The Iowa Review
Volume 11
Issue 2 Spring-Summer
1980
America's "Hurrah Game": Baseball and Walt
Whitman
Lowell Edwin Folsom
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Folsom, Lowell Edwin. "America's "Hurrah Game": Baseball and Walt Whitman." The Iowa Review 11.2 (1980): 68-80. Web.
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Article 7
America's
Whitman
"Hurrah
Game":
Baseball
and Walt
Lowell Edwin Folsom
to
Passage
Thou
India!
. . .
rondure of the world
?Walt
Whitman,
at last
accomplish'd.
"Passage
to
India"
1 8 8 8 - 8 9, American
IN THE
OF
WINTER
baseball set out on its
own passage to India. Albert G.
to become the
later
Spalding,
sporting goods
effort" to the
magnate, decided it was time to make a "Base Ball missionary
was
his
for
baseball
enthusiasm
his
unbounded:
world;
(like
alliteration)
I claim
the fact
that Base Ball owes its prestige as our National Game
that as no other form of sport it is the exponent
to
of
American
American Dash,
Combativeness;
Courage, Confidence,
American
Energy, Eagerness, Enthusiasm;
Discipline, Determination;
American Pluck, Persistency, Performance; American Spirit, Sagacity,
Success; American
Vim, Vigor,
Virility.
"Base Ball," concluded Spalding, "is a democratic game." Spalding's later life
was dedicated
sure that baseball would
as
to
forever be perceived
making
conceived, developed, and originally played only in the
pristinely American:
United States. He helped create the Abner Doubleday/Cooperstown
immaculate
of
baseball
and
the
of
baseball's
tainted
creation-myth
heresy
conception
fought
(that it had been fathered by the English children's game of "Rounders"). And
he believed it was baseball's manifest destiny to export the American way of
life to the rest of the earth. So as winter
in 1888,
descended on America
to
decided
his
successful
White
up
Spalding
pack
Chicago
Stockings along
with a team of National
the rondure of the
League all-stars and accomplish
world.
baseball teams had once traveled to England in 1874, but this tour
be the first that faced west from California's
shores. Starting from
teams
to San Francisco.
across
the
continent
the
their
way
Chicago,
played
a
Then they steamed on to Hawaii, where
arrived
they
day late, and Sunday
blue laws prevented their game from being held. The teams had more success
in New Zealand and Australia, where the emulous shouts of thousands cheered
them on, and where Spalding announced to the players that they would indeed
sail further: completely
around the world. They did play in Ceylon, but just
missed completing
that
their true passage to India when
they were warned
Calcutta was unhealthy; prudently they bypassed that country and traveled on
as a
through the Suez Canal. In Egypt, they used one of the Great Pyramids
American
would
68
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In Italy they attempted to play
as a
backstop), but the Italian
refused, despite Spalding's offer of $5,000. From there it was on
government
to Paris and a game in the shadows of the Eiffel Tower, then to
England where
the Prince ofWales politely watched a game and then diplomatically
responded:
"I consider Base Ball an excellent game; but Cricket a better one." Arriving
a Delmonico's
were
the world-travellers
back in New York,
greeted with
dinner attended by such celebrities asMark Twain and future-President Theodore
a game in the desert.
backstop while playing
monument
in the Colosseum
(with Caesar's
Roosevelt.
The baseball ambassadors, relaxed and triumphant, now played their way
across the East back to
for a game
stopping off first in Philadelphia
Chicago,
in Camden, Walt Whitman
had
and a banquet. Across the Delaware River
tour
teams
been following
the
steamed into New
closely. On the day after the
discussed
York harbor and were greeted by hundreds of well-wishers, Whitman
the tour with his young friend, Horace Tr?ubel: "Did you see the baseball boys
are home from their tour around the world? How I 'd like to meet them?talk
the
with
them: maybe ask them some questions!" This desire to talk with
in America's
athletes who,
name, had saluted the world, was an appropriate
a
reaction for Whitman.
