BASEBALL The New York Game is organized as a linear narrative of
facts and events that marries America's illustrious history with the
rich background of baseball, our national pastime, beginning in the
early nineteenth century until the present. The narrative includes
many watershed moments that illustrate the importance of baseball during many crises and global conflicts, including the aftermath of September 11, 2001. The reader will integrate concepts that are offered to promote an ongoing discourse of our country's popular culture. One will witness how leisure and exercise evolved into the structure of fraternities and the formation of an organized sport that became the national pastime. In addition, following the main body of the text is an article on the military in baseball. This is the story of how American history and baseball intertwined as an integral part of our popular culture.
About the Author: The Bronx, NY has been my home for nearly my entire life. Growing up in the Arthur Ave. tenement sector entitled me to the best food in this renowned Italian American enclave. We enjoyed the strains of the popular music at the time by Tony Bennett, Frank Sinatra Nat King Cole, and Jerry Vale...just to name a few. Soon after that, it was Rock n' Roll that captured the music scene in what was known as the Doo-Wop genre. Harmony abounded on the street corners with acapella whenever there were a few guys that got together until late at night...much to the displeasure of the folks who lived in the area. On another note, we had the luxury of two great institutions, the Bronx Zoo and the New York Botanical Garden nearby to enjoy.
We were mostly Yankees fans during this period. And, in 1958, I became an usher at Yankee Stadium, with a four-year stint in the United States Navy, lasting 15 years until 1973 when an opening in the Group and Season Sales Department at the Stadium beckoned. Prior to joining the Yankees, my full-time employment included financial institutions. At night I pursued an education at Fordham University achieving a Bachelor of Arts degree in Psychology.
In 1979, with the help of the Bronx County Historical Society, I began walking tours of the Stadium in conjunction with my sales position. By 1998, The Yankees' General Partner, Mr. George M. Steinbrenner helped me open a Stadium Tours Department. The revenue accrued through the tours benefitted the Yankee Foundation, a 501 (c) 3 program that brought education and recreation programs to the inner-city youth. In addition, I collaborated with middle-school teachers and principles to design an alternative program that would help the struggling students get a better understanding through the eyes of baseball.
Until 2008, the grandeur of this mecca for outdoor events, Yankee Stadium, bore out playing host to 27 World Series championships, 30 championship fights, college football, Negro baseball, New York Giants football, motorcycle racing, circuses, rodeos, women's exhibition baseball, college and professional football, Jehovah Witnesses, the Billy Graham Crusade, soccer, National Hockey League games, three papal masses, {including the first papal mass in the Western Hemisphere), and other interdenominational faith healings. I enjoyed a front-row seat to many of these events...what a lucky guy. With the Stadium now in dire need of repair, the curtain came down on September 21, 2008, to prepare for a new ballpark.
The opening of the new Stadium In 2009 came with the help of middle school teachers, around this time, we began education programs to help students learn about American history through the eyes of baseball as an adjunct to the Stadium tours. Given the opportunity upon retiring in 2018, I took this program into book form in addition to becoming an adjunct professor at Fordham University. With the completion of the book, BASEBALL The New York Game - How the National Pastime Paralleled US History, we plan on translating it into other languages.
On Nov. 13, 2022, I will be inducted into the New York State Baseball Hall of Fame.