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Sports Geography. by John BaleReview by: Curtis C. RosemanAnnals of the Association of American Geographers, Vol. 82, No. 4 (Dec., 1992), pp. 696-697Published by: Taylor & Francis, Ltd. on behalf of the Association of American Geographers

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Sports Geography. John

Bale.

London:

E.

&

F. N.

Spon, 1989. x and 268 pp.,

maps, diags., tables, app., author index, subject

index, and bibliographicalfootnotes. $24.95 paper (ISBN 0-419-14390-4).

Reviewed by Curtis

C.

Roseman, Department of

Geography, University f Southern California,

Los

Angeles,

CA

90089-0255.

According to Bale, the subdiscipline of

sports geography has arrived.

The

basis for his

claim comes fromwithin nd withoutthe dis-

cipline. Within geography a substantial itera-

ture has evolved, especially since the 1960s,

and especially

in the

United Kingdom and

North America.

The

work includes statements

calling for

more attention to

sport

in

geogra-

phy plus a long listof empirical nd theoretical

work on the topic, both in published form nd

presented at professional meetings. The geog-

raphy of sport has also become a component

of

many introductory human geography

courses.

Fromthe outside, geographical approaches

to

sport

have been

recognized by, although

rarely ntegratedwith, views fromother social

science

disciplines. They

have

also been rec-

ognized

in

more

popular media, most notably

through blessing fromJamesMichener 1976)

in

his book, Sports

n

America.

Sports Geography

is

an initial attempt to

draw together

the

principal

foci

from he exist-

ing

literature on the

geography of sports

(p.

ix).

Based

on a

lengthy cademic involve-

ment with sport geography, and a lifetime's

activity s a sportsenthusiastand participant

(p. ix), Bale

has

produced

a text

mainly

in-

tended

for

ntroductoryports

studies

courses

in

higher

education.

Following

an introductionthat

briefly

ets

sports geography

within the

context of

geo-

graphical thinking,chapter

2

deals with the

geographical

bases of

modern

sport.

Themes

include

the

evolution

and

spatial

dimensions

of individual

sporting

activities

such

as

the

standardization

of boundaries for

sports play-

ing nfields), port s a contributor o thepride

and

image

of

many specific places,

and the

Annals of the

Association

of American

Geographers. 82(4), 1992, pp.

696-742

?

Copyright

1992

by

Association of American

Geographers

physical and psychological effects of place

upon performance. n this and other chapters,

shortvignettespresent case examples of sport

activities n particularplaces. In this instance,

the vignette llustrates he impact of wind pat-

terns upon performance in two American

major league baseball parks.

Chapters 3 and 4 together present an over-

view

of changes in sport over time. The former

chapter covers the broad sweep of sport evo-

lution from folk origins to national to global

systems of competitive sporting ctivities.The

roles of industrialization, ace, and class in this

transformation

re touched upon, and a broad

range of individual ports and sportingassoci-

ations is

discussed. This chapter also illustrates

the

role of innovation diffusion

n

the spread,

popularization, and organization of sport.

Chapter

4

uses traditional geographical

con-

cepts, including central place theory,periodic

marketing, edistribution, nd spatial margins

of

viability

o

illustrate he

growing rationality

in

the spatial organization of modern sport. It

culminates with

a discussion of

the rise of

in-

ternational

recruiting f athletes.

Positive mpacts e.g., economic multipliers)

and negative impacts (including hooliganism,

congestion,

and environmental

impacts)

of

modern sporting activities are

the

subjects of

chapter 5,

and

the

impact

of

sporting

events

and facilities

on the

landscape

is

covered

in

chapter

6.

In

the

latter,many examples

illus-

trate

the

artificialization

f the

sports

environ-

ment over time and the associated rise of dis-

tinctive

port

territories.

Emphasized

here

are

the confinement f some

sports

to the

innards

of stadia-even

the indoor

production

of out-

door sports, the emergence of spatial

efficiency

n

the

design

of

golfcourses,

and

the

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Book Reviews

697

development

f a

variety

f modern and-

scapes that

are

clearly

derived

from

or

identified

ith

ports.