He had, after all, maintained
lifelong interest in
baseball, an interest that is significant because his adult life exactly coincides?
and temporally?with
of American
baseball
the development
geographically
with
the
from its birth to itsmaturity. Whitman,
sport, eventually
growing up
came to see baseball as an essential
for America.
metaphor
it was born in 1845 with
of The
the formation
Baseball as we know
Club in New York, where the first recognizable baseball rules
Knickerbocker
were set down in
a
new rule that
writing,
key
including
prohibited throwing
at
runner
in order to put him out. This change immediately
the ball
the
allowed for the use of the hard, lively ball that altered the nature of the game
drastically?speeding
things up, increasing distances, requiring quicker reflexes,
a children's game into a
and promptly
sport.
turning
full-fledged
On June 19, 1846, the Knickerbockers
played the first game of baseball
new rules) at Elysian Fields in Hoboken. And only a month
later
(under the
Whitman,
young editor of The Brooklyn Daily Eagle, wrote an editorial on
"Brooklyn
Young
Men?Athletic
Exercises":
"In
our
sun-down
perambulations,
of late, through the outer parts of Brooklyn, we have observed several parties
of youngsters playing 'base,' a certain game of ball. We wish such sights were
more common among us. In the practice of athletic and
manly sports the young
more so than
of nearly all our American cities are very deficient?perhaps
can
even
could
be
mentioned."
One
other
that
this early on,
see,
any
country
more than forty years laterWhitman
would
be
excited
and
why
proud about
to the world
their athletic
America's manly baseball players demonstrating
men
skills. For in this early editorial Whitman
exhorts
the youth
of the country
69
to
. . .Let us
go forth awhile,
a little.
"enjoy life
Let
us
leave
our
. . ." Exercise
rooms.
close
was
and get better air in our lungs.
essential
for
success
on
the open
from the start was most attracted
road, and of all the forms of sport,Whitman
to the young game of baseball: "The game of ball is glorious. . . ."As baseball
was born, then, it
was bound up in Whitman's
mind with
immediately
he
would
endorse
his
whole
al
fresco
health.
manliness,
qualities
life?vigor,
Whitman
followed his own advice; he was himself an avid player. His
brother George recalled that while Walt
generally "cared little for sport," he
still "was an old-fashioned ballplayer and entered into a game heartily enough."
or
that Walt
By "old-fashioned,"
George probably meant
played "softball"
was sometimes called "Town Ball" or "Boston
baseball?what
pre-Knickerbocker
Ball" (since, inMassachusetts,
that form of the game remained more popular
than the hardball version until after the Civil War). Whitman
had plenty of
some version of "Town Ball" with his students while he
to
opportunity
play
was
on Long Island in the 1830's.
school
teaching
In any case, baseball teams multiplied
in New York and
and flourished
a decade
after
the
Knickerbockers
Within
started.
got things
Brooklyn
Brooklyn
had four outstanding clubs?the
Excelsiors, Putnams, Eckfords, and Atlantics?
and there were over twenty-five well-organized
clubs in the New York City
area. Indeed, this
version
hardball
of the game came to
increasingly popular
be known as "New York baseball." It had begun as a gentlemen's
game, but
its demands proved to be democratic;
the game insisted on conditioning
and
men
not
on
social
became
skill,
young
breeding. Strong working-class
quickly
in the club
involved, sometimes as "ringers" secretly paid by the gentlemen
to
Then
their
improve
entire
to win?the
chances
clubs
working-class
first
were
hints
started
of
in
"professional"
the
1850's,
many
baseball.
formed
to
their own club, the barkeepers
firemen with
according
occupation?the
a Scottish
with theirs. Harry Eckford of Brooklyn,
immigrant and shipbuilder,
a young group of mechanics
into the very first
molded
and shipwrights
and
club,
working-class
named
them,
of
course,
the
Eckfords.
By the 1860's, the best teams were primarily made up of immigrants and
men. A
team, in fact, sounds like something
working
typical early Brooklyn
Whitman
would have approved of and had faith in; David Voigt, in American
Baseball, describes
The
pitcher
the players:
was
a former
the infielders worked
stonemason;
the catcher,
a
postal
employee;
as
compositor, machinist,
shipping clerk, and
were
two
the
without
outfielders,
compositor. Among
previous job
as a
compositor. The team substitute
experience and the other worked
once worked as a
glass blower.
