Baseball Around the World

Dominican Rafael Furcal bats in County Stadium Milwaukee, May 24, 2000.
The Atlanta Braves, nicknamed "America's Team" because of their nationwide cable TV audience and their record as the most successful regular season team of the 1990s. In 2000 "America's Team" featured a starting lineup with regulars from Puerto Rico, Venezuela, The Dominican Republic, and Aruba. By 2002 over 25% of major league players were born outside the 50 states. Symptomatic of the change Texas Rangers radio broadcaster Eric Nadel began to learn Spanish in the 1990s so he could better communicate with the growing number of Spanish speaking players.

For a look at baseball elsewhere check out the new page on Australian Baseball History. and an older description of the origins of the game there.

John Skilton's Baseball Links has an entire section devoted to International Baseball

This page was last updated
August 12, 2004

James.Harper@ttu.edu

Special thanks to Katherine Stalcup, Suzanne Tapp, and Paul Williams and the staff of the Texas Tech Teaching Learning and Technology Center for their patient and tireless assistance with this page. Also, thanks to the Teaching Learning and Technology Center for supporting this page with grants for 1998-1999 and 1999-2000.
Photographs are by Jim Harper unless otherwise noted. Larger versions and more information about photographs with Library of Congress ( i.e. LC-USZ6-2054 DLC) or National Archives (i.e. NWDNC-241-PATENTRES-72X) identification numbers can usually be obtained by searching either the Library of Congress, "American Memory," section, or the National Archives (NAIL) search vehicle.

Background image, an old-timer (George Herman Ruth) swings during the 1940s.
Original photograph provided by William R. Conroy.

Copyright, Jim Harper, Texas Tech University