{"product_id":"2940170520534","title":"Why Baseball Matters","description":"\u003cp\u003eBaseball, first dubbed the \"national pastime\" in print in 1856, is the country's most tradition-bound sport. Despite remaining popular and profitable into the 21st century, the game is losing young fans. Furthermore, baseball's greatest charm amp;mdash; a clockless suspension of time amp;mdash; is also its greatest liability in a culture of digital distraction.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThese paradoxes are explored by the historian and passionate baseball fan Susan Jacoby in a book that is both a love letter to the game and a tough-minded analysis of the current challenges to its special position amp;mdash; in reality and myth amp;mdash; in American culture. The concise but wide-ranging analysis moves from the Civil War amp;mdash; when many soldiers played ball in northern and southern prisoner-of-war camps amp;mdash; to interviews with top baseball officials and young men who prefer playing online \"fantasy baseball\" to attending real games.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eJacoby argues forcefully that the major challenge to baseball today is a shortened attention span at odds with a long game in which great hitters fail two out of three times. Without sanitizing this basic problem, \u003ci\u003eWhy Baseball Matters\u003c\/i\u003e reminds us that the game has retained its grip on our hearts precisely because it has repeatedly demonstrated the ability to reinvent itself in times of immense social change.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Tantor Audio","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47102437982448,"sku":"2940170520534","price":15.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/2940170520534_p0.jpg?v=1763711347","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/2940170520534","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}