The Myth and Reality of Major League Baseball

As we begin the 2006 baseball season, the nation’s focus is upon Barry Bonds and his pursuit of the home run records established by Babe Ruth and Hank Aaron. As sport commentators work themselves into frenzy over Bonds, steroids, and allegations of cheating threatening the sacred institution and records of baseball, it is imperative that we recall that the nation continues to face more important issues such as the disintegration of Iraq and immigration reform. For many Americans, nevertheless, baseball symbolizes traditional values of patriotism, hard work, equal opportunity, and a healthy conflict between teamwork and rugged individualism. To baseball purists, the sport deserves credit for playing a leading role in the post World War II civil rights movement as well as supporting the nation during wartime. Thus, it would be a travesty for steroids and Bonds to undermine confidence in the national pastime.

In reality, Major League Baseball’s policies regarding patriotism and racism are far more ambiguous. Many commentators perceive baseball’s official policy regarding steroids to be hypocritical. When the sport required rejuvenation following the strike-cancelled 1994 season and World Series, the 1998 assault by Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa on the Roger Maris single season home run mark of 61 was embraced by Major League Baseball. No questions were asked as to the source of the two sluggers’ new found power. Many believe that baseball is now paying the price for a short-sighted emphasis upon the bottom line. Nevertheless, focusing upon profits may not represent the aberration assumed by baseball purists. Despite rhetoric extolling the virtues of democracy, honesty, and industry, the leaders of the sport have always kept their eye on the profit margin. We should not allow our judgment and memory to be clouded by nostalgia.

Following the scandal of players allegedly consorting with gamblers to “fix” the 1919 World Series, baseball owners named federal judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis to become baseball’s first commissioner. Although many of his decisions were reversed by superior courts, Landis endeared himself to owners by ruling against the Federal League challenge to organized baseball and threats to order by radical labor leaders from organizations such as the IWW. While the eight Chicago White Sox players were acquitted in court, Landis banned the accused players from baseball for life. On the other hand, Landis appeared to look the other way when gambling allegations were made against stars Tris Speaker and Ty Cobb. Gambling was, indeed, a major problem for the sport, but the eight “Black Sox” became the scapegoats to assure the game’s integrity. And certainly there would be no censure of White Sox owner Charles Comiskey’s policies which provoked the player revolt.

Although Landis had a reputation for honesty, he was also committed to maintaining baseball’s color line. The opportunity to integrate the game was available following the death of Landis and the determination of black Americans to force the nation to fulfill the democratic war aims of the Second World War. Branch Rickey of the Brooklyn Dodgers was motivated by both the profit motive and social vision when he signed Jackie Robinson. The fact that Robinson’s entrance into Major League Baseball preceded significant landmarks in the civil rights movement, such as the Brown decision and Montgomery Bus Boycott, allowed the sport to claim a leadership position in the struggle for racial equality. Organized baseball’s record on racial integration was mixed at best, and progress was slow. For example, the Detroit Tigers and Boston Red Sox did not get around to integrating their teams until after Robinson retired. Also, college football teams from the North were more willing to challenge Louisiana’s sport segregation law which banned athletic contests between whites and blacks. In 1956, the Shreveport Sports played in the Texas League, and visiting teams did not play their black athletes in the Louisiana city. Segregation in Louisiana was tolerated rather than challenged by Major League Baseball, which was also reluctant to bring blacks into management positions. The gentrification of major league ball parks may also reflect concerns about declining attendance in the 1960s and 1970s and the location of older stadiums in black neighborhoods. Many black Americans believe that the sport has abandoned them.

Baseball also has a mixed record when it comes to patriotism. The sport’s identification with militarism and nationalism is solidified with July 4th fireworks displays, high-flying jet formations on opening day, color guards, the national anthem, and playing “God Bless America” during the 7 th inning stretch in many ball parks. Baseball officials portray the game as providing an essential morale function for the troops, but beneath the rhetoric is a concern that wars not disrupt the business of baseball. In World War I, players did not flock to the colors. Secretary of War Newton Baker issued a “work or fight” order for nonessential industries such as baseball, and the 1918 regular season was terminated on Labor Day. During the Second World War, President Franklin Roosevelt gave Commissioner Landis a green light to continue baseball, but rosters were decimated by the draft. Major league players certainly served during the Second World War, but many baseball servicemen saw more action on service playing fields rather than the war’s battlefields.

The military draft for Korea placed fewer strains on major league rosters, but Ted Williams was less than thrilled when he was recalled to active duty. Owners were also upset with Commissioner Happy Chandler when he suggested that the sport might have to be discontinued during the conflict, and they launched a boomlet for deposed General Douglas MacArthur to assume the post of baseball commissioner. During the Vietnam War, Major League Baseball sponsored numerous “good will” tours by players to the war zone. However, club officials were quite successful in their lobbying efforts to obtain scarce Guard and Reserve positions for the sport’s major league players and outstanding prospects. Today, the sport takes every opportunity to laud its support for the troops, but well paid players are not lining up for the volunteer army. Pat Tillman may be admired, but he is not emulated. Meanwhile, Susan Sarandon and Tim Robbins are disinvited from Cooperstown, while the dissent of Carlos Delgado is tolerated as long as he continues to hit home runs.

There is considerable gap between the myth and reality of Major League Baseball in American life. The hypocrisy revealed in the handling of the steroids issue is not the paradox perceived by baseball purists. And despite what Tony Jundt suggests about the importance of national myths in Europe, America is better off to embrace reality rather than to lose ourselves in nostalgia and what Gore Vidal terms “the United States of amnesia.” In baseball fan Philip Roth’s The Great American Novel (1973), the protagonist Word Smith struggles to restore the Ruppert Mundys and the Patriot League to public memory so that the nation does not forget the Red Scare and the dark side of American history. Letting ourselves get lost in a nostalgic view of baseball as an institution symbolic of a culture and nation that is always pure in motivation does a disservice to America and the great sport of baseball.