Baseball in American Culture

Baseball first popped up in the American culture in the mid-19th century but it was not until the mid-1880s that baseball achieved a level of prominence away from the field. Casey At The Bat was a poem that appeared in the San Francisco Examiner and took on a life of its own. Take Me Out To The Ballgame is still sung 110 years after it was written.
Abbott and Costello’s biggest routine was Who’s On First. Baseball has been a subject in books, on vaudeville stages, in a Broadway play, in song, in movies and television. Baseball cards played a role in kids growing up and Yogi Berra became an American icon.

Presented by:  Evan Weiner started his journalism career at the age of 15 by hosting a Spring Valley High School talk show on WRKL Radio, Mount Ivy, N.Y. in 1971. He also, at the same time, was a "correspondent" covering high school sports for the Rockland Journal News, Nyack, N.Y. at the same time. By 1978, he was covering news for WGRC Radio and won two Associated Press Awards in 1978 and 1979. In the 1980s, he started his long association with Westwood One Radio. Evan was a contributing columnist for newspapers in N.Y., Chicago and LA. He did a daily commentary called "The Business of Sports" for Westwood One Radio between 1999 and 2006.  In 2007, Evan spoke at the George Bush President Library as part of an international series sponsored by the US Department of State. He currently writes for the Daily Beast and is a frequent TV guest. He is featured in the 2015 movie “Sons of Ben”, a documentary on Chester, Pennsylvania. Internationally he has appeared on the BBC Radio network. He has written eight books about the business and politics of sports.