Baseball and American Cultural Values

Ronald Briley

Reprinted from the OAH Magazine of History
7 (Summer 1992). ISSN 0882-228X
Copyright (c) 1992, Organization of American Historians
 

Philosopher Jacques Barzun once observed that anyone wishing to understand the heart and mind of America should study the sport of baseball, viewed by many as the national pastime. Many writers and historians have echoed support for Barzun's statement, and there has been a proliferation of scholarly literature on the sport. Some of America's finest novelists have used the imagery of baseball. Thomas Wolfe stated, "Is there anything that can evoke spring--the first fine days of April--better than the sound of the ball smacking into the pocket of the big mitt, the sound of the bat as it hits the horse hide: for me, at any rate, and I am being literal and not rhetorical--almost everything I know about spring is in it--the first leaf, the jonquil, the maple tree, the smell of grass upon your hands and knees, the coming into flower of April" (1). While Wolfe's description evokes the pastoral nature of baseball's early years, the growing mass culture of urban America quickly adopted the game as a favorite. The North Carolina writer might have some difficulty with late twentieth century domed stadiums with artificial turf.

Baseball seems to embody many of the values coming to dominate an urbanized and industrialized America. A number of scholars have suggested that baseball may be perceived as a sort of mirror in which values, power, politics, fashion, class, economics, and race may be viewed in microcosm. In his study of A. G. Spalding and the rise of professional baseball in the late nineteenth century, Peter Levine argues that the creation of professional baseball leagues reflected the professionalization of American culture which occurred throughout the nation as more white middle class reformers sought to impose some order upon the chaos of industrialization, immigration, and urbanization. However, in his work on baseball in the Progressive Era, Steven A. Riess asserts that while Progressives may have regarded baseball as "the epitome of the finest American beliefs, traditions, and values," the men who actually controlled the major leagues were often more like machine politicians with profit motives (2).

Some other scholars see baseball as a force for passing along such essential values as hard work, social mobility, democracy, and teamwork. Baseball reveals significant themes like urbanism, technology, class, race, and gender. The inclusion of baseball in the history curriculum may gain the attention of many recalcitrant students who may find sport history a little more interesting than the banking policies of Andrew Jackson. But several important caveats should be attached here. For a sport such as baseball to serve the function of analyzing values in microcosm, attention must be paid to the larger political, social, economic, and cultural context in which these values are displayed. Accordingly, a study of baseball should not supplant the study of American political history, but rather enhance it. Teachers considering using baseball as an expression of American values should see the sport as part of a larger cultural unit on the role of leisure in American society. Thus, the baseball curriculum material could be used as a model for the inclusion of other sports. For example, the emergence of spectator sports suggests some important revisions in cultural perceptions of gender such as the study of women's tennis and women's basketball. Other relevant aspects of sport and leisure history include film, fads, fashion, popular culture and literature, consumption and advertising, exercise, amusement parks, and the impact of all these activities on both the workplace and family.

Baseball might be introduced into the curriculum in many ways. First, even though many people view baseball as the national pastime, teachers should not assume too much advanced knowledge of the game. The growth of leisure time in late-twentieth-century American culture has produced considerable alternatives to baseball. Second, teachers beginning a unit on the role of baseball in American culture would do well to start with a brief overview of the game's history and rules in the nineteenth century. One should not assume that every student has seen a game, and a nice cultural history field trip would be to take the class to see a major or minor league game.

With these preliminaries out of the way, teachers might turn to a series of primary quotes of historical evidence such as those provided in this lesson plan. These seventeen quotes offer differing perspectives on the game and the cultural role played by baseball in historical context. For example, in the first quote A. G. Spalding in the late nineteenth century ascribed a central function to baseball for defining how Americans spend leisure time. In conjunction with Spalding's quote it might be interesting to look at a comment from columnist George Will's work on baseball, Men at Work. Will suggests that as a sport, baseball is hardly dead, and increased attendance at major league games, along with the fact that Will's volume spent weeks as the number one seller on the New York Times list of books, would seem to indicate support for the columnist's contention. Students might want to consider why, in light of so many other leisure options, baseball maintains a hold on the American mind. The Will quote expresses the belief that many Americans hanker for some mythological Garden of Eden in the American past. Many baseball fans feel that the national game has been in decline, and view indoor stadiums and artificial turf as signifying the differences between agrarian and industrialized America. But Will asserts that baseball has never been better in terms of quality of play. Has the urbanization and technological development of America increased the quality of life? Do some Americans yearn for a rural preindustrial garden which never existed? Or is America adjusting to a post-industrial society by relying on technology as do many players and managers?

