America's Datafied Pastime: Rhetoric, Baseball, and the Culture of Quantification

open_access
Open Access
Author:
Delayo, Michael
Graduate Program:
Communication Arts and Sciences
Degree:
Doctor of Philosophy
Document Type:
Dissertation
Date of Defense:
May 13, 2026
Committee Members:
Rosa Eberly, Major Field Member
Michael Steudeman, Major Field Member
Michele Kennerly, Co-Chair & Dissertation Advisor
Michelle Sikes, Outside Unit & Field Member
Debbie Hawhee, Co-Chair & Dissertation Advisor
Kirt Wilson, Program Head/Chair
Keywords:
rhetoric
baseball
data
media
Abstract:
America’s Datafied Pastime studies the rich intersections among rhetoric, baseball, and data. The introduction establishes the importance of baseball to understanding today’s data-obsessed cultures within and beyond the sport. The first chapter focuses on the rhetoric of MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred, who has insisted that gambling partnerships help protect baseball’s competitive integrity despite working in a position that was created to expel gambling from the sport. In the context of recent gambling scandals and the unprecedented quantity of threats made by fans to ballplayers, Manfred’s comments demonstrate that MLB has deemed the preservation of its business interests worth the risks to its players. Chapter two argues that the statistical standards of MLB and the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum detract from the preservation of memories of the Negro Leagues. MLB’s incorporation of Negro Leagues statistics into their record books is a product of meaningful efforts to preserve quantitative Negro Leagues data. However, MLB’s insistence on objectivity obscures the infrastructural and cultural realities of the Negro Leagues that MLB’s segregation contributed to and threatens the legitimacy of qualitative memory practices that have long preserved the Negro Leagues. Chapter three focuses on data-centric trends in and stories about contemporary baseball player development. The stories of the training company Driveline Baseball and the introduction of the torpedo bat into MLB play have been told through themes of effort, objectivity, and transformation that have helped turn data-based training methods from niche oddities into standard and expected practice despite uncertain physical risks. The conclusion reaffirms this project’s contributions to our understandings of rhetoric, its processes, and its importance to engaging with a culture of datafication.