From baseball colony to basketball republic: post-colonial transition and the making of a national sport in the Philippines

The paper examines the celebrated rivalry between baseball and basketball as the premier sporting pastime in the Philippines, from the early American era to the early post-independence period. In tracing the growth of a national sporting culture in this Southeast Asian country, the discussion tries to show how the close association of baseball with America as an ‘occupation force’, in contrast to basketball's general image as a representation of the ‘benevolent America’, has resulted in the decline of the former and the rise of the latter as the Philippines' most popular sport.