The Books: Baseball: A Literary Anthology; “Baseball as the Bleachers Like It”, by Charles E. Van Loan

On the essays shelf (yes, there are still more books to excerpt in my vast library. I can’t seem to stop this excerpts-from-my-library project. I started it in 2006!)

NEXT BOOK: Baseball: A Literary Anthology

To my Mets fans readers, I am so sorry.

Baseball: A Literary Anthology is a goldmine. Many of the pieces are the famous ones that every baseball fan knows. John Updike’s piece on Fenway/Ted Williams, one of the most famous pieces of baseball writing ever. Damon Runyon. Ring Lardner. Moe Berg’s incredible essay on pitchers and catchers. Roger Angell, the most well-known and well-loved baseball writer ever? Don DeLillo’s 52-page opener to Underworld. (In fact, I would suggest that one ONLY reads the opening 52 pages in that tiresome book.) Then there are things dug out of archives from the late 19th century. Or the early 20th century, when sports writing was a relatively new phenomenon. And baseball even newer. One of my favorite essayists is William Hazlitt, born in 1778, born into an age of revolution. He wrote about politics and monarchy and Shakespeare. But he also was fascinated by “sport.” He wrote about jugglers. He wrote an essay about a boxing match he traveled to witness.) What is interesting about Hazlitt was that at the time he was writing, sport was seen as a “low” form of entertainment and definitely not worthy of a writer’s attention. Hoity-toity response: “You cannot expect people to take you seriously if you keep writing essays about circus performers and pugilists, my good man.” But people loved Hazlitt’s sports writing, because they came from the unwashed hoi polloi (or who knows, maybe they were washed, but I doubt it), and this was how they unwound after a hard days’ work, circuses and boxing and games. Hazlitt’s critics saw his focus on sport as a degradation of the form. I don’t know if that attitude lasted through the 18th and 19th century (I am not an expert), but lively vigorous sportswriting, that counts as literature, is a relatively new phenomenon.

This anthology has dug up gems of writing in places you might miss. Or, a typical baseball fan might miss. For instance, did you know that Marianne Moore, the First Lady of American Poetry in the 20th century, was a voracious baseball fan? Her passion and presence at games was so well-known that she was asked to throw out the first pitch in the 1968 World Series. This event resulted in a couple of my favorite photographs ever.

The Brooklyn Dodgers were her team, and she went to all the games, a little old lady wearing a black hat with netting coming down over her face, keeping her scorecard up to date. The fellows around her often under-estimated her, because she didn’t look the part, and the guys would patiently explain what was happening on the field to her. She would then decimate them with an insightful comment about the batting average of so-and-so, and her issues with the effectiveness of the pitcher’s breaking ball, and etc. The poor men would cower, and then embrace her as one of their own. She wrote a great poem about baseball, included in the anthology, but baseball imagery shows up in all of her writing. The anthology includes excerpts from Stephen King (noted Red Sox fan), Amiri Baraka, Carl Sandberg, William Carlos Williams, and more. Excerpts from oral histories, including the one where the writer tracked down the mostly-forgotten players in the old Negro Leagues (many of whom have since been admitted into the Baseball Hall of Fame – belatedly, yes, but now they’re THERE.) The anthology is a lot of fun to flip through; as with most anthologies it’s not meant to be read cover-to-cover (although you could go that way too.)

The anthology starts with songs and poems. “Casey at the Bat,” by Ernest Thayer. (Once, when I was babysitting my nephew Cashel – who just turned 18 – I read to him before he went to bed. He was 4 years old. I pulled out “Casey at the Bat,” which was required reading in my family, and we all could recite it from memory, and said, “What about this one?” Cashel looked at the book and shook his small head. “It’s too sad.” Yes, Cashel. It is too sad. The tragedy of the ages is in that poem.) The lyrics to “Take Me Out to the Ballgame.” Other ditties and poems from baseball’s earliest age.

