When Baseball Isn't White, Straight and Male ─ The Media and Difference in the National Pastime

Alexander (Africana studies, Wayne State U.) analyzes recent baseball (1995-2011) to determine the cultural meanings present in the sport's reporting, fandom, and actual play. She focuses on race and how broader racial issues become apparent in baseball. Borrowing from Susan Birrel and Mary McDonald by "focusing on a particular incident or celebrity as a site for exploring the complex inter-related and fluid character of power relations," Alexander is able to tap into the way baseball registers anxieties about national heroes' purity, the class-dimension of Latino players, the construction of national memories, and the specter of performance enhancing drugs. Annotation c2013 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Lisa Doris Alexander is an assistant professor of Africana studies at Wayne State University in Detroit. Her research focuses on issues of race, class and sexual identity in sports, film and television. She lives in Ferndale, Michigan.