Vaudeville on the Diamond: Minor League Baseball in Today’s Entertainment World

From 1993 to 2010, minor league baseball has, in aggregate, shown a steady increase in attendance, reaching as high as nearly fifty-two million spectators in 2008. With all the high tech, live streaming, fast-paced entertainment now available to modern consumers, what is it about minor league baseball that still holds appeal with today’s audiences? In Vaudeville on the Diamond, David Sutera takes a close look at how minor league baseball has survived and thrived in today’s competitive world of entertainment. He argues that the key to survival lies in the creation of on-and-off field attractions which invoke the traditions of vaudeville with their unique and quirky forms of spectacle. From Star Wars theme nights to monkeys riding border collies, teams have created a multifaceted form of entertainment that includes and goes well beyond the game of baseball itself. Throughout the book, Sutera shares his own travels to several minor league stadiums across the U.S., including rich participant observation and interviews with the fans themselves. A light-hearted and engaging look at minor league baseball, Vaudeville on the Diamond will appeal to all fans of baseball and minor league sports.

David M. Sutera is a film, media, and sports studies scholar and documentary filmmaker. He is the author of Sports Fans 2.0: How Fans Are Using Social Media to Get Closer to the Game (2013) and coeditor of Gender and Genre in Sports Documentaries (2013) and Identity and Myth in Sports Documentaries (2013), all published by Scarecrow Press.