{"product_id":"the-old-ball-game-baseball-in-folklore-and-fiction-by-tristram-p-coffin","title":"‘The Old Ball Game: Baseball in Folklore and Fiction’ by Tristram P. Coffin","description":"\u003ch4 class=\"PDq2pG_selectionAnchorContainer\"\u003eFolklorist Tristram P. Coffin looks at the game through superstition, ritual, tall tale, gossip, mythmaking and anything that accumulates when people really, really commit to a game.\u003c\/h4\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"PDq2pG_selectionAnchorContainer\"\u003eLucky socks, cursed bats, dugout habits, repeated gestures and one-liner warnings sit alongside the larger mythology of heroes, villains and “historic” games whose importance often evaporates almost immediately after they end.\u003cspan class=\"PDq2pG_selectionAnchor\"\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe charm is how baseball converts repetition into tradition and journalism into folklore. Chapters move through baseball speech, superstition, Babe Ruth, regional and class identity, commercialisation, then into a cultural history with a dry anthropological streak. All in all, a wonderful study of how spectators and players turn a game into a shared symbolic world, and how that world then begins to look natural.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eFirst edition. Herder and Herder, New York, 1971. Hardcover. Light general shelf wear; internally clean and well preserved.\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"bower studio","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46286986870867,"sku":null,"price":20.0,"currency_code":"AUD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0689\/0268\/2707\/files\/womenintranslation-2026-09-15T150818.830.png?v=1789449002","url":"https:\/\/bowerbooks.com\/products\/the-old-ball-game-baseball-in-folklore-and-fiction-by-tristram-p-coffin","provider":"bower books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}