Quotes three through nine explore beliefs about values developed in baseball. Hugh Fullerton suggests that baseball existed as an important source of Americanization, although teachers might want to be careful about over emphasizing this concept. In his work on baseball in the Progressive Era, Riess argues that the ethnic origins of professional baseball players remained predominantly of Northern European stock. Nevertheless, some ethnic groups such as Italians, with families like the DiMaggios', did use baseball as a source of social mobility. The use of baseball during the Cold War as a device for Americanization in Latin America and Asia lends credence to Fullerton's thesis. But for a teacher, one of the best aspects of employing Fullerton's material is that it relates to key social, economic, and political factors of the New Immigration from Southeastern Europe, the meaning of Americanization, and the extent of assimilation among immigrants. These issues appear relevant for the 1990s as immigration bills continue to stir considerable controversy.

But exactly what American values are we talking about? In an article for the Massachusetts Review, George Grella asserts that baseball embodies the American Dream which rewards hard work, intelligence, and initiative. However, before students too quickly ascribe to this perspective it might be useful to look at some other quotes which paint a more complex picture. In quote five, the newly appointed Commissioner of Baseball, Kenesaw Mountain Landis, banned eight Chicago White Sox players from the game in 1921 even though the players had been acquitted in a court of law. The films Field of Dreams and Eight Men Out feature the White Sox scandal with different interpretations. Landis gained notoriety for his successful prosecution of the Industrial Workers of the World. What does this episode reveal about due process, sport, and democracy?

In addition to concepts of justice, students should consider whether hard work itself is enough. Leo Durocher stated, "Nice guys finish last." Is that the story of capitalism, or might baseball be thought of as a more working-class sport in which trickery and physical culture are more admired than the gentlemanly qualities emphasized in a game such as English cricket?

An examination of values in cultural context may be facilitated by looking at the careers of Ty Cobb and Babe Ruth touched upon in quotes seven and eight. Cobb was the dominant player in the game before Ruth and the rise of the home run in the 1920s. Cobb, with his aggressive tactics, emphasizing singles and base stealing, appeared to embody the production and Social Darwinist view of nineteenth-century industrial capitalism, while Ruth focused the game's attention on the homerun, spending a great deal of his free time playing hard at drinking, eating, and seeking female companionship. Ruth would seem more compatible with the mass culture ethic of consumption which many scholars have argued developed during the decade of the 1920s, known as the golden age of sports. This decade witnessed a fascination with heroes and heroines in film and sport, and students might contrast the symbols of Cobb and Ruth with such female sports stars as Gertrude Ederle and Helen Wills. On the other hand, teachers might want to examine the criticism of some Marxists, exemplified in the quote from The Young Worker which asserts that sport, like religion, was another opiate for the masses and distracted attention from real economic and political matters.

Thus, baseball may be used as a tool to elicit discussion on American values of production, consumption, and the American Dream. Yet, who participated in the pursuit of the American Dream in baseball? A League of Their Own, a 1992 film, draws attention to the professional All-American Girls' Baseball League formed during World II. Following the war, these female athletes were pushed aside from professional baseball, just as many women on the factory assembly lines were forced out of the paid workforce by returning male workers.

Baseball also offers a unique opportunity to examine the role of blacks in American society. Quotes ten through thirteen deal with the introduction of Jackie Robinson into so-called "Organized Baseball" after blacks had been segregated out of the majors in the late nineteenth century. Joe Bostic, writing for the Amsterdam News, describes with considerable excitement what Robinson's first game meant to black Americans. Columnist Leonard Koppet, in a eulogy for Robinson in 1972, places Robinson's contributions within the context of the civil rights movement. But Robinson's achievements failed to end racism in American society and baseball. Comments by former players Hank Aaron and Curt Flood, who challenged baseball's reserve clause and helped prepare the way for today's free agency and salaries, indicated baseball's unsatisfactory treatment of race relations for many players. Black representation in the front offices and management of baseball remains a critical topic today. Baseball serves as an excellent prism through which teachers may view race relations and the promise and myth of sport as an arena of opportunity for minorities in recent American history.

