon, Gustave. 1968. The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind, 2nd ed. Dunwoody, GA: N. S. Berg.Google Scholar
Leonard, David J. 2017. Playing While White: Privilege and Power On and Off the Field. Seattle: University Washington Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lipsky, Richard. 1981. How We Play the Game: Why Sports Dominate American life. Boston: Beacon Press.Google Scholar
Lukas, Paul. 2014. :Hail to De-Chiefing.: Accessed 6/15/16.Google Scholar
Mayeda, David Tokiharu. 1999. “From Model Minority to Economic Threat: Media Portrayals of Major League Baseball Pitchers Hideo Nomo and Hideki Irabu.” Journal of Sport & Social Issues 23 (2): 203–217.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McCarthy, David, and Robyn, L. Jones. 1997. “Speed, Aggression, Strength and Tacitcal Naïveté: The Portrayal of the Black Soccer Player on Television.” Journal of Sport & Social Issues 21 (4): 348–362.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McGraw, Daniel. 2015. “Native Americans Protest Chief Wahoo at Cleveland Indians Home Opener.” Guardian. Accessed June 15, 2016.Google Scholar
Mellinger, Sam. 2015. “Times Are Changing, and So Should Major-League Baseball.” Kansas City Star. Accessed July 29, 2016.Google Scholar
Mercurio, Eugenio, and Vincent, F. Filak. 2010. “Roughing the Passer: The Framing of Black and White Quarterbacks Prior to the NFL Draft.” Howard Journal of Communications 21 (1): 56–71.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mouffe, Chantal. 1999. “Deliberative Democracy or Agonistic Pluralism?” Social Research 66 (3): 745–758.Google Scholar
Mouffe, Chantal. 2000. The Democratic Paradox. London: Verso.Google Scholar
Mouffe, Chantal. 2005. On the Political, Thinking in Action. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Nathan, Daniel A. 2013. Rooting for the Home Team: Sport, Community, and Identity. Urbana: University of Illinois Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ogden, David C. 2003. “Baseball and Blacks: A Loss of Affinity, a Loss of Community.” In Baseball and American Culture: Across the Diamond, ed. Edward J. Rielly, xxiii. New York,: Haworth Press.Google Scholar
Ogden, David, and Randall, A. Rose. 2005. “Using Giddens's Structuration Theory to Examine the Waning Participation of African American's in Baseball.” Journal of Black Studies 35 (4): 225–245.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Overman, Steven J. 2011. The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Sport: How Calvinism and Capitalism Shaped America's Games, 1st ed. Macon, GA: Mercer University Press.Google Scholar
Phelps, Jordyn. 2016. “President Obama Explains Why He Attended MLB Exhibition Game in Cuba Despite Brussels Attacks.”Google Scholar
Plato. 1985. The Republic. Translated by Richard W. Sterling and William C. Scott. 1st ed. New York: Norton.Google Scholar
Plato. 1988. The Laws of Plato. Translated by Thomas L. Pangle. University of Chicago Press ed. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Potok, Chaim. 1967. The Chosen: A Novel. New York: Simon and Schuster.Google Scholar
Rader, Benjamin G. 2009. American Sports: From the Age of Folk Games to the Age of Televised Sports, 6th ed. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson/Prentice Hall.Google Scholar
Rancieþre, Jacques. 2009. The Emancipated Spectator. London: Verso.Google Scholar
Rancieþre, Jacques. 2010. Dissensus: On Politics and Aesthetics. Translated by Steve Corcoran. London: Continuum.Google Scholar
Rawls, John. 1971. A Theory of Justice. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rawls, John. 1985. “Justice as Fairness: Political Not Metaphysical.” Philosophy and Public Affairs 14 (3): 223–251.Google Scholar
Riefenstahl, Leni. 1935. Triumph des Willens.Google Scholar
Rios, Edwin. 2015. “White People Could Learn a Thing or Two About Talking About Race From Orioles’ Manager.”Google Scholar
Roediger, David R. 2005. Working toward Whiteness: How America's Immigrants Became White: The Strange Journey from Ellis Island to the Suburbs. New York: Basic Books.Google Scholar
Rorke, Tom, and Adam, Copeland. 2017. “Athletic Disobedience: Providing a Context for Analysis of Colin Kaepernick's Protest.” Fair Play, Revista de Filosopfia, Ética y Derecho del Deporte (10): 83–107.Google Scholar
Rosenthal, Ken. 2013. “Upton not D-Backs Kind of Player.” Accessed July 27, 2016.Google Scholar
Schmitt, Carl. 2007. The Concept of the Political, expanded ed. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Scott, Jack. 1971. The Athletic Revolution. New York: Free Press.Google Scholar
Simons, William M. 1982. “The Athlete as Jewish Standard Bearer: Media Images of Hank Greenberg.” Jewish Social Studies 44 (2): 95–112.Google Scholar
Slagter, Josh. 2013. “Detroit Tigers’ Justin Verlander Tells CNN He's Open to Gay Teammate, Says Tigers Could Deal with It.”Google Scholar
Traubel, Horace. 1961. With Walt Whitman in Camden. New York: Rowman and Littlefield.Google Scholar
Turbow, Jason, and Michael, Duca. 2010. The Baseball Codes: Beanballs, Sign Stealing, and Bench-Clearing Brawls: The Unwritten Rules of America's Pastime, 1st ed. New York: Pantheon Books.Google Scholar
Tygiel, Jules. 1984. Baseball's Great Experiment: Jackie Robinson and His Legacy. 1st Vintage Books ed. New York: Vintage Books.Google Scholar
Urbinati, Nadia. 2010. “Unpolitical Democracy.” Political Theory 38 (1): 65–92.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Urbinati, Nadia. 2014. Democracy Disfigured: Opinion, Truth, and the People. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Vecsey, George. 2008. Baseball: A History of America's Favorite Game. Modern Library pbk ed., Modern Library chronicles. New York: Modern Library.Google Scholar
Whannel, Garry. 1992. Fields in Vision: Television Sport and Cultural Transformation, Communication and Society. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
White, G. Edward. 1996. Creating the National Pastime: Baseball Transforms Itself, 1903– 1953. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wolin, Sheldon S. 1994a. “Fugitive Democracy.” Constellations 1 (1).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wolin, Sheldon S. 1994b. “Norm and Form: The Constitutionalizing of Democracy.” In Athenian Political Thought and the Reconstruction of American Democracy, ed. J. Peter Euben, John R. Wallach, and Josiah Ober, vi. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Xenophon., 1925. Scripta Minora, with an English Translation. Translated by Edgar Cardew Marchant. London: W. Heinemann; G. P. Putnam's Sons.Google Scholar
Young, Iris Marion. 1990. Justice and the Politics of Difference. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar