# Baseball: The Turbulent Midcentury Years - Hardcover

by **Steven P. Gietschier** (Author)

_Baseball: The Turbulent Midcentury Years_ explores the history of organized baseball during the middle of the twentieth century, examining the sport on and off the field and contextualizing its development as both sport and business within the broader contours of American history. Steven P. Gietschier begins with the Great Depression, looking at how those years of economic turmoil shaped the sport and how baseball responded. Gietschier covers a then-burgeoning group of owners, players, and key figures--among them Branch Rickey, Larry MacPhail, Hank Greenberg, Ford Frick, and several others--whose stories figure prominently in baseball's past and some of whom are still prominent in its collective consciousness.

Combining narrative and analysis, Gietschier tells the game's history across more than three decades while simultaneously exploring its politics and economics, including, for example, how the game confronted and barely survived the United States' entry into World War II; how owners controlled their labor supply--the players; and how the business of baseball interacted with the federal government. He reveals how baseball handled the return to peacetime and the defining postwar decade, including the integration of the game, the demise of the Negro Leagues, the emergence of television, and the first efforts to move franchises and expand into new markets. Gietschier considers much of the work done by biographers, scholars, and baseball researchers to inform a new and current history of baseball in one of its more important and transformational periods.  

### Author Biography

**Steven P. Gietschier** is an archival consultant for _The Sporting News_. He taught American history, sport history, and the history and culture of baseball at a midwestern university before retiring in 2020, and prior to that he served in several roles for _The Sporting News_. He is the editor of _Replays, Rivalries, and Rumbles: The Most Iconic Moments in American Sports_.

**Number of Pages:** 624

**Dimensions:** 2.05 x 9.13 x 6.06 IN

**Illustrated:** Yes

**Publication Date:** July 01, 2023

## Details

- **Price:** 44.95 USD
- **Vendor:** Books by splitShops
- **Type:** Books
- **Tags:** Books by splitShops, Shopify Collective

## Variants

| Variant | Price | Available |
|---------|-------|-----------|
| Default Title | 44.95 USD | In stock |

## Images

- Baseball: The Turbulent Midcentury Years - Hardcover

---

> Source: [Smart supply deals](https://smartsupplydeals.com/products/baseball-the-turbulent-midcentury-years-hardcover)
> Updated: 2026-07-21