Major League Baseball and the Dominican Republic: What is in the best interest of the players?

This case is about Major League Baseball and the Dominican Republic. We explore how Major League Baseball has used this Caribbean island as an inexpensive labor market and the social problems of the situation. Specifically, we examine Corporate Social Responsibility, the leadership of Sandy Alderson, ethics and the various stakeholders involved. We also look into possible reform alternatives while addressing the central question: What is in the best interest of the players?     

‘To Canada with Love’: Satchel Paige and Baseball Diplomacy

Satchel Paige's gala baseball performances in Canada had meaning at multiple levels when assessed within the context of US–Canadian relations, individual and national identity, race, the struggle for equality and the place of culture – sport and baseball in particular – in international relations and diplomacy. Paige was one of baseball's foremost globetrotters, and the premier African-American baseball ambassador without portfolio. His pitching talents and economic importance ignited passions across the borders, commencing in the 1920s and continuing over four decades. He rarely travelled less than 40,000 miles a year throughout the USA and to foreign shores wherever duty called, and there was the promise of a good payday. The great fireballer for hire and other star black ballplayers relished playing south of the border because of the freedom from Jim Crow. It is often overlooked that they loved playing north of the border as well, in Canada in particular. That play, as argued here, had symbolic and substantive international significance.     

From the kids to ‘The Kids’ – the development of negative social capital I a Little League Baseball organization

Abstract

Based on extensive fieldwork within a youth baseball league in the American Southwest, this paper has two goals. First, I make a conceptual distinction between the dark side of social capital and what I term “negative social capital.” Second, I detail how negative social capital developed and was deployed within the Valley City Little League, with an emphasis on origins and the consequences for both the individuals involved as well as the league as a whole. I also examine how negative social capital was able to develop in a child-centered voluntary organization, an anomaly within extant research on negative relationships in such organizations.     

Gold Medals and White Economy: Winter Olympic Games and the Making of the French Elite (1959–2013)

In 1959, a new organization was created in France under the name of ‘the Pool of the Providers of the French Ski Team’. Its aim was to support the national team with money, human resources, and specific equipment. It included some of the major national ski and footwear industries for which international competitions were seen as both a place to improve their products and a way to promote their image. The Pool helped both the national team and the French ski industry to become world leaders within 10 years. This success, however, was fragile. On one hand, the constitution of the Pool resulted in a system that was a cartel, a monopoly, and a tool for economic patriotism. On the other hand, it surfed at the border of amateurism at a time when skiing was still an amateur sport at the Olympic Games. Soon after the Games of Grenoble these two limits led to a deterioration of the relationships between the Pool and the ski federation, which incidentally resulted in a major crisis for French skiing in 1973. The Pool then opened its doors to foreign companies in the late 1970s, replacing sport patriotism with economic nationalism.     

‘Black and whiters’: the relative powerlessness of ‘active’ supporter organization mobility at English Premier League football clubs

This article examines the reaction by Newcastle United supporters to the resignation of Kevin Keegan as Newcastle United manager in September 2008. Unhappy at the ownership and management structure of the club following Keegan’s departure, a series of supporter-led meetings took place that led to the creation of Newcastle United Supporters’ Club and Newcastle United Supporters’ Trust. This article draws on a non-participant observation of these meetings and argues that although there are an increasing number of ‘active’ supporters throughout English football, ultimately it is the significant number of ‘passive’ supporters who hamper the inclusion of supporters’ organizations at higher level clubs. The article concludes by suggesting that clubs, irrespective of wealth and success, need to recognize the long-term value of supporters. Failure to do so can result in fan alienation and ultimately decline (as seen with the recent cases of Coventry City and Portsmouth).     

Why Jim Joyce Wasn’t Wrong: Baseball and the Euthyphro Dilemma

In 2010, pitcher Armando Galarraga was denied a perfect game when umpire Jim Joyce called Jason Donald safe at first with two outs in the bottom of the 9th. In the numerous media discussions that followed, Joyce’s ‘blown’ call was commonly referred to as ‘mistaken’, ‘wrong’, or otherwise erroneous. However, this use of language makes some not uncontroversial ontological assumptions. It claims that the fact that a runner is safe or out has nothing to do with the ruling of the umpire himself, but rather with some state of the universe that does not depend on the umpire for its existence (e.g. the runner’s reaching the base before the ball or not). In this paper, I recast the problem as a version of Plato’s Euthyphro Dilemma and argue that the view implied by the above assertions is actually misguided. Instead, I hope to show that an alternative view – what I call ‘restricted umpire voluntarism’ – is actually more in line with the spirit of the game of baseball and is not as counterintuitive as it may appear at first glance.     

Sport,Prison, Violence: On Imprisonment and Confinement Conditions – ‘French Prison Sport’ and the Instruments of the World's Good Conscience

In France today, sport is considered to be a fundamental element of the educational offer in the prison environment, especially because it represents in the eyes of the majority an activity that is capable of channelling violence and violent behaviours, although this exemplary effect of education cannot be taken for granted. It is based, in fact, on a commonly accepted opinion and on evidence that is rarely questioned and is even contradicted in recent studies. But can sport, as a more or less formalised pedagogical, institutional and/or sociopolitical project, continue to be ‘educational’ in particular social spaces, like prison, which in essence distorts the conditions of unconstrained free practice and cultural dissemination? Starting from a case study, focused on France, the aim of this paper is to question the relation of sport with the calming qualities and/or, on the contrary, those that produce force fields, not by isolating it and constructing an improvised model but rather by re-inserting it into the issue of pacifying social fields, that is by re-integrating sports practice in the very place which gives it a sense and literally one which incarnates a motor praxeology with constraints – not to say control.     

