The images seem worlds apart. In one, from 1954 (above), three scrawny kids play catch on the jagged rubble of a vacant lot in East Harlem—an innocent diversion that at any moment could turn into bloody knees and twisted ankles. In the other, from 1955, Joe DiMaggio and Marilyn Monroe, already divorced, walk together on the red carpet—a symbol of how success and celebrity don’t make for stability. These pictures of East Harlem grit and Hollywood glitz, on display in the Library of Congress’s new exhibition on baseball, illustrate the unifying role of America’s pastime—a role it has played for generations but that may be endangered today.
Although the Library of Congress isn’t near the top of the must-see list for most tourists who come to the nation’s capital, visitors who manage to locate the second-floor room in the Jefferson Building where “Baseball Americana” is housed will find a wide-ranging assortment of memorabilia, pictures, and documents from the Baseball Hall of Fame, private collections, and the library’s own archives.
The displays are arranged in a ring around a single densely packed room. Interspersed among the displays are monitors playing footage of famous games and moments from baseball history. The first two of these monitors flank the entryway to the exhibition; one shows stolen bases on a loop and the other dazzling defensive plays. To anyone who follows baseball closely, these will induce some nostalgia. Styles of play have changed; base-stealing and sharp defense have taken a backseat these days. So fans of a traditionalist bent may start off the exhibition already bothered by the question of baseball’s continuity.
And this question is well-justified. The sport is now characterized by a highly polarized, all-or-nothing style, as pitchers aim only to throw hard and hitters aim only to hit hard. And if that didn’t make traditionalist types nervous enough, Major League Baseball commissioner Rob Manfred has responded by proposing rule changes, such as giving teams free baserunners in extra-inning games and outlawing defensive shifts. Some of the classic moments that “Baseball Americana” showcases on its monitors wouldn’t have happened had Manfred’s rule changes been in effect. Aaron Boone couldn’t have hit a heroic walk-off extra-inning homer in the 2003 ALCS had David Ortiz’s double the previous inning scored Boston’s free baserunner. Ortiz’s walk-off home run in Game 4 of the following year’s ALCS would have been similarly preempted. One might reasonably ask whether all this adds up to a historic game losing touch with its history.
The show’s curators know that continuity is exactly the question that needs to be addressed. Aside from a few displays on the origins of the sport, the show takes a thematic (rather than chronological) approach, drawing together items from across time and space. Baseball, the message seems to be, may differ in styles of management, in the composition of rosters, in the shape of equipment—but these are all superficialities. The fundamental character of the sport remains intact.
One of the strongest displays features Branch Rickey’s 1954 scouting report on an 18-year-old Don Drysdale, which describes the youngster as possessing “a lot of artistry” and mentions his academic record (“almost a straight A”). This document is placed alongside a precisely detailed 1989 batting chart for Eddie Murray. The two radically different approaches to player evaluation, one seemingly imprecise and instinctual, the other modern and analytical, remind viewers that baseball has the capacity for both, and that neither approach captures the whole picture on its own.
Paradoxically, the show’s riches sometimes render it incoherent. Why is a pair of Babe Ruth’s shoes displayed under the heading “The Business of Baseball”? What does Ty Cobb’s 1908 contract with the Detroit Tigers have to do with the rest of the display on the origins of softball and the Negro Leagues?
Still, when the exhibition excels, the secret to baseball’s endurance comes into focus. Well-chosen inscriptions hint at the sport’s connection to something beyond itself. Herbert Hoover, we read in one display, declared that “next to religion, baseball has furnished a greater impact on American life than any other institution.” Nearby is Rabbi Michael Paley’s comment on Sandy Koufax not pitching in the World Series on Yom Kippur: “He didn’t see the burden of his identity. He saw the possibility of it.”
The show also explores the meaning of American opportunity: A 1935 songbook cover bears the endorsing smile of Lou Gehrig, a precursor of today’s sports-celebrity culture. Fernando Valenzuela appears mid-windup on a 1985 magazine cover with the caption “Making his Way in the U.S.A.,” touting baseball as a force for assimilation. There are suggestions, too, of the darker side of American success—not just the DiMaggio-Monroe photo, but also artifacts of long-dead leagues (like the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League) squeezed out by competition for fans, and references to the bad old days of the last decade or two when performance-enhancing drugs corrupted the game.
Even if, as many traditionalist fans worry, baseball management has been overrun by stat-headed bureaucrats and wealthy owners, with unsubtle play dominated by hard-swinging sluggers and hard-throwing fireballers, we need not fear that the sport will cease to be itself. Baseball’s endurance does not come from internal consistency in styles of play or a stable set of rules—though the sport has often benefited from both—but from a close connection to American culture, history, and values. Like America at its best, baseball offers opportunity for new life as well as a sense of home. The Irish-American writer Colum McCann put it well, in a line quoted in one of the displays: “No other game can so solidly confirm the fact that you are in the United States, yet bring you home to your original country at the same time.”
“Baseball Americana” is at the Library of Congress through summer 2019.
