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An anthropologist on the team: Studying baseball as a former player
Author(s) -
Gmelch George
Publication year - 2008
Publication title -
anthropology today
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.419
H-Index - 24
eISSN - 1467-8322
pISSN - 0268-540X
DOI - 10.1111/j.1467-8322.2008.00612.x
Subject(s) - elite , athletes , sociology , team sport , professional sport , psychology , media studies , anthropology , political science , law , medicine , physics , league , astronomy , politics , physical therapy
This essay describes the experiences of an anthropologist who once having been a professional baseball player returned to study his former profession. Discussed are personal challenges in doing fieldwork among elite athletes, the fallibility of memory, the transfer of skills from sport to academe, and the opinions of professors towards the study of sport, and the status of the anthropology of sport in the U.S.