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Resun'es Ed 020 931 Te 000 557 Baseball in American Fiction R E P O R T RESUN'ES ED 020 931 TE 000 557 BASEBALL IN AMERICAN FICTION. BY GRAINER, RALPH 3. PUB DATE NOV 67 EDRS PRICE MF$0.25 HC $0.44 9P. DESCRIPTORS *LITERARY HISTORY,*AMERICAN LITERATURE, *FICTION, *AMERICAN CULTURE,LITERARY ANALYSIS, TWENTIETH CENTURY LITERATURE, NOVELS,FANTASY, SATIRE, LITERARY CRITICISM, SOCIAL VALUES, MORALVALUES, SOCIAL ATTITUDES, SHORT STORIES, BASEBALL FICTION HAS MOVEDFROM THE JUVENILE STORIESOF THE TURN OF THE CENTURY TOADULT FICTION IN WHICHTHE GAME IS EXAMINED FOR THE LIGHT IT SHEDSON THE PARADOXES OFAMERICAN LIFE. EARLY BASEBALL FICTIONWAS DIRECTED TOWARDTHE DIMENOVEL AUDIENCE, BUT AFTERWORLD WAR I, SUCH WRITERSAS HEYWOOD BROUN AND RING LARDNERAIMED FOR ADULT READERSAND PRODUCED ACCOUNTS OF BASEBALLCONTAINING VALID INSIGHTSINTO THE AMERICAN SCENE.INTHE 30'S, THOMAS WOLFE,NELSON ALGREN, AND JAMES T. FARRELLWROTE ABOUT THE GAME INTHEIR NOVELS, AND SINCE WORLD WAR II,WRITERS HAVE PRODUCEDBASEBALL FICTION RANGING FROM FANTASYTO REALISTIC NOVELS. THEBEST RECENT BASEBALL FICTION(E.G., BERNARD MALAMUD'S"THE NATURAL" AND MARK HARRIS'"THE SOUTHPAW," "BANG THEDRUM SLOWLY," AND'"A TICKET FORSEAMSTITCH") CONCENTRATES NOT MERELY ON THE GAME OR THEPLAYERS' LIVES BUT ON THEUNIVERSAL PROBLEMS OF HUMAN BEHAVIOR.(THIS ARTICLE APPEARED IN "FWGLISH JOURNAL," VOL. 56(NOVEMBER 1967), 1107.s.14.) (LH) ti .10...0.1 U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH, EDUCATION &WELFARE Off ICE OF EDUCATION THIS DOCUMENT HAS SEEN REPRODUCEDEXACTLY AS RECEIVED FROM THE PERSON OR ORGANIZATION ORIGINATING IT.POINTS OF VIEW OR OPINIONS STATED DO NOT NECESSARILY REPRESENT OFFICIALOFFICE OF EDUCATION POSITION OR POLICY. ENGLISHJOURNAL Vol. 56 November 1967 No. 8 Baseball in AmericanFiction "PERMISSION TO REPRODUCE THIS COPYRIGHTED MATERIAL HAS BEEN GRANTED Ralph S. Graber Ifeafrit, W.A.A.let/ Department of English TO ERIC AND ORGANIZATIONS OPERATING Muhlenberg College UNDER AGREEMENTS WITH THE U.S OFFICE OF Allentown, Pennsylvania EDUCATION. FURTHER REPRODUCTION OUTSIDE THE ERIC SYSTEM REQUIRES PERMISSION Of THE COPYRIGHT OWNER." . MARK TWAIN had an explanationhave themselves been subject to the base- for the popularity and influence ofball fever. The game has always had baseball during his time. "Baseball is thea special attractionfor the intellectual. very symbol," he wrote,"the outward(See "Intellectuals and Ballplayers" by and visible expression of the driveandRoger Kahn in The American Scholar, push and rush and struggle of the raging,Summer 1957.) tearing, booming nineteenth century." Early baseball fiction was mainly di- A contemporary writer, JacquesBarzun,rected at juveniles, but during the first also testified to the importance ofbase-quarter of the twentieth centurywhen ball in American life when he wrote,baseball reporters such as Ring Lardner, "Whoever wants to know the heart andHeywood Broun, and Gerald Beaumont mind of America had better learnbase-turned to writing baseball storiesde- ball,therules andrealitiesof thesigned for adult readers, they produced game ...." In site of the twentieth-fiction that has merit apart from its century competition offootball andsports content. Duringthe past thirty basketball, baseball remains our mostyears, in the novelsof Thomas Wolfe popular game, at least in the opinion ofand James T. Farrell, two of the most a historian such asBruce Catton (seedistinctly American writers this country "The Great American Game," Americanhas produced, and the baseball novels Heritage, April 1959) and according toof Bernard Malamud and Mark Harris, a poll of personsattending the New Yorkthe importance of the sport in any true World's Fair. Since it is an importantpicture of American society has been part of our culture, it hasbeen inevitablerecognized. Although they are baseball that the influence and popularity ofstories,Malamud's The Natural and the sport would be reflected in AmericanHarris' diamond novels do not have the literature. American writers have hadgame as their primary concernbut are ti to take note of baseball'simportant placeinterested in the tragic-comical paradoxes in the national scene, and many of themof modern existence and reveal interest- 1107 s. 1.T:71! 1108 ENGLISHJOURNAL ing and universal insights into humanMurphy, The Great Shortstop; or The behavior. Little Midget of the .Giants, by Bill In addition to the movement fromBoxer, Referee (New York Five Cent baseball fiction directed at juveniles toLibrary No. 87), published in1892, stories intended for adults, there haswhich traces the exploits of a Yale player been a shift in the presentation of thefrom the Yale-Princeton games to the ballplayer himself. In the early storiesGiants in the old Polo Grounds. the athlete was a heroic figure with the With the appearance of the Frank highest moral standards engaged in aMerriwell stories by Burt L. Standish heroic occupation, an athlete who rose(Gilbert Patten) in Street and Smith's from the bush leagues often to own aTip Top Weekly in 1896, stories about major league team after his playing daysbaseball achieved a far wider audience. were over. More recent authors haveIt