About a year into my stay in Korea I got pretty wrapped up in audio book University-style lecture series. The most common brand of these is The Teaching Company,  but there’s another called The Modern Scholar. TTC advertises in  Harper’s, The Atlantic and  I  believe the  NYT. My guess is these are often used as  teaching tools in high school classrooms, although I can also imagine  socialites in New York City listening to them on the Stairmaster to prep for that night’s cocktail party.

So if that didn’t just turn you off  completely  let me tell you I recently found a TMS series called Take Me Out To the Ballgame: A History of Baseball in America  and  it’s been glued to my ears  during the  past couple days. I guess you might call it an intellectual look at the game,  its history, the changes and overhauls it’s undergone, and  its relationship to American culture.  Even if you know your Tris Speakers and Walter Johnsons you’ll still find plenty here.

The professor is Timothy B. Shutt from Kenyon College. He’s a little over the top, but not annoyingly so. The first lecture is Origin and Fundamental Character of the Game, which talks about the game’s  unique, multi-faceted appeal (he quotes Bill James as saying it’s the only game where the team with the ball is on defense) and  its  professional origins in New York and New Jersey  (he  also suggests varitions  go back to the Middle Ages), and the founding of the National Association of Baseball Players just after the Civil War.

You can see the full course outline by clicking on the link above. It’s organized by decade, so other lessons include Nineteenth-Century Professional Baseball, The Early 1900s, The 1910s, and so on. There’s also a special lecture on The Negro Leagues that I haven’t gotten to yet.  

I’m going to post the first lecture here in two parts. If people are into it I’ll post more.

Origin and Fundamental Character of the Game Part 1

Origin and Fundamental Character of the Game Part 2