Football at the ‘End of the Line’: Economic Decline,Cross-Subsidies and Football League Membership in the NW Steel District of England

Sporting leagues are generally based on collectivist principles, as the members need one another to produce their product. For much of its existence, the Football League has functioned as a cartel, operating income-sharing arrangements and controlling its membership. In the period from 1959 to 1986, a limited number of clubs left the League through the re-election process, in modest recognition of geographical logic, as clubs from growth areas to the south typically replaced clubs from more traditional economic areas that were often over-represented in the Football League. Clubs are widely seen to be utility-maximisers seeking success. Success in a sporting league is defined in a precise and relativist way and this article focuses on two of the least successful clubs to have played in the Football League, Barrow AFC and Workington FC, whose failure to obtain repeated re-election in the 1970s removed the only Football League clubs in a distinct economic zone, the north-west coastal steel district. This article examines the re-election mechanism and the particular economic factors that affected these two clubs, ranging from the decline of their main local industry to changes in the levels of and responsibilities attaching to rising cross-subsidy payments in the Football League.     

A Bitter Partnership: The Black Press’ Contentious Relationship with the Negro Leagues in the Struggle to Integrate Major League Baseball

In the 30-year campaign to integrate Major League Baseball, the relationships between African-American newspapers and the Negro Leagues developed in three distinct phases. What began as a harmonious partnership where the two institutions worked together to publicize and improve the quality of the Negro Leagues gave way to bitterness and resentment, as each questioned the other’s role in integrating the sport. By the early 1950s, however, some black sportswriters attempted to revitalize the Negro Leagues after recognizing that the integration of the sport had damaged this distinctly African-American social and economic institution. Analysing the contradictory and complicated attitudes and actions of black journalists as they worked with and later disassociated from the Negro Leagues demonstrates the black press’ shifting relationship with the Negro Leagues and illustrates the conflict among African-American journalists over how to transition from a segregated environment to an integrated one.     

‘Science’, ‘Wind’ and ‘Bottom’: Eighteenth-Century Boxing Manuals

The eighteenth century witnessed the emergence of a plethora of sporting professionals, many of whom were involved in developing training and coaching practices. Teaching the skills, the ‘science’, of boxing became an important source of income for professional fighters while some practitioners also developed careers as trainers, normally operating on behalf of the wealthy ‘amateurs’ who retained professionals in order to make profitable wagers. These practices were described in some of the early instructional manuals of the period, notably a detailed analysis of wrestling by Parkyns in 1713, who considered technique, fitness, and diet, and by Godfrey in 1747 who included a seminal section on boxing in his A Treatise upon the Useful Science of Defence. The proliferation of boxing manuals in the last quarter of the century reflected both a revival of interest in the sport and a desire to record the essential elements of this martial ‘science’ since it was only now that contemporaries believed a full understanding had been achieved of the importance of ‘wind’ (endurance), ‘bottom’ (courage), and ‘science’ (technique). This paper explores a number of texts where authors discussed these essential components of boxing performance and highlights the longevity of their methods of athletic preparation.     

‘Playing Dead’ and Killing Off Amateurism: Bribery Scandals,Illegal Player Payments,Rule Expunging,and the Victorian Football League’s Authorization of Professionalism in 1911

Abstract

Australian football is an indigenous game codified in 1859. In Melbourne, the code’s birthplace, the game remained officially committed to the amateur ideal for over a half-century. Illegal player payments nonetheless became increasingly commonplace. Moreover, periodically rumours swirled of champion footballers taking bribes to ‘play dead’. By the early 1900s, the code’s leading competition, the Victorian Football League (VFL), was derided with the ‘shamateurism’ label. Following a sensational match-fixing investigation that resulted in two players receiving five-year bans, in 1911 the VFL expunged its rule prohibiting player payments. Was the timing merely coincidental or was the League’s historic switch to professionalism a deliberate countermeasure to redirect press attention, renew public confidence, and restore the game’s integrity? By consulting the League’s official records and contemporary press articles, this work examines the overlooked yet discernible linkages between rising match-fixing allegations and the VFL’s decision to eschew amateurism and embrace professionalism. It argues that Australian football offers an instructive historical perspective of a sporting body tackling mounting concerns over corruption, taking back the ascendency by amending its rules to better govern over dishonest players and duplicitous club officials, thereby growing its popularity and restoring public perception of its integrity in the process.     

‘Vél’ d’Hiv’ six-day race: the spirit of Paris during the twenties

The Vélodrome d’Hiver, known colloquially as ‘Vél’ d’Hiv’, was a major sports venue located in Paris, not far from the Eiffel Tower. Used for ice hockey, boxing, wrestling and other events, it was above all the scene of a famous cycling competition: the Six-Day Race. It enjoyed such success that it became a source of artistic inspiration, both in painting, literature and film. La Ronde infernale (Infernal Circle), a feature film released in French cinemas in 1928, for example, shows how writer and director Henri Decoin and producer Luitz-Morat, captured the venue, race and popular fervour to depict, with precision and empathy, a typical scene of Parisian life in the 1920s. However, far from being a mere portrait of a bygone era, this film, in the same way as all subsequent figurative portrayals, helped to immortalise this site and establish it in the collective memory, to such an extent that it became a ‘living metaphor’ in Paris. In short, by adopting the principles related to the social history of representations, this paper aims to identify the importance of figurative space in general, and cinema in particular, in the historical, memorial and heritage construction of an ancient temple of French sport.