The
70
occupations
listed on early team rosters often
read like aWhitmanesque
catalogue
Myself,"
printers,
America. And it is not surprising that in "Song of
of working-class
we
after
have been through a catalogue of carpenters, pilots, farmers,
machinists,
canal
paving-men,
boys,
and
we
conductors,
come
upon
an
(in the vast catalogue of canto 33)
image of baseball. At this point, Whitman
is "afoot with
vision,"
spanning the continent with his poetic catalogue,
[his]
when he records a refreshing group of manly pursuits:
Upon
the race-course,
of base-ball,
At he-festivals,
with
bull-dances,
or
enjoying
blackguard
picnics
gibes,
laughter
drinking,
or
or a
jigs
ironical
...
good game
license,
So, in 1855, baseball is clearly one of the things Whitman
enjoys, and is also
one of the distinctive
and identifying
elements of the American
experience
that he finds worth
into
the
of
himself.
song
up and
Growing
absorbing
in Brooklyn, working and living and walking
inManhattan, Whitman
working
as a sport and
it was developing
found himself in the cradle of baseball while
as an institution. And as an editor of several local newspapers, Whitman
of
course functioned as roving local reporter and at times covered sports. He was
one of our first baseball writers. One of his
with box score?
stories?complete
is preserved, an 1858 article he wrote while editing The Brooklyn Daily Times.
The opening line indicates the frequency with which Whitman
attended ball
"The
between
the
and
Putnam
Atlantic
clubs,
games:
game played yesterday
on the
was one of the finest and most
grounds of the latter Club,
exciting games
we
ever
witnessed."
Whitman's
is a careful
account
one,
summarizing
the
team
and analyzing
the effects of injuries on the hapless Putnam
were disabled in the course of the game; protective
two
catchers
who
(including
action
equipment
wouldn't
make
its appearance
for
another
twenty
years).
He
concludes,
as usual,
"The Atlantics,
their reputation
played splendidly, and maintained
as the
can
We
Whitman
would
Club."
admire the
Champion
imagine why
a club
of
with
outdoor
Atlantics,
Brooklyn
composed
workingmen
jobs, and
a club that
same
to
into
existence
Leaves
the
Grassdid.
year
spring
of
happened
These robust players dominated New York-area baseball for years, and gave
the reputation of having the best baseball in the country.
Brooklyn
went to
When Whitman
D.C., at the end of 1862 to look for
Washington,
in the war, baseball had preceded
his brother George, who had been wounded
had formed its first two clubs, the Potomacs and the
him. In 1859Washington
both made up of government
clerks. Their home field was literally
Nationals,
was not a member of either of
the backyard of theWhite
House. Whitman
these teams, but as a clerk himself (first in the Indian Bureau of the Department
of the Interior, then in the Attorney General's office), he may well have joined
in more informal games. His young companion Pete Doyle recalls Walt
in the
71
was
1860's: "How different Walt
in
later
...
years!
He
was
an
then inWashington
athlete?great,
great."
from theWalt
Whether
or not
you knew
he
played,
to John
in the summer of
though, he certainly watched. He wrote
Burroughs
am
around more
1866 of his activit?s: "I
feeling hearty and in good spirits?go
than
to such
usual?go
doings
as base-ball
matches.
..."
The
previous
summer,
was
the Nationals
had hosted a big inter-city
and Whitman
tournament,
one of the 6000 fans there. All government
let
off
clerks
had
been
probably
and even
from work so they could cheer on the clerk-players of the Nationals,
wrote
about the game to one of the
Andrew Johnson attended. Whitman
soldiers he had nursed: "There was a big match played here yesterday between
a
two baseball clubs, one from
club?&
Philadelphia & the other Washington
to come off between a New York & the
is
another
club
to-day
Philadelphia
I believe?thousands
go to see them play?." The "New York" club Whitman
refers to was actually the Brooklyn Atlantics,
the same team he had covered
a few years before. In fact, the three teams in the
tournament?Brooklyn,
out to represent nicely
and Philadelphia?turned
the span of
Washington,
where
had
where
Whitman's
he
he now
lived,
life?Brooklyn,
Washington,
across the river from where he would
his
final
lived, and Philadelphia,
spend
nineteen
years.
