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Please welcome author Dave Zirin in the comments — jh

In his book A People’s History of Sports In The United States, Dave Zirin proceeds from the premise that most sports history lacks context and is generally told in an anecdotal fashion that reinforces the myth of athlete-as-iconoclastic-"lone wolf," with little regard for the social forces that shaped conditions for them to emerge. He also rejects the notion that sports and politics should, like oil and water, remain forever separate:

[I]n a time when local governments build these monuments to corporate greed on the taxpayers’ dime, siphoning off millions of dollars into commercial enterprise while schools, hospitals, and bridges decay, one can hardly say that sports exists in a world separate from politics.

The book is part of Howard Zinn’s "People’s History" series for the New Press.  Zirin is perfect for the series — his sports analysis in outlets like The Nation and the Los Angeles Times is overtly political, and his past works include a history of sports and resistance in the United States, a political biography of Muhammed Ali and an exploration of what Zirin calls the "athletic industrial complex." 

Zirin breaks down sports in the United States into distinct eras.  Before the civil war, sports were seen as a sin, the devil’s work.  Indians playing wild games of lacrosse were considered savage and hedonistic.  "Black codes" forbade blacks and poor whites from interacting in sporting activities in the South.    Horrace Greely wrote in abhorence about three hour bare-knuckle boxing ending in death, even as his exortation "go west young man" became a rallying cry of manifest destiny and the extermination of the Indians.  

But the Civil War allowed people from geograhically diverse regions to intermingle with plenty of free time to devote to sports, and together with the "new unfettered capitalism" of the post war era, the groundwork was laid for professional sports to grow.  

A climate of puritanical moralizing of the past gave way to the the notion that sports way to "glorify God."  Rich private donors funded athletic programs not only as a way to socialize immigrants, but also for the purpose of making young members of the ruling elite vigorous enough to lead the spread of empire.   Hysterically concerned that we were raising a nation of sissies, people like Teddy Roosevelt became prophets of "Muscular Christianity," with an eye towards imperialism and spreading Christianity by force to other lands.

As sports professionalized, they also become "whitened" — black competitors were expelled with Jim Crow.   Quack science developed to rationalize how sports led to womens’ downfall, and the social pressure not to play was extreme.  To Elizabeth Cady Stanton and suffragettes, bicycling thus became a symbol of liberation.

In the modern era, Zirin recounts how sports has been platform for dissent and tells the stories of Mohammed Ali, Jesse Owens, Billie Jean King and others.  Notably he tells the story of Tommie Smith and John Carlos and their defiant fists extended at the 1968 Olympics.  Avery Brudage had them expelled from the Olympic Village and ironically fueled the controversy by saying that politics should play not part in the Olympic games.  Zirin notes that in his unpublished autobiography, Brundage was still grumbling about the incident:  "Warped mentalities and cracked personalities seem to be everywhere and impossible to eliminate," he said.

Zirin entitles his chapter on the 1980s "Welcome to Hell," describing what happened to professional sports with the election of Ronald Reagan and the "looting decade," which saw vast sums of money flowing with the expansion of cable TV and an international audience.   He explores the fact that huge civic structures like teh Louisiana Superdome are built on tax dollars that robbed the community of badly needed services, and the fact that refugees wound up there during Katrina became a symbol of "the federal and local government’s malignant neglect."

It’s a compelling, well-written book that is both entertaining and engrossing. It facilitates an interesting discussion of politics within the subject of sports that is extremely accesable. 

Please welcome Dave Zirin to the FDL Book Salon.