Charles E. Van Loan was a screenwriter (he also directed one film in 1915) as well as a hugely popular sportswriter, maybe the first in this country to reach a wide audience. Baseball was picking up steam as the national pastime. Van Loan was born in 1876. He got his start in a couple of Los Angeles papers, and then moved to New York, where he got a gig as a sportswriter for a couple of different outlets. But it was his gig at The Saturday Evening Post, with its gigantic readership, that gave him the national platform. He and Damon Runyon were roommates. So picture that. Van Loan didn’t just write about baseball, he wrote about golf and horse-racing and boxing, as well as show business. One of those fascinating men that America could produce once upon a time and not so much now, a time when people were better-educated in general, and when education was not rigidified into limited specializations. Van Loan became an editor, and he was the guy who edited Ring Lardner’s humorous baseball-sketches that eventually became the baseball classic You Know Me Al.

In 1909, he wrote the following essay, “Baseball as the Bleachers Like It” for Outing magazine. It’s one of the earliest examples of not only analysis of the nuts-and-bolts of baseball, but an analysis of the fan-base. On a deeper level, Van Loan is after an expression of something much more ethereal, something that has obsessed baseball writers ever since. What is it about baseball?? WHY? If you’re a writer, you do not take your obsession for granted. You do not think the question “Why?” is shallow, insulting, or not of worthy your time. Non-writers may not understand this because they take the obsession for granted and get pissed when they are asked to explain themselves. But “Why??” is the writer’s WAY IN. I mean, I can relate to that from all my writings on my obsessions. Yes, everyone knows Cary Grant is great. Yes, everyone loves Elvis. Yes, Supernatural is wonderful and its fanbase is insanely devoted. But the really interesting question, and the challenge for a writer, is Why? Sometimes you must break a whole down into its parts in order to try to understand. That’s where you write from, and that’s where Van Loan is writing from here.

Van Loan gives a feel for the event of a baseball game as a whole. The ticket-taker. The folks in the grandstand. But he’s interested in the raucous wise-cracking trash-talking bleachers, where he always sits. “The true baseball fan sits on the bleachers, trimmed down to his shirt sleeves. No wire nettings in front of him, if you please. Why is he there day after day? … What is the lure of this mighty magnet – this thing, half sport, half business, which draws its millions of dollars every year?”

Van Loan goes into the game itself, what happens out there on that green diamond, the “problems” faced by the players that hold the fans in thrall. Ninth inning. 1-0. A battle of the pitchers, clearly. (I recently went to a Yankee-White Sox game which was a similar situation. Nothing happened because of those pitchers, and it was thrilling. Although “battle of the pitchers” games can be static to the point where all the players look like un-moving statues on the field, there is a different kind of thrill in that sort of game. The monumental psychological and physical battle going on between two determined pitchers on two opposing sides.) Van Loan calls such games “a very scientific contest.” Van Loan keeps his eye on the field, but he also keeps an eye on the cigar-chewing men around him, their mutters and murmurs, their groans, their sudden-tense stillness. With all that scientific stillness on the field, the fans understand what is really happening: A melodrama is unfolding right before their eyes. This is why baseball really requires an “insider” perspective. To an outsider, it appears boring. Like nothing is happening. At ALL. Where’s the overt jostle/strategy of football? Where’s the spectacle of galloping giants pounding up and down the court in basketball, a move, a play a minute? Why are those guys just standing there? Where are the home runs? The grand slams? Etc. There isn’t even a stop-watch on the damn thing to up the tension. But to an “insider,” such a game – well, all games – but “battle of pitchers” games are the best example of the challenges of baseball – is thrilling and tense, on an almost purely psychological level. What we are seeing out there is world-class skill: not letting anyone get on base, not only not letting anybody score, but not letting anybody even be in a POSITION to score. Do you know how hard that is? What is more dramatic than that?

In Van Loan’s multi-part essay are also two portraits of players who appeared to come from out of nowhere, leaping into the sport as full-blown natural phenomenons, Hal Chase and Ty Cobb. What is it that makes a great baseball player? A natural one. A combination of speed, and quick-thinking, and a three-dimensional understanding of spatial relationships. The best guys know all this without thinking. They only have three-tenths of a second to react, and in that three-tenths of a second they have to understand parabolae, rate of travel, depth of field … there are so many elements that go into making successful plays.

One of my favorite quotes in this regard was a casual remark from onetime Red Sox player Coco Crisp, when he was asked post-game how he made this incredibly flying-leap catch. Check it out.

