|
|
Baseball: The Summer Game
| Article
# : |
10178 |
|
|
Section : |
CULTURE
|
| Issue
Date : |
8 / 1986 |
6,389 Words |
| Author
: |
Harold Rosenthal
|
Many years ago, as a young baseball reporter gazing in wide-eyed wonderment at such stars as DiMaggio, Williams, Hubbell, and Feller, I was treated to a dollop of unabashed flattery by an older colleague.
"Remember," he said, "that you are now recording history. Every little thing that happens on the field, even if it's only a ball or strike, is a part of history. It's something that can never happen in exactly the same way again." This was, of course, an oversimplification. Nevertheless baseball, which has known many wide and wild swings, does provide an amazingly accurate reflection of the seesaw moods of the American public. What you see may be a ballgame, but what you get are the latest attitudes of Mr. And Mrs. America and their children. A short time later that same colleague asked whether he could borrow five bucks until Friday!
Baseball's well-nigh irresistible appeal goes well beyond the game's geometrical patterns and delicate balance between offense and defense. Purportedly, the goal of every kid who ever shut his eyes in terror at the approach of a fast curve and then proceeded to spit defiance - just as the major leaguers do so capably on national television - is to gain immortality by being enshrined in the Baseball Hall of Fame. The hall is located in Cooperstown in the upstate New York leatherstocking country made famous by James Fenimore Cooper in his saga Last of the Mohicans.
Another group will enter the hall early this August. Joining the pantheon, whose occupancy now numbers close to 200, should be Willie McCovey, Bobby Doerr, and possibly Ernie Lombardi. Lombardi was a ponderous catcher with a murderous swing who played with the Cincinnati Reds and New York Giants. He might make it on two smallish footnotes. Lombardi is the only slugger of whom it was written, only half in jest, "[He] doubled sharply to right and was thrown out at first." Still not good enough for the Hall of Fame? How about his often-witnessed ability, with men on base, to grab errant pitches bare handed, preventing otherwise dire consequences?
The lat Red Smith once suggested what seems a fairly reasonable yardstick for including someone. Said Smith: "A simple test should be 'Could the history of baseball have been written without mentioning his name?'" Perhaps no name more encapsulates the imagery of baseball than that of Babe Ruth, yet even he was not a unanimous choice to enter the hall.
During World War II a flagrant popular misconception circulated that the American GI could endure practically anything with a smile as long as he knew how his local ballclub had done the previous day. An inordinate effort was made to keep those scores coming. Frequently they'd be stashed in the body text of a secret cablegram.
Not only did this myth fool the American public, but it conned the Japanese as well. A newcomer to the Pacific theater of operations could be treated to an ear-splitting bullhorn cacophony vilifying Babe Ruth in impossible terms. The Japanese evidently hoped that this unsettling first-night experience would so enrage the GIs that they would do something rash, like stick their heads up as targets for enemy sharpshooters.
Baseball and "The Bade" also figured in other quasi-military activities during World
...
Read Full Article
|
|
