A boundary object is an item or idea or that solidifies relationships between stakeholders in a social system. A boundary object has local meaning within a single group and maintains relationships between actors. Using textual and secondary analysis, this paper argues that the formulation of the newspaper box score during the late 19th century created a boundary object that helped bring the sports media system into coherence. In its earliest days, the nascent sports reporting profession used data to define a professional identity and then enroll media organizations, sports organizations, and readers into what we understand as the sports media system. This understanding of the history of sports journalism has important implications for the study of the changing media system within sports and beyond.
AbbottA. (1988). The system of professions: An essay on the division of expert labor. University of Chicago Press.
2.
AndersonC. W. (2013). What aggregators do: Towards a networked concept of journalistic expertise in the digital age. Journalism, 14(8), 1008–1023. https://doi.org/10.1177/1464884913492460
3.
BettsJ. R. (1953). Sporting journalism in nineteenth-century America. American Quarterly, 5(1), 39–56. https://doi.org/10.2307/3031289
4.
CarlsonM. (2015). The many boundaries of journalism. In CarlsonM.LewisS. C. (Eds.), Boundaries of journalism (pp. 1–18). Oxford University Press.
5.
CarlsonM. (2017). Journalistic authority: Legitimating news in the digital era. Columbia University Press.
ChadwickH. (1867). Beadle’s dime baseball player. Create Space Independent Publishing Platform.
8.
ClavioG.MoritzB. (2021). Here’s why I joined: Introductory letters from new hires to the athletic and the framing of paywall journalism. Communication & Sport, 9(2), 198–219. https://doi.org/10.1177/2167479519859862
EliasA. M. (1914). The critics corner, (pp. 86–89). Baseball Magazine.
13.
EnglishP. (2022). Sports newsrooms versus In-House media: Cheerleading and critical reporting in news and match coverage. Communication & Sport, 10(5), 854–871. https://doi.org/10.1177/21674795211043105
14.
EversJ.FullertonH. (1910). Touching second: The science of baseball. Reilly & Britton Company.
15.
FerrucciP. (2022). Joining the team: Metajournalistic discourse, paradigm repair, the athletic and sports journalism practice. Journalism Practice, 16(10), 2064–2082. https://doi.org/10.1080/17512786.2021.1907213
16.
FerrucciP.FigueroaE. (2025). ‘At this point, I have no idea’: Determining a sports journalist in the 2020s. Journalism, 14648849251335294. https://doi.org/10.1177/14648849251335294
17.
FullertonH. (1928, April 21). The men who made the game. Saturday Evening Post. 200(43). pp 18-19, 184, 185.
18.
GierynT. (1983). Boundary-work and the demarcation of science from non-science: Strains and interests in professional ideologies of scientists. American Sociological Review, 48(6), 781–795. https://doi.org/10.2307/2095325
19.
GierynT. (1999). Cultural boundaries of science. University of Chicago Press.
20.
GoldsteinW. (1989). Playing for keeps. Cornell University Press.
21.
GrayS. (2006). The mind of Bill James. Doubleday.
22.
GuttmannA. (1978). From ritual to record: The nature of modern sports. Columbia University Press.
23.
HardinM.AshE. (2011). Journalists provide social context missing from sports blogs. Newspaper Research Journal, 32(2), 20–35. https://doi.org/10.1177/073953291103200203
24.
HendrickA. C. (1917). A new system of baseball records, (Vol. 384). Baseball Magazine.
25.
HoufJ. R. (2021). Boundary work and boundary objects: Synthesizing two concepts for moments of controversy. Journal of Technical Writing and Communication, 51(3), 293–312. https://doi.org/10.1177/0047281620947355
26.
KianE. M.ZimmermanM. H. (2012). The medium of the future: Top sports writers discuss transitioning from newspapers to online journalism. International Journal of Sport Communication, 5(3), 285–304. https://doi.org/10.1123/ijsc.5.3.285
27.
KofoedJ. C. (1917). Little things in the box score, (pp. 565–566). Baseball Magazine.
LaneF. C. (1919). What are the odds? (pp. 337–339). Baseball Magazine.
30.
LewisM. (2003). Moneyball: The art of winning an unfair game. W. W. Norton.
31.
LipsyteR. (1975). SportsWorld. Quadrangle.
32.
LloydM. G. (1908). Why pitchers averages mean nothing, (Vol. 33). Baseball Magazine.
33.
MasonR. B. (1920). Nine women now associated press operators. In Service bulletin of the associated press. Number, 56, 34.
34.