The Civil War, of course, had a tremendous impact on baseball. Some clubs
war
or reduced
operations as their players entered service. But in the
suspended
an
was
it
in
the
Civil
baseball
War,
itself,
fact,
important role;
played
during
that it became the "National game." The "New York" version of baseball
soldiers; it was frequently played in camp, and after
caught on among Union
the war
the
soldiers
took
it home
with
them.
Older
versions
of
the
sport
gave
York baseball, which became firmly entrenched as the American
way
the war, itwas already popular; a Christmas game in 1862 drew
game. During
to New
soldiers
40,000
as
spectators.
Teams
from
some
Union
regiments,
passing
even
And Whitman
Nationals.
played the Washington
through the capital,
could only have admired his hero-President, Lincoln, all the more for Lincoln's
own love of the game?he
it as well. Confederate
played baseball, and watched
even
was
too.
in
the
Baseball
game,
troops played
prison camps, with
played
on
sometimes
Union
their Confederate
prisoners
taking
guards. And Albert
Spalding makes the claim that, during lulls in battles, Union and Confederate
troops occasionally
played each other! Spalding, in another of his alliterative
flourishes,
expresses
awe
over
baseball's
effect
on
the war:
human mind may measure the blessings conferred by the game
of Base Ball on the soldiers of the Civil War. A National Game?
no country on the face of the earth ever had a form of sport
Why,
with so dear a title to that distinction. Base Ball had been born in
that
the brain of an American
soldier
reference to the myth
[in
No
72
Abner Doubleday
invented the game]. It received its baptism in
our Nation's direst
of
bloody days
danger. It had its early evolution
when soldiers, North and South, were striving to forget their foes
by cultivating,
through this grand game, fraternal friendship with
at the time when
comrades in arms. It had its best development
Southern soldiers, disheartened by distressing defeat, were seeking
the solace of something
safe and sane; at a time when Northern
to turn from
soldiers, flushed with victory, were yet willing
fighting
with bombs and bullets to playing with bat and ball. It was a
to the
on one
panacea for the pangs and humiliation
vanquished
side,
and
a
sedative
against
on the other. It healed
memories.
the
the wounds
natural
exuberance
of
the
victors
of war, and was balm to stinging
. . .
on and on,
the sport as a transcendent
finally envisioning
Spalding goes
us
a
all
"to
future
of
"beacon," lighting
perpetual peace."
Bloated as these claims sound, they are in line with those made by many
own
and at any rate they hardly outdo Whitman's
right after the Civil War,
see
in the significance of the game: "I
theWar,
great
growing faith, following
our
our
in
It
American
it's
will
take
baseball;
game.
things
game?the
people
out of doors, fill them with oxygen, give them a
larger physical stoicism. Tend
a
a nervous,
to relieve us from
being
dyspeptic set, repair these losses, and be
to us." Here Whitman
concerns
his
with
persistent
blessing
brings together
and preservation of the Union. Baseball was one
health, American originality,
force that could affirm America's "transcendental Union"
called
(asWhitman
was
one
America
and
the
the
also
bless
post-war fragile bonding;
sport
it)
thing
could claim as her own; it was non-European,
the American game, grown out
of this soil.
Even as his own health declined, Whitman's
interest in baseball never
waned. Nationwide
after the Civil War, baseball became increasingly popular
in 1867 headed in
and increasingly professional. The Washington
Nationals
the direction of the frontier by sponsoring the first baseball trans-Allegheny
tour; they played as far west as St. Louis. Their resounding defeat of the
team led toHarry Wright's
Cincinnati
founding the Cincinnati Red Stockings
team. For over a year
in 1869, the first all-professional,
fully-salaried
Wright's
team toured the country and was undefeated from New York to San Francisco.
in 1876, the National League was formed and modern-day
baseball was
one
As
the
rule
evolved,
game
underway.
particular
though,
change bothered
concern
in May of 1889; Thomas
Whitman.
Tr?ubel
records Whitman's
Harned, a devoted friend, had come to seeWalt after attending a baseball game,
at the chance to talk about the state of the sport:
andWhitman
jumped
Then
73
want to ask you a
Tell me, Tom?I
question: in base-ball is it the
rule that the fellow who pitches the ball aims to pitch it in such
a way the batter cannot hit it? Gives it a twist?what
not?so
it
or
won't be struck fairly?
slides off,
affirmed that this indeed was the case, andWhitman's
response indicates
the game even if he was now too debilitated
how carefully he still followed
Harned
to attend:
the modern rule then, is it? I thought something of the
read the papers about it?it seemed to indicate that there.
