{"id":6718,"date":"2017-06-13T14:06:46","date_gmt":"2017-06-13T14:06:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/2017\/06\/13\/may-x-takes-the-field\/"},"modified":"2024-07-24T09:42:32","modified_gmt":"2024-07-24T13:42:32","slug":"may-x-takes-the-field","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/may-x-takes-the-field\/","title":{"rendered":"May X takes the field"},"content":{"rendered":"

Baseball\u2019s the all-American game. But it\u2019s also an intricate microcosm of economics, history and geography\u2014just the thing for summer study.<\/p>\n

Two of Furman\u2019s 2017 May X<\/a> classes used baseball to explore broader academic themes: The Rise of Professional Baseball in the U.S.: Beginnings to 1922, which covered social, labor, media and sports history; and Geography and Sports, which used five sports, including baseball, to cover topics such as globalization, the diffusion of sports, the importance of place in sports and why people choose their favorite teams.<\/p>\n

Both classes met at a Greenville Drive game the last week of May for a session with the Drive\u2019s owner and president, Craig Brown, and to enjoy all that minor league ball offers on a late spring night.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re in the business of making memories, and we\u2019re in the business of making the Upstate a strong community,\u201d Brown said.<\/p>\n

\"\"

Greenville Drive Owner and President Craig Brown speaks to Furman students at Fluor Field in Greenville’s West End.<\/p><\/div>\n

Foul balls smacked against the outside of the building as he talked about the life of a minor league player.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt puts a new definition on \u2018you\u2019d better really love the game,\u2019\u201d Brown said. \u201cThey work hard. It\u2019s not very glamorous.\u201d<\/p>\n

The combination of the topic and enthusiastic teachers made for two great years of May X, said Will Gaddis \u201918, a communication studies major. He took the history of baseball in 2016 and came back for the geography class this year. Furman\u2019s May Experience\u2014May X\u2014offers compact, real-life learning in the first weeks after the regular academic year ends.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019re constantly engaged, you\u2019re excited to come to class,\u201d said Gaddis, who pitches for the Paladins.<\/p>\n

And it\u2019s not every day your professor tells you to watch more SportsCenter or pay closer attention to your Yahoo! Sports feed.<\/p>\n

\u201cThose kinds of things, start paying attention to, if you haven\u2019t before,\u201d said George Lipscomb, an education professor<\/a> who teaches the sports geography course, on the first day of class.<\/p>\n

Sports and May X are a good fit, Lipscomb said. The coursework is ideal for the cooperative, compressed setting. Besides baseball, his class looks at soccer, rugby, cricket and basketball.<\/p>\n

The comparison helped students understand the small footprint baseball has left on a global scale, despite its enduring popularity here.<\/p>\n

Jonathan Mouw \u201919, another Furman baseball player and a business major, learned that British colonization planted the games that are more popular in most of the rest of the world.<\/p>\n

\u201cTrying to spread baseball to somewhere where England\u2019s already touched, it\u2019s going to take a backseat immediately,\u201d Mouw said.<\/p>\n

Steve Richardson has a bat leaning against one wall in his office in the James B. Duke Library. A creased poster of Mickey Mantle that hangs near the window dates to his childhood. Richardson works in outreach services in the library. He teaches the history of baseball because he loves it.<\/p>\n

\"\"

Instructor Steve Richardson points out field positions to students Molly Dwyer \u201918 (L) and Taylor Vahle \u201919 (R).<\/p><\/div>\n

Richardson said baseball in the late 19th<\/sup> and early 20th<\/sup> centuries \u201cmarries American history and social behavior so well. They\u2019re so closely woven that if you pull a string, both of them will come apart.\u201d<\/p>\n

The country was going through significant industrial changes, urban growth, burgeoning immigration, labor and management issues\u2014and every one of those left its mark on the game.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re a perfect match,\u201d Richardson said. \u00a0\u201cI continually uncover more connections, regardless of how often I do this.\u201d<\/p>\n

Richardson grew up in a Simpsonville neighborhood where it seemed every older man had played for the mill baseball team at some point. His mom, a school teacher, used to require her students to watch the World Series.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe thought it was important culturally and socially,\u201d Richardson said.<\/p>\n

As part of his course, students leave the library and head to the field where they measure out a diamond that matches the dimensions used in the late 19th<\/sup> and early 20th<\/sup> centuries. Then they play a game with equipment that\u2019s historically accurate for that era.<\/p>\n

Today\u2019s professional games, especially outside of Major League ball, are community events as much as they are sporting competitions.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s an educational component just going to a baseball game,\u201d Lipscomb said. \u201cSo much is, in a way, not about the sport itself.\u201d<\/p>\n

Taylor Vahle \u201919 was among the handful of women to take one of the baseball-related classes this year. When her professor and the Drive\u2019s owner emphasized the broader experience of a game, she understood.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo one\u2019s really a die-hard minor league fan,\u201d said Vahle, who plays softball for Furman. Instead, they come for promotions and relaxed time with friends.<\/p>\n

Still, there\u2019s an appreciation for what\u2019s happening on the field even if it\u2019s not a favorite MLB team out there.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s the kind of thing that you really can\u2019t explain, that initial hook,\u201d Richardson said. \u201cIt\u2019s got you or it doesn\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jordan Lyons \u201920, a guard for Furman\u2019s basketball team, took the geography class and recognized in a new way how sports can bring together communities and even countries.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt makes me want to pay attention to it more on an international level,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Mouw said that\u2019s exactly why more people should be taking these classes.<\/p>\n

\u201cI would recommend this class to anyone who rolls their eyes at the mention of sports,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

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Baseball\u2019s the all-American game. But it\u2019s also an intricate microcosm of economics, history and geography\u2014just the thing for summer study. Two of Furman\u2019s 2017 May X classes used baseball to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":272,"featured_media":17100,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,20,51,28,54,30],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6718","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-academic-department-page","category-business-and-accounting","category-communication-studies","category-education","category-may-experience","category-top-stories"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6718","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/272"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6718"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6718\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":33199,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6718\/revisions\/33199"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17100"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6718"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6718"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6718"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}