is estimated that each edition of the seen him as a man whose career is almoststories was read by a million persons over when he reaches thirty, an innocent,weekly. Although Merriwell wasa star simple person unable to adjust to the newinall sports, he achieved his greatest life and temptations of the big city, afame on the diamond with his famous man whose hopes and dreams remaindouble-shoot, a delivery that curved in unrealized. two directions on the way to the plate, a pitch that no major leaguer from APARTAPART from a passage (at the end ofChristy Mathewson to Sandy Koufax XLII) in Mark Twain'shas been able to duplicate. Asa result A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur'sof Merriwell's diamond exploits, theex- Court (1889), early baseball fiction waspressions "a Frank Merriwell play" or sub-literary in spite of its great pop-a "Frank Merriwell finish" became stock ularity. In Mark Twaiii's novel, the Yan-phrases in describing exciting or spectac- kee, Hank Morgan, introduces the gameular performances in fields other than into sixth-century England to replacebaseball and remain a permanent part the tournament as an escape for "the of our language. extra steam of chivalry" and to keep Although many ofthenumerous the knights entertained and out of mis-Merriwell stories contained no baseball chief. The experimentaffords Markaction (the Merriwell stories continued Twain the opportunity for some of histo appear into the 1920's), others are superb humor because the knights 'playliberally sprinkled with accounts of base- the game clad in full armor. Conse-ball games. A typical Merriwell finish quently, they never avoid ground balls,occurs in the chapter, "A Hot Finish," with the result that balls rebound atin Frank Merriwell at Yale. Although great distances. When they slid, it wasonly a freshman, young Frank has been "like an ironclad coming into port." promoted to the Yale varsity baseball In the nineteenth century, though, theteam. Yale and Harvard have each won dime novel was the leading source ofone game in their annual series, and the early baseball fiction. Among the mostdeciding contest is to be held at Spring- popular and important were Muldoon'sfield,Massachusetts,neutralground. Baseball Club in Philadelphia, by TomMerriwell, relatively untried in varsity Teaser (Wide Awake Library No. 971),competition, must pitch the crucial game published in 1890, a hilarious novel de-because Old Eli's regular varsity hurler scribing games between Muldoon's Irishhas a sore arm. Baseball Club and the "Gold Ball Club," The tension mounts as Merriwell and Harry Wright's Athletics, the German-the clever Harvard pitcher keep the town Guzzlers, and others; and Yaleopponents scoreless for five innings. In BASEBALL IN AMERICANFICTION 1109 the sixth Harvard scores a run(on errors,the summers of 1890 and 1891. Among of course), and the game goesinto thehis players were the famous BillCorrigan last half of the ninth withYale stillof the Boston Red Sox and Mike Powers shut out. Then, with two outand a manof the Cincinnati Reds. However, it was on first, Merriwellfaces the Harvardin the "College Life Series," written pitcher, Yedding, who laughs inhis faceunder his own name, that Patten pro- (Yedding had previously performedthe duced his best baseball fiction. The novels rare feat ofstriking Frank out). Withcenter on Roger Boltwoodof Yale. In a count of twoand two, Merriwellthe best of the lot, Sons of OldEli drives the next pitch to deep leftfield, (1923), Boltwood takes over as playing and with "every man, woman, andchildmanager of a minor-league team.Not standing" and with much shoutingandonly are the dialogue and the situations waving of "flags, hats, or handkerchiefs,"more realistic, butthe book is an inter- he scurries around the bases andslidesesting study of the impact of a ball team home in a cloud of dust. Then,afteron the life of a small townand is free sudden silence: from the moralizing of the Merriwell novels. Boltwood even smokes cigars. "Safe home!" rang óe voice of the Rivalling Patten's baseball fiction in umpire. Then anotherroar,louder,popularity was the "Baseball Joe" series wilder,fullof unbounded joy! Theof Lester Chadwick (the pseudonymof Yale cheer! The band drowned byall Edward Stratemeyer, a prolific writer the uproar! The sight of sturdy ladsof books for boys, who turned out the in blue, deliriiyus with delight, hugging a Tom Swift series under the pseudonym dust-covered youth, lifting him to theirof Victor Appleton and the famous shoulders, and bearing him away inRover Boy books under the name of triumph. Merriwell had won his ownArthur M. 'Winfield, plus other series game, and his record wasmade. It wasin his spare time). The fourteen Base- a gloriousfinish! ball Joe novels, which appeared over a span oftwenty-three years from before Inspiteoftheirpopularity,theWorld War I to the 1920's, trace the Merriwell stories have serious weaknessescareer of Joe Matsonfrom the sandlots stock characterization, stilted dialogue,to the Giants andultimately to club improbable situations, and heavy moral-ownership. Joe also made a stop at Yale izing lessen their literary value.
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