MirerM. (2019). Playing the right way: In-house sports reporters and media ethics as boundary work. Journal of Media Ethics: Exploring Questions of Media Morality, 34(2), 1–14. https://doi.org/10.1080/23736992.2019.1599719
35.
MirerM. (2022). Just how they drew it up: How In-House reporters fit themselves into the sports media system. Communication & Sport, 10(3), 438–455. https://doi.org/10.1177/21674795211049412
36.
MirerM. (2023). “The Media Answer”: How Athletes Conceptualize Their Relationship to the Press in the Players’ tribune. Communication & Sport, 13(2), 245–265. https://doi.org/10.1177/21674795231217169
37.
MurphyC. W. (1919). April). Is Baseball Writing Overdone?Baseball Magazine, 22(6), 355–356.
News and Traffic Notes. (1922). Service bulletin of the associated press. Associated Press. Number 67, p. 27.
40.
Our letter box. (1912). Baseball magazine (pp. 85–88).
41.
Our letter box. (1915). Baseball magazine (pp. 89–92).
42.
Our letter box. (1917). Baseball magazine (pp. 89–92).
43.
Our letter box. (1919). Baseball Magazine (380).
44.
PerreaultG.MoonR.WalshJ. F.PerreaultM. F. (2022). It’s not hate but: Marginal categories in rural journalism. Journalism Practice, 18(5), 1039–1058. https://doi.org/10.1080/17512786.2022.2075782
ReedS. (2018). “I’m not a fan, I’m a journalist”: Measuring American Sports Journalists’ sports enthusiam. Journal of Sports Media, 13(1), 27–47. https://doi.org/10.1353/jsm.2018.0001
47.
RemleyE.A.Jr. (1913, December). Crowning need of football is scoring system. Baseball Magazine12(2), 83-84.
48.
RickeyB.MonteleoneJ. J. (1995). Branch rickey’s little blue book: Wit and strategy from baseball’s last wise man. Macmillan.
49.
SamuelA.WhiteG. R. T.ThomasR.McGouranC.BullM. (2025). Boundary objects at play in the world’s greenest football club. Strategic Change, 34(1), 9–21. https://doi.org/10.1002/jsc.2618
50.
SchiffA. J. (2008). The father of baseball: A biography of Henry Chadwick. McFarland & Company.
SchwartzD.VoganT. (2017). The players’ tribune: Self- branding and boundary work in digital sports media. Journal of Sports Media, 12(1), 45–63. https://doi.org/10.1353/jsm.2017.0002
SingerJ. B. (2003). Who are these guys? The online challenge to the notion of journalistic professionalism. Journalism, 4(2), 139–163. https://doi.org/10.1177/146488490342001
55.
SpauldingA. G. (1992). America’s national game. University of Nebraska Press.
56.
SpinkA. H. (1910). The national game. The Nation Game Publishing Company.
57.
StarS.GriesemerJ. (1989). Institutional ecology, translations’ and boundary objects: Amateurs and professionals in Berkeley’s museum of vertebrate zoology, 1907-39. Social Studies of Science, 19(3), 387–420. https://doi.org/10.1177/030631289019003001
58.
StarS. L. (2010). This is not a boundary object: Reflections on the origin of a concept. Science, Technology & Human Values, 35(5), 601–617. https://doi.org/10.1177/0162243910377624
59.
SteensenS.FigenschouT. U.IhlebækK. A. (2023). Playing the mainstream game. A language-game analysis of “mainstream” as a possible boundary object in journalism studies. Digital Journalism, 11(4), 653–671. https://doi.org/10.1080/21670811.2023.2180406
60.
SuggsJr., D. W. (2016). Tensions in the press box: Understanding relationships among sports media and source organizations. Communication & Sport, 4(3), 261–281. https://doi.org/10.1177/2167479515577191
61.
TygielJ. (2000). The mortar of which baseball is held together: Henry Chadwick and the invention of baseball statistics. In Past time (pp. 15–34). Oxford University Press.
62.
UsherN. (2020). News cartography and epistemic authority in the era of big data: Journalists as map-makers, map-users, and map-subjects. New Media & Society, 22(2), 247–263. https://doi.org/10.1177/1461444819856909
63.
WaltersP. (2022). Reclaiming control: How journalists embrace social media logics while defending journalistic values. Digital Journalism, 10(9), 1482–1501. https://doi.org/10.1080/21670811.2021.1942113
64.
WennerL. A. (1989). The research agenda. In Media, sports & society (pp. 13–48). Sage.
