Uncle Sam’s Pastime: La Liga Mexicana and the Hegemony of Major League Baseball, 1942-1948

Abstract

Uncle Sam’s Pastime: La Liga Mexicana and the Hegemony of
Major League Baseball, 1942-1948 is about how millionaire mogul
Jorge Pasquel and La Liga Mexicana (the Mexican Baseball
League) challenged the hegemony of Major League Baseball in a
time where ones race not only dictated their worth but also their
livelihood. This story analyzes how Pasquel, La Liga and those
who played south of the border were framed and presented differently
in English and Spanish-language mainstream newspapers
to U.S. (white) and Latino (Mexican) audiences during World
War II. The representations of La Liga Mexicana– and by default
Pasquel, the players and more broadly Mexicans– presented in
the media gives insight to the race relations and sentiments between
U.S. (white) and Latino (Mexican) peoples during the
1940’s, a period that witnessed the United States enter World
War II which resulted in an influx and exploitation of Latino
(Mexican) labor across many U.S. industries, baseball included.