National·~·Pastime
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~~~~~~:::=-THE-============= rnpEven when that laughable Abner Doubleday creation myth of baseball's origin-foisted on the Ameri National·~· Pastime can public by Albert Spalding for crassly commercial A REVIEW OF BASEBALL HISTORY reasons-is justly dismissed, still the reputed "American origins" of the national game are tough enough to·shake. Baseball in the Olympics Most current sports histories merely substitute one "cre hwwoo 2 ation myth" for another. Thus Alex Cartwright gets full Jorge Pasquel and the Evolution of the Mexican League credit and-presto-the American birthright of the na Gerald F. Vaughn 9 tional pastime remains largely intact. But the Cartwright Hall of Famers Shine in Puerto Rico claim itself rests on shaky enough ground: the Elysian Thomas E. Van Hyning 14 Fields contest of 1846 was no more an instance of "fully The Amazing Story ofVictor Starffin evolved baseball" than were numerous earlier matches Richard Puff 17 held throughout the northeastern states and provinces of Sluggers in Paradise Canada. This native game of "base-ball" was never im Frank Ardolino 20 maculately conceived but, instead, slowly and painfully California's Quirky Spurs evolved-"stool ball" to "rounders" to "town ball" to "Mas R. Scott Mackey 23 sachusetts game" to "New York game"-and the germinating seeds were always demonstrably European. The Story of Canadian Ballplayers 26 Events of the past decade have made the international William Humber elements of our adopted national game simply indisput Lefty O'Doul and the Development ofJapanese Baseball able. A near tidal wave of Latin American imports has Richard Leutzinger 30 inarguably provided the biggest single story in major Sadaharu Oh's Place in Baseball's Pantheon league baseball during the 1980s. Rival Japan boasts a Frederick Ivor-Campbell 35 long-standing professional league which, while never a Baseball Behind Barbed WIre serious match for our own, nonetheless solidifies the Jay Feldman 37 cross-cultural appeal of diamond play. In world amateur Minneapolis Millers vs. Havana Sugar Kings contests it is Castro's Cuba that has long been the rank Stew Thornley 42 ing world power, while USA amateur teams are beaten Soviet Baseball: History and Prospects out with disturbing frequency at world-level competitions Kim Steven Juhase and BlairA. Ruble 45 by squads from Puerto Rico, Venezuela and Nicaragua as Taiwan Little Leaguers Grow into Big Leaguers well. Throughout the Caribbean basin "beisbol" enjoys John B. Holway 48 equal status as the ordained national game. The Babies of International Baseball This Olympic year-in which baseball first (and at long Kevin Brooks 51 last) debuts as a medal sport-seems, then, a most appro Minoso By Any Other Name priate occasion to focus the attention of SABR scholars Richard C. Lindberg 55 upon the world baseball movement. Even major league Cuban Blacks in the Majors Before Jackie Robinson baseball-long a bastion of provincialism-now looks Peter C. Bjarkman 58 pragmatically in that very direction. Major League Base The IBA and the World Amateur Baseball Movement ball International Partners has recently been created by Bob Rybarczyk 64 MLB, NBC and Pascoe Nally (a leading British sports Brits in the Baseball Hall of Fame marketing firm) to regulate broadcast and promotion of Jack Kavanagh 67 the international game. The International Baseball Asso ciation, based in Indianapolis, has been actively spreading Untold Saga of Europe's Big Leaguers 70 the world baseball message for more than a decade with David L. Porter clinics and tournaments held around the globe. Baseball in the Pan American Games As the world grows smaller and cultures find them Mark Springer 77 selves drawn more tightly into a web of interdependence, Baseball's Latin Market it is again the miraculous game of baseball which MuronJamau 83 marches at the forefront of this inevitable parade toward Hispanic Baseball Statistical Record a world community. Baseball in 1992 ironically seems Peter C. Bjarkman 87 poised to fulfill its global mission at the very hour when Editor: Peter C. Bjarkman runaway salaries and shopping mall stadia have disaf Fact-checkers: Pete Cava, Frederick Ivor-Campbell fected so many American fans. Yet, as our Canadian SABR colleague Bill Humber has often reminded us, THE NATIONAL PASTIME (ISSN 0734-6905, ISBN 0-9IOI37-48-X), Number 12. Publisbed by The Society for American Baseball Research, Inc. P.O. Box 93183, Cleveland, OH, 44101. Postage "Who ever said that baseball is an American game, paid at Birmingham, AL. Copyright 1992, The Society for American Baseball Research, Inc. