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This volume considers the relationships between baseball and the societies in which it is played around the world. We begin by asserting that the uncanny relationships between sports, society, and politics can be discerned with a different kind of precision by way of critical event theory. Rather than seeking a theory of a general relationship between baseball institutions, ideologies and practices, on the one hand, and the rest of society on the other, a critical-event focused approach seeks to better understand why specific baseball events (Bobby Thompson's shot heard 'round the world, the 2000 Olympic baseball finals, etc.); institutions (Organized Baseball, the Negro Leagues, the Mexican League, etc.); and relationships (racial (de)segregation, the reserve clause, immigration law, etc.) become unusually, centrally important to the rest of society, when and where they do.

By investigating particular histories and specific moments in baseball from the perspective of critical event theory, we seek to demonstrate how baseball embodies much larger social relations and forces as well as the tensions between them. Further, we consider how baseball not only expresses or reflects these tensions, but also proffers potential resolutions to them, actively making history rather than reactively expressing it. Critical events can be "tests of strength" for new realities, and in this volume we examine how critical events in baseball history allow scholars to consider the fundamentals of political process and possibility as well as reconsider the occasional political power of baseball games.

This book was published as a special issue of Sport in Society.