You can kill the dreamer, but not the dream.

• Position: WHAT'S NEW? - Chasing Dreams: Baseball and Becoming American - Book review

"I have begun to understand the magic that baseball has brought into the lives of so many," writes Ivy L. Barsky, CEO of the National Museum of American Jewish History, Philadelphia, Pa., in the Preface of Chasing Dreams: Baseball and Becoming American. (NMAJH also has an exhibition of the same name on view through Oct. 26.)

"I understood, intellectually, the important role baseball has played on the leading edge of equality issues--which were being played out on the baseball field long before they became common practice or law. The authors in this volume do the work of recounting the groundbreaking, barrier-breaking progress that ensued over time in the baseball community and how that translated onto fields and in homes across the country [and] while many expect an exhibition and its companion volume to be focused on important proper names--and they won't be disappointed; those stories are here--the most compelling aspects of Chasing Dreams are the names you don't know, the fans, families, and communities who share the triumphs and disappointments, the statistics and baseball cards, the memories: Where were you on April 15,1947, or on Yom Kippur in 1965; or when Ken Holtzman pitched his two no-hitters; or when Shawn Green hit four home runs; or when the hometown team won the World Series?"

Adds Josh Perelman, chief curator and director of Exhibitions and Collections at NMAJH, as well as the editor of Chasing Dreams'. "From the major leagues to the Little Leagues, stories that fill this volume illustrate how parents, children, and grandchildren adapted to, and sometimes challenged, what it means to be an American. As John Thorn, official historian of Major league Baseball and a contributor to this book, has eloquently written, This great game opens up a portal to our past, both real and...