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part without written permission is prohibited. anyway?" -Peter C. Bjarkman, Editor Printed by EBSCO Media, Birmingham, AL. A REVIEW OF BASEBALL HISTORY 1 Once ((as far apart as Tippecanoe and Timbuktu" Baseball in the Olympics Pete Cava 1:ssummer iu Barcekma, baseball makes its official of the fair or the Olympics. Spalding's Official Athletic debut as an Olympic sport, four years short of a century Almanac for 1905 includes a report from Olympic direc since Baron Pierre de Coubertin revived the Games in torJames E. Sullivan that boasts: "this is the largest entry Athens in 1896. Return with us now to those thrilling days that has ever been received by anyone organization or of yesteryear: as the good Baron pondered the possibili corporation that ever held an athletic meeting." Yet only ties of an Olympics with no cable television revenue, twelve nations sent athletes, and in many events only across the waves the National League was preparing for Americans competed. its 21st season as America's top baseball circuit. Sullivan's list of "Olympic" events includes the Inter While some 311 athletes from 13 nations convened for scholastic Meet for the State of Missouri on May 14; an the Games, Ned Hanlon and the Baltimore Orioles were amateur baseball tournament in June and the Athletic embarking on a third straight drive to the pennant. That Games in Honor of Cardinal Satolli on July 1. Thrilling year, Greece's Spiridon Louis raced to the Olympic mara events, no doubt, but none can seriously be considered thon title and Cleveland's Jess Burkett took the N.L. part of the Olympics. batting crown. Baseball and the Olympics were as far apart as Tippecanoe and Timbuktu. Debut in Stockholm-In 1912, as America's major For the next four score and seven seasons, that, for the league clubs were gearing up for a new baseball season, most part, remained the status quo. Baseball was added the Swedish capital of Stockholm was preparing for the as a demonstration sport at the Los Angeles Games in Games of the Fifth Olympiad. Two years earlier Sweden's 1984 and again at Seoul four years later. This was a pre first baseball club, Vasteras, had begun play. At about the lude to baseball's current status as a medal sport. same time the U.S. professional teams were heading Between Athens and L.A., however, baseball has provided north from spring training, Sweden's Olympic Committee some of the more fascinating and underexplored corri contacted Vasteras officials about the possibility of a base dors of Olympic history. ball exhibition during the Games with some of the Some historians include baseball as an exhibition or American Olympians. demonstration sport in the St. Louis Olympics of 1904. Vasteras players must have turned cartwheels at the The Games were part of that year's Louisiana Purchase thought of displaying their talents during the Olympics. Exposition, and virtually every amateur sporting contest Some of the club's best players, however, had recently in St. Louis from May to November was packaged as part moved away-a harbinger, perhaps, of the era of free agency?-and club officials fretted over whether or not they could field a competitive team. Determined to do Pete Cava is press information director with the Athletics Congress of the United States, has appeared as St. Louis Browns managerJimmy their best, the enthusiastic Swedish baseballists soon be Burke in the film "Eight Men Out", and has authored a recent scholarly gan to prepare for their Olympic moment with history ofthe New York Mets. thrice-weekly workouts. 2 THE NATIONAL PASTIME Meanwhile, according to the organizing committee's base and had a pair of hits in four at bats, including a report on the Stockholm Games, U.S. Olympic team triple. Kiviat, Jim Thorpe's shipboard roommate en route members were making plans of their own for the exhibi to the Games, was a great athlete in his own right. Born tion. The American baseball squad, made up of in Manhattan's Lower East Side to an immigrant peddler, volunteers from the track and field team, would bring the five-foot, three-inch Kiviat had been the silver medal their own baseball uniforms to Sweden along with special ist in the 1500 meter event. In 1909 the bowlegged handouts. The flyers they'd had printed were intended to "Kivvy" was an all-city baseball player for Staten Island's explain to Swedish spectators the intricacies of the bunt, Curtis High School. Kiviat, who for many years served as the hit and run and, possibly, the wave and the Toma a press steward for track meets at Madison Square Gar hawk Chop. den, lived a long and merry life. At the time of his death Original plans called for playing the game on the in August, 1991, at the age of 99, Kiviat was America's evening of]uly 10, during the track and field competition. oldest Olympic track and field medalist. The last surviv TheAmerican Olympic Committee, however, forbade the ing member of America's 1912 Olympic team, he was U.S.