Eh? That's
kind?I
The rule that concerned Whitman
has to do with the way the ball could
rule forbade the throwing of the ball;
be pitched. The original Knickerbocker
so that the batter could
to
the
ball
be
had
instead,
pitched underhand, smoothly,
over
it.
hit
This rule had been refined
the years, first requiring that the hand
not be raised above the
hip, then requiring only that the hand pass below the
as the ball was
then only below the waist,
then the shoulder
pitched,
hip
was
for
side-arm
the
then,
(allowing
pitching). Originally,
pitcher's function
to
one
to put the ball in
the
hitter
hit
it;
player usually
play by allowing
simply
as the skills of the
more refined, the
pitched all the games. But
players became
more strategic. In 1884 the National League removed all
pitcher's role became
restrictions on a pitcher's delivery. The curve ball, which
had
occasionally
in the 1870's, now became a requisite skill.
been accomplished underhand-style
was
however,
Whitman,
change
as endemic
into
everywhere
"Democratic
roundly,"
"The
can
snake,
the
hear
echoes
of
to Harned,
the
cur,
new
this
sneak
all
the
saw
and
skill
anger
and
rule
entered
of
despair
the custom
"denouncing]
seem
the
he saw creeping
and lack of openness
in his response
tells us:
as Tr?ubel
the
with
impressed
we
America;
Vistas"
wolf,
not
of the deception
into
the
I ought not to say that, for a snake is
modern
sportsman?though
a snake because he is born so, and man the snake for other reasons,
it may be said." And again he went over the catalogue?"I
should
call it everything
that is damnable."
seems
Harned is described as "amused" atWhitman's
response, but Whitman
on
some
earnest.
matter
in
time and
He has obviously had the
his mind for
has engaged in some lively debate about it: "I have made it a point to put the
seems no doubt but that
same
question to several fellows lately. There certainly
your
version
Whitman
74
is
right,
keeps hoping
for
that
is
the
someone will
version
everyone
"say it ain't so," will
gives
me."
It's
affirm for him
as
if
that
baseball remains the fair and open and democratic game that he recalled it to
be.Whitman
already sensed the dangers that would come: the game becoming
the pampered pitcher rising above his teammates and playing
anti-democratic,
once every five
so
come to pass that?with
the
days or
(indeed, it has
only
and
of
hundred-mile
screwballs, forkballs, knuckleballs,
arm-mangling magic
is now the
an-hour fastballs?pitching
factor in the game).
predominant
to
hold on to an idyllic vision
Despite his fears, though, Whitman
managed
as
of the game?baseball
the best of
essentially bound up with
something
one of his
America. Tr?ubel,
for example,
recalls Whitman
about
talking
favorite topics in the last years?the
idea of "free Sundays," with no blue law
restrictions
on
activities:
Talking of Sunday agitation generally and Gloucester
[New Jersey]
baseball in particular W.
said: "I believe in all that?in
baseball,
in picnics, in freedom: I believe in the jolly all-around time?with
the parsons and the police eliminated."
the same summer, Tr?ubel records that "W. believes in 'free Sundays.
'"
The boys should have their ball or any frolic they choose. . . . Whitman
here
an
to
voice
what
would
become
American
clich?:
"Baseball,
gives early
picnics,
nexus of American
and freedom" formed a commonplace
values.
It's useless, of course, to speculate who the "several fellows" might have
been whom Whitman
talked baseball with in his last years, but one fascinating
hint does exist. Several times during 1888 Horace Tr?ubel records visits from
a Harry
was
comment
always without
(except once, when Whitman
Wright,
irritated thatWright
had stayed too long), and inWhitman's
for
Daybook
on
25:
visit
As
from
1885, Walt
records,
January
Harry Wright."
