Open now
Where We Make a Home
Community, Place & Belonging
What makes a place feel like ours—and what do people give to keep a community alive?
Sandlots
& Civics
A Pocket Guide to American civic life through baseball—short historical journeys to explore, reflect on, and carry with you.
Baseball is not the destination.
It is the lens.
Baseball has grown alongside American life. Its fields, teams, fans, traditions, struggles, and communities can help us see the country around them in a new way.
Baseball was the invitation.
In our first Chicago house, an old wooden toy box waited on the screened-in back porch. Near the bottom were some books and a stack of musty baseball cards left behind by the previous owners.
I was four or five. Those cards gave me a reason to read names and stories, study statistics, understand averages, keep score, and follow the standings. They opened a much larger world.
Read the fuller storyTake a short historical journey
The guide provides a path and leaves room for discovery.
- Choose a journey.
- Make stops along the way.
- Look closely at real sources.
- Notice connections between baseball and American life.
- Keep what matters to you in My Scorecard.
Spring Training
This first working edition is a small collection of substantial historical journeys. It is designed to test, learn, and refine the experience before the regular season begins.
Enter the journey
In development
Who Gets to Play?
Exclusion, Opportunity & Widening Participation
Who gets to participate—and how do people widen the boundaries of belonging?
In development
When the Country Calls
Service, Sacrifice & Shared Responsibility
What do people owe one another when a country faces a shared challenge?
More journeys are already taking shape.
Where curiosity can lead next
Enter a story, see the collection’s direction, offer a thought privately, or follow history beyond the guide.
Explore nowTake the opening journeyFive stops about community, place, and belonging.
Look aheadSee Journeys Taking ShapeA visual preview of the collection as it grows.
Spring TrainingHelp shape what comes nextOffer a thought or story privately by email.
Keep exploringContinue the JourneyBooks, archives, museums, local places, and source institutions.