Not only racial concerns, but recent discussions on baseball salaries and franchise shifts offer insights into American capitalism from the mid- to late- twentieth century. Perhaps no baseball business decision has evoked as much controversy as the move of the Dodgers in 1958 from Brooklyn to Los Angeles. This business-oriented decision sheds light on cultural changes in America as working-class Brooklyn lost out to the glitter of Hollywood. The baseball franchise move may also be viewed as an early indication of the shift in American economic and political power from the frost belt to the sun belt as well as the conflict of interest between the community identification of fans and the economic motives of owners. Quotes fourteen through sixteen indicate the cultural conflict involved in the Dodgers' move west. The baseball franchise transfer may be compared with the departure of other American businesses from traditional communities to new locations in the west or foreign nations seeking more profitable investment. The last quote from Robert Harris Walker, about how the Cincinnati Reds of the late 1970s embodied the conservative working-class values of German immigrants points out the cultural connection between a city and the baseball team. Teams tend to reflect the cultural and class values of the city in which they are located. Is it an accident that Oakland in the late 1960s and early 1970s was the center of activity for the Black Panthers as well as the home of baseball's embodiment of the counter-culture, the Oakland A's? Teachers might use local teams, whether major or minor league, to have students examine cultural values in their hometowns during a specific historical period, using material culture, oral history, newspapers, and perhaps some investigation of city archives.

Baseball by no means represents the only sport a teacher might introduce to enhance student awareness and knowledge of cultural history. Sports, clearly an integral part of American culture, are of considerable interest to students. Perhaps Jacques Barzun's analysis of American values found in baseball deserves a place in the history curriculum.

1. Teachers and students are to examine the following quotations from primary documents regarding the role of baseball in American culture for critical analysis.

2. A careful reading of the documents should introduce baseball as a metaphor for examining cultural values in microcosm. As an integral component of historical and cultural change in America, baseball intersects with urbanization, technology, class, race, and gender issues.

3. The inclusion in the curriculum of cultural symbols such as baseball should enhance student appreciation of more traditional social, political, and economic history as attention must be given to the historical context of cultural values.

4. Baseball will certainly gain the attention of some students, but the baseball lesson plan should be viewed as a model for the development of a larger cultural unit on the role of sport and leisure in American society.

1. Thomas Wolfe to Arthur Mann, February 1938, as cited in Tristram Potter Coffin, The Old Ball Game: Baseball in Folklore and Fiction (New York: Herder and Herder, 1971), 183.

2. Steven A. Riess, Touching Base: Professional Baseball and American Culture in the Progressive Era (Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 1980), 7.

Alexander, Charles C. Ty Cobb. New York: Oxford University Press, 1984.

Asinof, Eliot. Eight Men Out: The Black Sox and the 1919 World Series. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1963.

Cobb, Ty. My Life in Baseball. Garden City: Doubleday, 1961.

Coffin, Tristram Potter. The Old Ball Game: Baseball in Folkore and Fiction. New York: Herder and Herder, 1971.

Creamer, Robert W. Babe: The Legend Comes to Life. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1974.

Crepeau, Richard. Baseball: America's Diamond Mind, 1919-1939. Orlando: University of Florida Presses, 1978.

Durocher, Leo. Nice Guys Finish Last. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1973.

Flood, Curt. The Way It Is. New York: Trident Press, 1970.

Guttmann, Allen. A Whole New Ball Game: An Interpretation of American Sports. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1988.

Kuklick, Bruce. To Every Thing A Season: Shibe Park and Urban Philadelphia, 1909-1976. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1991.

Levine, Peter. A. G. Spalding and the Rise of Baseball: The Promise of American Sport. New York: Oxford University Press, 1985.

Mead, William B. Two Spectacular Seasons. New York: Mac-millan, 1990.

Riess, Steven A. Touching Base: Professional Baseball and American Culture in the Progressive Era. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 1980.

Ruck, Robert. Sandlot Seasons: Black Baseball in Pittsburgh. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1985.

Seymour, Harold. Baseball. 3 vols. New York: Oxford University Press, 1960-1990.

Shannon, Mike, ed. Diamond Classics: Essays on 100 of the Best Baseball Books Ever Published. Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland and Company, 1989.

Sullivan, Neil. The Dodgers Move West. New York: Oxford University Press, 1987.

Tygiel, Jules. Baseball's Great Experiment: Jackie Robinson and His Legacy. New York: Oxford University Press, 1983.

Voigt, David. American Baseball. 3 vols. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1966-1970.

Walker, Robert H. Cincinnati and the Big Red Machine. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1988.

Will, George. Men At Work: The Craft of Baseball. New York: Macmillan, 1990.

Ronald Briley is Assistant Headmaster at Sandia Preparatory School in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and writes on baseball history.