"Sunday,
Later
with
Traubel's
references,
there
is no
further
comment
that
might
help
in Whitman
identify this man, and he has in fact remained unidentified
name as if
It's
that
Tr?ubel
scholarship.
interesting, though,
drops Wright's
he is someone the reader probably would know. And there was one Harry
in the Camden area in the 1880's whose name would have needed no
Wright
was William
to everyone as Harry?a
this
fine
Henry Wright?known
gloss;
we
as
have
the
founder
of
the
first
baseball
seen,
team,
player and,
professional
the Cincinnati Red Stockings. After his playing days, he continued in baseball
as amanager and
as chief of the
umpires for the National League. From
finally
1884-1893 (Whitman bought his house on Mickle
Street in Camden
in 1884
and lived there until his death in 1892) he was the prominent manager of
one
best baseball team, the National
Philadelphia's
League Athletics. He was
of the special guests at that Philadelphia
dinner honoring
the world-touring
baseball players on their return to America
in 1889; he talked to the players
Whitman
wanted so much to talk to himself. When we consider Whitman's
75
fondness for, interest in, and belief in the game of baseball, it at least seems
people who
fitting that Harry Wright would have been among the well-known
to visit Whitman
on Mickle
Street.
crossed the Delaware
or not he knew baseball's
no doubt
Whether
Harry Wright,
though, there's
that by the 1880's baseball had entered Whitman's
very way of thinking. The
American
game furnished him with figures of speech he seemed
are
fond
and
his conversations with Tr?ubel
of,
especially
peppered with
to express admiration for a
baseball terms. So when he wanted
particularly
effective passage written by William
evoked baseball's
O'Connor, Whitman
democratic
supreme
offensive
achievement,
the
home
run:
"That's
a home
stroke.
...
O
you can hit a thing like that off with absolute finality." He seemed
attracted to baseball metaphors for their colorful, direct, and simple expressiveness.
in terms of baseball, telling
He even refers to his own writing
techniques
I have caught much
for
"That
has
been
method:
Tr?ubel,
my
mainly
example,
on the
as
come and go?on
the
of
And
the moment."
spur
fly: things
they
some
more
uses
same
to
evoke
the
Tr?ubel
of his
image
fragmented conversations
with Whitman:
"Two or three things I caught from W. on the fly, as I busied
about the room." At that time, "on the fly" was an important new baseball
rules in 1845 allowed for an out if the
term, since the original Knickerbocker
ball was caught "on the first bound." Only gradually did this rule change; for
or not the games they
years, teams would
stipulate whether
played would be
"on the fly" or "on the bound." If players chose to play on the fly, they had
to be
probably
especially awake and alert, awaiting the unexpected. SoWhitman
did not mean to imply, with the figure of speech, casualness about his poetic
as alertness combined with
an element of
so much
methods
surprise: his
that came his way, to "catch
method was to be awake for every opportunity
much on the fly."
Once when discussing plans for an edition of his complete poetry and prose
to wonder about a new
with Tr?ubel, Whitman
preface for the book.
began
or not one was needed.
a
He wavered about whether
Finally he fell back on
baseball story to help him make up his mind: "My hesitations make me think
of a story. The captain of a baseball nine was to be presented with a silver
goes on to tell how the captain and the club spokesman
pitcher." Whitman
William:
both
the presentation
prepared long speeches for the occasion, but when
men
both
them:
flustered
about, wondering what
ceremony came,
"they
forgot
to do?then
to
to
retreated
their
first
causes,
finally
simple human nature?the
spokesman exclaiming:
'Captain, here's the pitcher!' and the captain exclaiming:
'Is that the pitcher?' So the affair was a success after all, though not according
to the rule set." Whitman
of course admired this open honesty, this simple
set rules and rehearsed elegance;
unadorned speech from the heart, displacing
set
out to do the same thing. Here, then, was the simple
his poetry, after all, had
of the young American
athlete, and
good humor and straightforwardnesss
76
Whitman
to emulate
decided
of speaking
this baseball player's way
in his own
writing:
if the
I guess I '11have to model my preface on that incident?and
as successful as the incident I'll be satsified. "Captain,
is
half
preface
to get the
here's the preface!" "Is that the preface?" We want
whole
into
the
the
hands?that's
object.
right
pitcher
In recent years there's been a lot of serious talk about baseball. Scholars have
or as a way of
to American
the sport as an analogue
history
in
America
American
David
the
character;
Q. Voigt
Through
understanding
Baseball, for example, investigates the sport in relation toAmerican nationalism,
sense of mission, American
racism and the union ethic. And George
America's
on
in
and
the American Dream," makes perhaps
"Baseball
his
Grella,
essay
examined
the broadest claim:
Occupying
American
sense
country's
and
culture.
hope
our national
a
heritage,
unique place in
of sports speaks as few other human activit?s
as
of
profound
. . .
