# Playing with Tigers: A Minor League Chronicle of the Sixties - Hardcover

by **George Gmelch** (Author)

In 1965 George Gmelch signed a contract to play professional baseball with the Detroit Tigers organization. Growing up sheltered in an all-white, affluent San Francisco suburb, he knew little of the world outside. Over the next four seasons, he came of age in baseball's Minor Leagues through experiences ranging from learning the craft of the professional game to becoming conscious of race and class for the first time.

_Playing with Tigers_ is not a typical baseball memoir. Now a well-known anthropologist, Gmelch recounts a baseball education unlike any other as he got to know small-town life across the United States against the backdrop of the Vietnam War, civil rights protests, and the emergence of the counterculture. The social and political turmoil of the times spilled into baseball, and Gmelch experienced the consequences firsthand as he played out his career in the Jim Crow South. _Playing with Tigers_ captures the gritty, insular, and humorous life and culture of Minor League baseball during a period when both the author and the country were undergoing profound changes.

Drawing from journals he kept as a player, letters, and recent interviews with thirty former teammates, coaches, club officials, and even former girlfriends, Gmelch immerses the reader in the life of the Minor Leagues, capturing--in a manner his unique position makes possible--the universal struggle of young athletes trying to make their way.

### Author Biography

**George Gmelch** is a professor of anthropology at the University of San Francisco and at Union College in Schenectady, New York. He is the author of fourteen books, including _In the Field: Life and Work in Cultural Anthropology_; _In the Ballpark: The Working Lives of Baseball People_, with J. J. Weiner (Bison Books, 2006); _Inside Pitch: Life in Professional Baseball_ (Bison Books, 2006); and _Baseball Beyond Our Borders: An International Pastime_, with Dan Nathan (Nebraska, 2017).  
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**Number of Pages:** 288

**Dimensions:** 1.04 x 9.16 x 6.43 IN

**Illustrated:** Yes

**Publication Date:** February 01, 2016

## Details

- **Price:** 26.95 USD
- **Vendor:** Books by splitShops
- **Type:** Books
- **Tags:** Books by splitShops, Shopify Collective

## Variants

| Variant | Price | Available |
|---------|-------|-----------|
| Default Title | 26.95 USD | In stock |

## Images

- Playing with Tigers: A Minor League Chronicle of the Sixties - Hardcover

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