Baseball and the Civil War
Presented by Bruce S. Allardice
Baseball was labeled the “national pastime” even before Fort Sumter. Civil War soldiers spent more time playing baseball than they did fighting battles. Professor Allardice takes a sometimes serious, sometimes humorous look at the “National Pastime” and how it was played during the war. He’ll show that the war destroyed most existing baseball teams, but also helped to spread the game across the nation.
A former Board Member of the Illinois State Historical Society, Prof. Allardice has presented numerous lectures and presentations on the Civil War and genealogy for Civil War Round Tables, museums, and civic organizations. He is the recipient of the CWRT of Chicago’s prestigious Nevins-Freeman Award for distinguished service in Civil War Scholarship and the CWRT movement.
An avid sports historian, Prof. Allardice currently heads up the “Civil War Baseball” subcommittee for the Society of American Baseball Research (SABR) and is a member of SABR’s Biography Committee, specializing in researching the lives of 19th Century ballplayers.
Prof. Allardice is Adjunct Professor at South Suburban College and Moraine Valley Community College in Illinois and the author of More Generals in Gray and coauthor of Texas Burial Sites of Civil War Notables. He is past president of the Northern Illinois Civil War Round Table, and past President of the Civil War Round Table of Chicago. Prof. Allardice has authored or coauthored six books and numerous articles, on the Civil War. He is a graduate of the University of Illinois.