Anyone
to understand
itself.
. . .The
game
as the most
who
does
is as instructive,
significant
not
understand
aspects
the
this most
can to our
as beautiful,
of American
game
cannot
the country.
was
seem to agree;
Stephen Crane
Many of this country's best writers would
as diverse as Marianne Moore, William
a first-rate ball
and
authors
player,
Carlos Williams,
James T. Farrell, Ring Lardner, Zane Grey, Thomas Wolfe,
Ernest Hemingway,
Bernard Malamud, Wright Morris, Robert Coover, John
and
all have used baseball as a major image at one time
Roth,
Updike,
Philip
or another. They are not alone: Anton Grobani's bibliography, Guide toBaseball
Literature, runs to three hundred pages and thousands of entries. As Robert Frost
said, "some baseball is the fate of us all." It's important, then, to realize that
our most essentially American
Walt Whitman,
poet, was one of the first of
our
the
vital
first?to
the
recognize
significance of baseball
writers?perhaps
to America. Tr?ubel once called it "the hurrah game of the republic," and
Whitman,
in good humor,
responded:
our game: that's the
That's beautiful: the hurrah game! well?it's
chief fact in connection with it: America's game: has the snap, go,
to our
as much
atmosphere?belongs
fling, of the American
as our constitutions,
institutions, fits into them as significantly,
laws: is just as important in the sum total of our historic life.
77
No
writer
since
has
these
exceeded
and
extravagant
fervent
for
claims
the
baseball credo could only have been spoken by a man who
game. Whitman's
grew up with the sport; saw it develop from its slower, more sedate forms into
saw the democratic
a
game of hardball with
demanding
"snap and go";
saw the
to give way to the young
demands of skill force gentlemen
roughs;
baseball team itself become an image of America, accepting and absorbing men
from all walks of life, immigrants from all over the world, molding
them into
one
a union
body,
to a common
committed
saw
purpose;
the
sport,
starting
coast to coast,
spread westward and eventually be played from
secure occupation of the continent; saw baseball, finally,
America's
affirming
the rondure of the world,
become an athletic image of his soul, accomplishing
from Manhattan,
"America's
spreading
and
game"
"the
American
atmosphere"
to Australia,
Asia, Africa, and Europe, then returning home in triumph and comradeship.
Whitman
had often prophesied the eventual completion of America's continental
manifest destiny: "Long ere the second centennial arrives, there will be some
to fifty great States, among them Canada and Cuba." Our Bicentennial
forty
has passed, and baseball even helped salvage this prophesy. Had he lived on into
the twentieth century, Whitman
have seen American
baseball first
would
of manifest destiny by resettling the Brooklyn
in Los Angeles and San Francisco, while
Giants
York
Dodgers
it also reached south to Cuba for some of its finest players and then went north
to absorb Canada,
the National
uniting Montreal?however
improbably?into
was set in motion
Toronto
into
American.
and
the
All
this
League
assimilating
make
the ultimate
confirmation
and the New
the year
today's
after Whitman's
American
League,
death when
was
organized,
the Western
and
twentieth
League,
century
progenitor
baseball
of
was
on its way. The sport had
into big business: the year
begun its acceleration
before Whitman's
death the militant National Brotherhood of Baseball Players
deserted the National League and began their own ill-fated league; it was the
and players. As Whitman
first bitter battle between management
died, the
as
come
to
Era
the
of
what
would
be
known
the
Golden
marked
end
country
of baseball.
