Professional Baseball and Fan Disillusionment: A Religious Ritual Analysis
Over the last ten years, Major League Baseball has suffered a significant loss of fan support. The reasons for this are varied and numerous, but an explanatory theory to unite them is largely lacking. This is particularly evident within the field of religious scholarship where baseball, if spoken of...
| Published in: | Journal of religion and popular culture |
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| Main Author: | |
| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | Drawer...
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| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Published: |
University of Saskatchewan
[2004]
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| In: |
Journal of religion and popular culture
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| Online Access: |
Volltext (Resolving-System) Volltext (doi) |
| Summary: | Over the last ten years, Major League Baseball has suffered a significant loss of fan support. The reasons for this are varied and numerous, but an explanatory theory to unite them is largely lacking. This is particularly evident within the field of religious scholarship where baseball, if spoken of at all, is romanticized and rarely analyzed for the problems it faces. Or because of the secular trappings of professional sport and its willingness to adopt the rationalized means of organizing and expressing itself, some scholars argue that religion is largely absent there. Conversely in this paper, I show how baseball has in the past and continues to provide a kind of religious ritual experience for the fan via its use of a life-cycle. Then I will argue that the way in which business and baseball interact today results in a dis-integration of said coherent experience that prohibits many fans from engaging with their sport. |
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| ISSN: | 1703-289X |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: Journal of religion and popular culture
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.3138/jrpc.7.1.005 |