Spalding's world tour - Mark Lamster

In October of 1888, Albert Goodwill Spalding?baseball
star, sporting-goods magnate, promotional genius, serial
fabulist?departed Chicago on a trip that would take him
and two baseball teams on a journey clear around the
globe. Their mission, closely followed in the American and
international press, had two (secret) goals: to fix the game
in the American consciousness as the purest expression of
the national spirit, and to seed markets for Spalding's
products near and far. In the process, these first cultural
ambassadors played before kings and queens, visited the
Coliseumand the Eiffel Tower, and took pot shots with
their baseballs at the great Sphinx in Egypt.
This expedition to lands both exotic and familiar is
chronicled with dash and wit in Mark Lamster'sSpalding's
World Tour, a book filled with larger-than-life characters
often competing harder for love and money off the baseball
diamond than for runs on it.
Getting themselves into scrapes and narrowly escaping
international incident all around the globe, these
innocents abroad gave the world an early peek at the
American century just around the corner. For anyone
interested in the history of the game?or the history of
brand marketing?Spalding's World Tourhits the sweet spot.