Why read The Quality of Home Runs?

Book cover of The Quality of Home Runs: The Passion, Politics, and Language of Cuban Baseball

Book description

In parks and cafes, homes and stadium stands, Cubans talk baseball. Thomas F. Carter contends that when they are analyzing and debating plays, games, teams, and athletes, Cubans are exchanging ideas not just about baseball but also about Cuba and cubanidad, or what it means to be Cuban. The Quality…

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Why read it?

1 author picked The Quality of Home Runs as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Gregg Bocketti

Author

Naturally, when we think of sports in Latin America we first think of the region’s great athletes, from Pelé to Roberto Clemente, from Lionel Messi to Albert Pujols. But baseball and soccer players do not make sports meaningful on their own; many others – owners, sponsors, politicians, fans – make them what they are. This is the essential insight that guides Thomas Carter’s anthropology of Cuban baseball. He acknowledges the important role of the Communist regime in shaping the game, but he shows convincingly that the game belongs to its fans, for it is their passion that makes baseball important…

From Gregg's list on sports in Latin America and the Caribbean.