Bibliographic Note
comments are taken from his book, America's National Game
Spalding's
American
biased
York:
(New
Sports Publishing Company,
1911)?Spalding's
but fascinating history of baseball. More reliable histories of baseball's beginnings
are Harold
Seymour's Baseball: The Early Years(New York: Oxford University
Press, 1960) and David Quentin Voigt's American Baseball (Norman: University
of Oklahoma
Press, 1966). Arthur Bartlett's Baseball and Mr. Spalding(New
Albert
York: Farrar, Straus and Young,
78
1951 ) contains useful information
and anecdotes
baseball tour. For a detailed debunking of Spalding's
and for an accurate genesis of baseball, see Robert
W. Henderson's
York:
Ball, Bat and Bishop: The Origin of Ball Games(New
A.
in
Leitner's
Baseball: Diamond
theRough(New
Press, 1947). Irving
Rockport
York: Criterion Books, 1972) offers a helpful collection of photographs of early
serves as the
baseball artifacts; a quotation from Whitman
epigraph for this
in baseball literature. George
book, the only use I've found of Whitman
on "Baseball and the American Dream"
Grella's
appears
incomparable essay
in The Massachusetts Review, 16 (Summer, 1975). Some of the recent books that
examine the larger cultural resonance of baseball include Leverett T. Smith's
The American Dream and theNational Gdme(Bowling
Green: Bowling Green
about the 1888-89 worldwide
creation myth,
Doubleday
Lee Umphlett's
The
University
Popular Press, 1975), Wiley
theAmerican Experience (Lewisburg: Bucknell University
Press,
Q. Voigt 'sAmerica Through Baseball (Chicago: Nelson Hall,
is Anton Grobani
complete bibliography of baseball writing
Sporting Myth and
1975), and David
most
1976). The
to
'sGuide
Baseball
Frost's
Literature{Detroit: Gale Research
Company,
1975). Some of Robert
comments on baseball, including the one I quote, can be found in the essay,
in his Selected Prose, edited by Hyde Cox
"Perfect Day?A
Day of Prowess,"
and Edward Connery Lathem (New York: Collier Books, 1968).
comments to Horace Tr?ubel are all taken from Tr?ubel 'sWith
Whitman's
in Camden: vols. 1-3 (1905-1912; rpt. New York: Rowman
and
vol.
ed.
of
4,
1961);
Sculley Bradley
(Philadelphia: University
vol.
ed.
Tr?ubel
Gertrude
Southern
Press,
5,
Pennsylvania
1953);
(Carbondale:
Illinois University
Press, 1964). Whitman's
newspaper articles can be found
in Cleveland Rodgers
and John Black, eds., The Gathering of Forces: Editorials,
Dramatic Reviews and Other Material Written by Walt
and
and
Essays,
Literary
Whitman as Editor of the Brooklyn Daily Eagle in 1846 and ??47(New York: G.P.
Walt Whitman
Littlefield,
Putnam's Sons, 1920); and in Emory Holloway
and Vernolian
Schwarz, eds.,
I Sit and Look Out: Editorials from The Brooklyn Daily Times byWalt Whitman(New
are
York: Columbia University
reminiscences
Press, 1932). Peter Doyle's
included in Richard Maurice B?cke, ed., Calamus (Boston: Laurens Maynard,
recollections are in Tr?ubel, Bucke, and Thomas
1897), and George Whitman's
B. Harned,
In
Re
Walt
Whitman (Philadelphia: David McKay,
eds.,
1893).
from
Whitman's
Quotations
poetry are from Sculley Bradley and Harold W.
Blodgett, eds., Leaves of Grass: Comprehensive Reader's Edition(New York: New
are from
York University
Press, 1965); passages from the correspondence
Edwin Haviland Miller,
York: New
ed., The Correspondence, t842-?867(New
York University
about
America's
manifest
Press, 1961);Whitman's
prophecy
is
in
in
Prose
"Democratic
Vistas,"
Stovall,
ed.,
Works,
destiny
Floyd
t892(New
York: New
Whitman's
University
is mentioned
in
York University
Press, 1964), II. Harry Wright
New
and
William
White
ed.
York:
York
Notebooks,
Daybooks
(New
it should be noted that once, in a weak
Press, 1978), II. Finally,
79
moment
in Boston, Whitman
spoke of football with the kind of rapture that
he usually saves for baseball (see Clifton Joseph Furness, "Walt Whitman
Looks at Boston, "New England Quarterly, I
[1928], 358).
80