Inspired and led by sporting magnate Albert Goodwill Spalding, two teams of baseball players circled the globe for six months in 1888-1889 competing in such far away destinations as Australia, Sri Lanka and Egypt. These players, however, represented much more than mere pleasure-seekers. In this lively narrative, Zeiler explores the ways in which the Spalding World Baseball Tour drew on elements of cultural diplomacy to inject American values and power into the international arena. Through his chronicle of baseball history, games, and experiences, Zeiler explores expressions of imperial dreams through globalization's instruments of free enterprise, webs of modern communication and transport, cultural ordering of races and societies, and a strident nationalism that galvanized notions of American uniqueness. Spalding linked baseball to a U.S. presence overseas, viewing the world as a market ripe for the infusion of American ideas, products and energy. Through globalization during the Gilded Age, he and other Americans penetrated the globe and laid the foundation for an empire formally acquired just a decade after their tour.

"Pro ball players playing exhibitions in the distant East, the sport beset by labor strife as management uses cutting-edge technologies to sell the game to an international audience. Sounds like last week, right? How about 1888? The common gripe runs that baseball is now too dominated by business priorities—but according to Zeiler, things weren't any different 118 years ago." - Publishers Weekly

"A thorough account of the then-unprecedented world baseball tour orchestrated by Albert Spalding (1888-89), relating to the heightened influence of the U.S. in international affairs. Recommended." - CHOICE

"This is an interesting, well-conceived, ably contextualized, and accessibly written contribution to the literature of both US sport and cultural history....Zeiler is to be commended." - The International History Review, March 2008

"The book provides a very accessible, vivid, and fascinating . . . account of the 'greatest trip in the annals of sport,' the mysterious journeys of present-day baseball Marco Polos included." - American Historical Review, March 2008

"Zeiler appears not to have missed a beat in his collection of relevant articles and books." - The Hawaiian Journal Of History