Summer's Favorite Game

Text by Candace Kanes

Images from the Maine Historical Society, Aroostook County Historical and Art Museum, Skowhegan History House, Stanley Museum, Fryeburg Historical Society, Steuben Historical Society, Pejepscot Historical Society, and Maine Medical Center Archives.

Philosophers and poets have talked about baseball. Most children grow up hearing about baseball -- either encountering the pros on television, playing in the street, on neighborhood lots, or at school -- or through the song "Take Me Out to the Ballgame."

There are movies about baseball, documentaries about baseball, books about baseball. The rules of the game have so permeated American society that a get-tough-on-crime law is called "three strikes and you're out." People out of the mainstream are said to "out in left field."

Baseball has been part of American society for several centuries. While the following images are all of men and boys who played baseball, the game is played by women and girls as well, by young and by older. It is that universal appeal that makes baseball so much a part of many peoples' experiences of summer.

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