Although sports occupy a space in American society seemingly void of political, economic, and social control, baseball’s rise to national acclaim was directly influenced by a nation desperate to preserve a national identity (particularly a white, middle to upper class, masculine national identity). Several scholars note that baseball was used as medium to impose this dominant national identity upon the ripe, malleable minds of children. Gagen’s (2004) article discusses the prominent concept of childhood during this era that stressed physical education reform in children’s everyday lives. Thus, athletic activities such as baseball leagues and spaces were introduced for children to publicly display physicality as a means to ensure America’s youth grew into a healthy future. However, Gagen argues that the scientific logic of physical education at the time “drew from emerging fields of child psychology and popular theories of psychological disorder” (2004; p. 1) that did not necessarily correlate with improved health. Rather, these unfounded theories “constructed the development of child consciousness as a mechanical and, more importantly muscular process” (2004; p. 1) to normalize the promotion of masculinity for the preservation of the white national identity in the face of mass immigration. However, these intentions were quite obvious when examining the inconsistent standards of physicality among children. Whereas “Stamina, vigour, hardihood and endurance were vital characteristics for the immigrant boy…” (Gagen; p. 431) in transitioning to a real American boy, ballet and rhythmic dancing were important for girls. Fine’s research touched upon a similar trend as well through his examination of participant observation research of adults and children within little leagues games. Rather than using baseball to ingrain an “ideal” national identity into the concept of childhood, Fine argues that the interactions between adults and children, both nonverbal discourse (the role of adults as coaches and children as players) and verbal discourse (adults teaching children the rules and children listening), within baseball spaces established and reinforced power roles to be applied in the general society. Thus, there is an evident correlation between the increase in physical education reform for American youth and the need to preserve a national identity. The creation of child spaces for physical recreation provided a socio-spatial environment for ingraining themes of sports, masculinity, and power roles to represent the overarching theme of childhood. Moreover, how these themes were imposed differed greatly upon the sex, age, ethnicity, or legal status of the child.

The scholarly work of Wridt (2004) contends that not all play spaces served as a means of social brainwashing. In 1929, the City Club of New York conducted a study that found districts containing more playgrounds had less traffic related child fatalities than districts with less playgrounds. This gruesome statistic exemplified the spatial relationship between the establishment of playgrounds with child traffic related accidents, and a clear need for play spaces to protect children. However, it is important to note that while taking children off the street was a means of safety to some reformers, others sought the implementation of playgrounds to prevent of the “demoralizing” effects of street life on children. Wridt notes that this era constituted a childhood concept that “play was how children learned and made sense of the world” (2004; p. 94), while at the same time many reformers only recognized this efficiency when play was controlled. This example show how two differing conceptions of childhood,a primary concern of safety vs. the imposing of middle-class value and constructions of play as the proper way to play, greatly influence why and where children play. Thus, the fragmenting of child spaces, with a differentiation in morally wrong and right, effected the concept of the “ideal” child and the identities of children who played baseball with in either space.

While the implementation of baseball into childhood for the sake of preserving a national identity may seem rather cynical, the individual works of Eckard (1946) and Gail(2012) argue that children’s participation in baseball relates to a theme of positive health and mortality. Along with a shift in the concept childhood that stressed physical strength, Eckard identifies that during this era recreation was socially recognized for the first time as a fundamental and universal need for children and adults, and a source for the development of physical strength and health, social skills, ethical values, and psychological well-being. Baseball programs, whether individually run or school funded, began popping up across the country. Eckard found that the more sports made available for students by schools resulted in a greater amount of men playing’s these sports as adults. While these potential health benefits mentioned by Eckard were based off rough conceptual understandings of the time, Gail’s Life Effectiveness Questionnaire research found that middle school students who participated in youth sports had higher emotional intelligence than non-participants, and male student participants have a higher emotional intelligence than female. This research suggests that although institutionally run baseball spaces worked to preserve a national identity, the increased participation in baseball incorporated the betterment of health and mortality of children into the concept of childhood.

As baseball became synonymous with American culture, it was unavoidable that the sport’s identity and professionalization into mainstream culture would become intertwined with the discriminatory rhetoric and social injustices against class, sex, and race of the early 20^th century. My scholarly research examined the radicalized childhoods produced by American baseball, and how these experiences varied with each ethnic group. Laliberte (2013) argues that the paradoxical trends of baseball’s racial exclusion prompted Americans of color, in a myriad of ways, to strengthen their ethnic communities by embracing the national game. By 1920, the growing number of negro leagues nationwide displayed a message that “Negro citizens, intent on carving out their own respected athletic sphere, would organize, in the words of one black sportswriter, to ‘keep colored baseball from the control of white’’ (Laliberte, 2013; p. 342) As African Americans reinvented the game as their own culture, economic growth soon followed, with monetary gains made by team owners and leagues being channeled back into black communities. Laliberte (2013) identifies this theme consistent throughout other ethnic races such Native Americans, in which youth boarding school baseball programs acted to preserve and further Native American cultural within an overall national identity. Morris builds upon this point by examining the regional historiography of Negro Leagues by city and region, suggesting this approach allows a more precise understanding of the people, teams, and communities at its core that ultimately changed how blacks lived in America. Negro leagues created a local space where black men were able to perform just as well, if not better, than their white counterparts. This performance by African Americans in local sandlots of poor, black neighborhoods demonstrated the importance of sports within a city, and how sports “served as a social function that helped forge self-esteem for those African Americans who played, as well as the identities of the respective neighborhoods that supported their local sandlot teams” (Morris, 2013; p. 45). While white baseball sought to prevent other demographics for partaking in the sports, their attempts at exclusion reveal a theme of ethnic pride and resilience coming from oppressed demographics, in which each demographics acculturation of the sport provided a different experience and concept of childhood.