Ty Cobb, of course, was one of the greatest baseball players to ever play the game, and he set a couple of records that lasted for 50 years. And some of his records (like stealing home base, or stealing 2nd/3rd/home in succession) still stand, unbroken to this day.

While I love nerds of all stripes (I don’t care if you’re obsessed with moon rocks, ballet, or the history of brick-laying in America: I think you are AWESOME for being obsessed about anything and I want to hear all you know), there is something special about baseball nerds. Maybe because I come from a family of baseball nerds. People who can rattle off statistics without looking them up. I come from a Red Sox family, but the stats knowledge is not (of course) limited to one team. We have had long discussions about the most unbreakable record in baseball (Example here). We discuss, we argue, we contemplate. A movie like Fastball (which I saw and loved at Tribeca this year) is MANNA for a baseball fan. Its focus is narrow, as the title suggests, but the best part was all these old-timer players, pitchers and batters, talking about facing off against such-and-such pitcher. These old-time guys still trembled at the thought of facing Nolan Ryan. And so, in terms of Ty Cobb, let’s take a look at the Baseball Almanac’s page recording the stats for stealing second, third, and home. If you’ll notice in that first chart, Ty Cobb is the only name that appears four times.

Back to Cobb: He was universally despised due to his horrible personality, and was constantly being thrown out of ball clubs. and it is rare that anybody anywhere has had anything good to say about him as a human being. This is only a problem if you are a person who requires professional athletes to be role models. Sure, it’s nice when they are. But whatever, who cares. Ty Cobb was a thoroughbred of the sport. And a ferocious competitor.

Here’s that great famous photograph of Ty Cobb sliding into third base during the 1909 season, coincidentally the same year as this essay.

So finally, after all that, just in time for the ending of the 2015 baseball season, let’s hear what Charles E. Van Loan had to say about Ty Cobb’s style of play and reputation in 1909.

Excerpt from Baseball: A Literary Anthology, edited by Nicholas Davidoff. “Baseball as the Bleachers Like It”, by Charles E. Van Loan

Tyrus was born in Georgia and early decided to be a semi-professional ball player. The difference between a professional and a semi-professional is that the former has a stated salary and always gets it, while the latter takes what he can get when he can get it.

Young Cobb walked six miles in the hot sun to play his first “money” game. When the receipts had been counted, Cobb’s share was one dollar and twenty-five cents. He walked six miles to his home and on the way decided that there was a future in professional baseball.

The Charleston team secured him. He was a wild, erratic youngster who could bat like a demon, but never knew when to stop running bases. It is just as important to know when to stop running as it is to know when to begin. He gained the reputation of a crazy base runner and Charleston sold him to Augusta for one hundred and fifty dollars and was glad to get the money.

Augusta tried him and found the same fault. He could hit, but he was wild and discipline irked him. He was a firebrand on the team and he would fight on the field or off. Ty won and lost several battles with the Augusta players and then the management sold him to Detroit for seven hundred dollars – the greatest bargain in the history of the game.

In Detroit young Mr. Cobb, the firebrand, found men who made baseball a study. It was a slugging team, but mixed with the hitting was the judgment which wins games. The players took a hand in taming that hot Southern blood. They argued with him, but as Ty wold rather fight than argue, most of the debates ended on the floor of the dressing room. Those cool, seasoned veterans of the Tier team knew that in Cobb they had a phenomenon, so they went at him methodically, literally “licking him into shape.” Some of them fought him more than once. Even to this day McIntyre plays left field and Cobb right field, because it is necessary to keep these two stars as far apart as possible.

Cobb has lost most of his rough edges. He has gone out of the rough-and-tumble business; he sheds no more blood in defense of his principles. He knows when to quit running bases, hits the ball hard and often, and makes doubles on hits which any other man would call legitimate singles.

He is as fast as a thunderbolt on the lines and the most daring man on a slide that baseball has seen in many a day. His slim, wiry legs are covered with bruises from April to October and he is always slightly lame until he hits the ball; then he forgets his soreness. Absolutely fearless, of great hitting ability, and a fighter every inch, Cobb is one of the great drawing cards in the baseball of to-day.