ABSTRACT
American boys dreamed of being major league baseball players, well-paid and famous, since the only other lucrative sports possibilities were to be a prize fighter. American girls dreamed of a "good" marriage, based on romantic love first and financial security second, in a "respectable" context. Literature, along with conversation and private thoughts, reflected those dreams. Baseball became imbedded in the American consciousness early in the twentieth century. The Baseball Dream, specifically, was fed by two sources: journalism and fiction. Before World War II, almost all book-length fiction was in "boys' books", series like Baseball Joe and Frank MerriwelL The subject was always a game-play drama and an off-field interference with it. Finally, the shift to a dependence on upscale, affluent, and corporate customers, at the expense of traditional blue-collar and working-class customers, is dangerous. A scandal or economic downturn may make many luxury-box, season-ticket buyers pull out quickly, with no way for clubs to replace that kind of income.
