The baseball glove is a ubiquitous item, a crucial piece of equipment in the game of baseball, and it offers the opportunity to examine the production of material culture and social practice at numerous levels. Where and how is a glove made, and how does its manufacture square with the narratives surrounding its place in American cultural life? What are the myths, superstitions and beliefs surrounding its acquisition, care, use and significance? How does a glove function as the center of a web of cultural practices that illustrate how individuals relate to a consumer good as a symbol of memory, personal narrative and national identity? How do the manufacturers of baseball gloves draw upon, promote, and in some sense create these practices? How do these practices and meanings change in other national and cultural contexts?

From Flesh to Gold offers students the opportunity to examine these questions in an engagingly written and illustrated book that promotes hands-on interaction with quintessential item of material culture--the baseball glove. At the same time, the book gives students the space for critical self-reflection about the place of material goods like sporting equipment in their lives, and it provides the chance to learn different methodological approaches to studying everyday objects.