In chapter , the author

eviews ariousre-

gional delineation

fforts

f

sports

phenom-

ena. Here sportsproduction egions,

mental

map patterns fvarious portingctivities,nd

patterns

f

regional

hange-a topic

hat inks

back to the diffusionf sport-are

covered.

A

major partof

the chapter s also

devotedto

international

ariationsn nterestnd involve-

ment

n

ports.

hevaryingmphases n

inter-

national sports

within ontrastingocieties,

and

their elationships

o nationalttitudes

nd

ideology, s an important artof

thisdiscus-

sion.

Chapter brieflyouches n some

proposals

to spatially eorganize he locationof major

sportorganizations,

he movement f

teams,

and

recruitingatterns.

concluding hapter

contains brief ummary

f the book's

con-

tents, comment

n alternativepproaches

that might ave

been adopted

for he

book,

and

suggestions

or

urtheresearch.

Several

featuresmake

this book

attractive

and

useful o

geographers

nd other ocial

ci-

entists.

The numerousmaps and graphics

sprinkled hroughout

he text

will

be

used

widely by

instructors f human

geography

courses, including myself. uggestionsfor

reading, mbodied

n

a section

t the end of

each

chapter,

ill

be used by students

n

pre-

paring ortermpaper projects.

An

appendix

presentsdiscussionquestions,

xercises nd

project suggestions,

keyed to each chapter,

that

nstructors ay dopt.

The

extensive ibliographiceferencest the

end

of each chapter

will

be useful o

instruc-

tors, tudents,

nd researchers.

s

only

se-

lective

eader

f the literaturen the geogra-

phyof sport, have the impressionhat his

book

presents very omprehensive

ibliog-

raphy

of the subdiscipline, ncludingmany

works

hat re

in

limited irculation.

By omprehensivelyeviewing

he sportge-

ography

iterature, ale

has accomplished

n

importantoal of the book. Sport

Geography

is an

excellent tarting oint

or nyone

want-

ing o browse he port eography

iteraturer

anyone

contemplatingesearch

n the

topic.

The explanations

f hemain oncepts

re

gen-

erallygood,

and the

wide

range

of

sports,

sporting rganizations,ndplacesprovidesn-

teresting eading.

But although I

learned a lot fromthis text,

was disappointed in it from two perspectives.

First,the list of concepts that dominate the

book reads

like the table

of contents of an

introductory uman geography textbook from

1970: diffusion,

entral place theory, periodic

markets, distance decay, areal classification,

and

others. There are few

attempts

o relate

to

broader

or newer

geographic perspectives,

nor

is there any

attempt

to

create a theory

of

sport geography.

Both of these

characteristics

are consistent

with he

stated

goals

of

the

book

and are openly discussed

by

the

author.

None-

theless, the product

seems overly dominated

by verytraditional

oncepts, which,

as the au-

thor points out, is

one characteristic f the sub-

discipline.

Another disappointment, found in many

parts

of the

text,

s the

tendency

for

port

to be

isolated from other

closely-related cultural

phenomena. For

example,

vernacular

sports

regions are discussed

in

chapter

7

withnary

mention of other vernacular regions with

which sport regions may be linked. Elsewhere

several discussions of the

evolution of

sporting

facilities

nd

sport

andscapes

in

urban

settings

all

but ignore

the

accompanying changes

in

the

urban

andscape

thathave been

a

favorite

opic

of

geographic

research.

Similarly,

the treat-

ment of the diffusion of sport in chapter 3

makes little

reference to

other

cultural phe-

nomena diffusing s

part

of

broader processes

and

perhaps

diffusing

n

similar

spatial pat-

terns.

This

book

will

be

very

usefulto

manypeople.

It

is a valuable

reference,

and

I

suspect

that t

will

be

widely adopted forvarious courses

that

deal

with

sport

geography

in

some

way.

Stu-

dents

will learn

much

about

sports geography

from the book,

but without significant nput

from instructors, hey will learn little about

modern

geography.

Key Words: sportgeography,

nnovation dif-

fusion, place, sport landscapes, sport regions,

folk

games, Olympics.

Reference

Michener,.

1976. Sportsn America.New York:

RandomHouse.

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