The Worldly Game: The Story of Baseball in the Amana Colonies

The Worldly Game: The Story of Baseball in the Amana Colonies traces the history of baseball in the community from the communal period through the twentieth century. Originally, the church elders, who regulated all aspects of the Society, considered baseball too worldly and deemed it verboten. Nevertheless, the boys and young men of the Society persisted, risking the sanctions levied against them. When the elders relented and tolerated the sport, baseball became a social mechanism that brought the seven Amana villages into closer contact with each other as well as with other communities in east central Iowa.

Because of the few recreational offerings available in Amana, baseball became Amana’s favorite pastime from the 1930s into the 1960s, even featuring an Amana Refrigeration-sponsored, star-studded semipro team, the Amana Freezers, after WWII. Amana teams competed successfully in the town team era from the 1950s through the 1980s. However, as cars, travel, and a multitude of other recreational activities became available to community residents, baseball lost its unique hold on Amana’s cultural landscape and its popularity declined. Team managers could not field teams with only local players, attendance at games declined, and the small local population increasingly posed challenges for Little League and high school rosters. Ironically, baseball, the medium that brought Amana into the cultural orb of east central Iowa, ended with the community’s cultural maturation.