Reviews
Learning History Through the Lens of Sport
- By Mark Gorman
Sporting events—like tragic accidents or illnesses, early friendships, or financial crises—are ubiquitous human experiences. Many, maybe most of us suffered through team sports as kids, a few excelling, others turning towards books or the arts or still other fields of competition. Many, maybe most of us also became sports fans, our fascination with the spectacle and affiliations with our teams providing lifelong fun and a comfortable foundation for bar talk and bragging rights.
Professional team allegiances are familial, transgenerational, and tend to stick with us wherever we go, like an accent. When I moved from Detroit to the Northeast, I noted how whole sections of the country seem cut up into regional sports affiliations (Maine is clearly aligned with Boston,...