How Early Baseball Can Be Compared To A Theatrical Production
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The world of early professional baseball is a unique one to say the least. As a lifelong baseball fan and theatre enthusiast, I immediately fell in love with it from reading about it because it almost seemed more like an experience or a show rather than a game that people get paid to play, but I do think it is worth mentioning that some of the original values still stand in the game to this day. For example, each game is separated into different parts by what we call innings, much like how a play has acts. In inning number seven, there is a brief intermission period called the “seventh inning stretch,” which is similar to the intermissions that plays have. Wooden stadiums in the old era of baseball sometimes resembled theatre buildings, structure-wise, basically looking like large theatres without roofs. This is unlike the ballparks now which are designed differently for the overall purpose of hosting a sporting event.
Much like a theatrical production, baseball games also have and have always had an audience. The crowds would interact a lot more with the game than they do now, as fans would sometimes be allowed to walk on the field in between innings and after the game and talk with the players. Whenever teams didn’t have enough players, they would sometimes pull people out of the crowd to fill in (the horrible Brooklyn Atlantics of 1875 did this more than anyone), and more times than not in the 1880s, the fans would fight with the players and actually get physical, resulting in many games ending with fans and players alike being hauled out of the ballpark by police.
A lot of players in the classic era had very unique troubled, tragic, and bright lives to say the least, some of which can (and a few actually have been) turned into movies and plays, such as Dummy Hoy and Lou Gehrig. The game of baseball also featured a great number of individuals with unique and interesting names and personalities that you would never see in the game now or in any walk of life for that matter, such as players with names like Buttercup Dickerson, Pretzels Getzien, and Pickles Dillhoefer (yes these were all real people), and players like Rube Waddell in particular who was known for his child-like fascination with fire trucks, getting distracted by puppies in the crowd, had to sign a contract that made him agree to not eat crackers in bed anymore because it annoyed the player he shared a room with, and once went missing only to be later found wrestling an alligator in Florida, or Dude Esterbrook who was known for carrying a parrot on his shoulder and rocking a sombrero at meetings, almost making them seem like characters on their own. Players such as Waddell and Satchel Paige would almost try to turn the game into a show for the crowd, by doing outrageous things such as calling all the other players off the field except for themselves and the catcher and striking every batter out, and players like Nick Altrock who would do various comedy stunts and put on their own little shows with props such as giant baseballs and costumes to entertain the crowd.
Even the things that happened on their own seem to be something straight out of a show, something that sounds so fake but actually happened. This made the game back then feel like a written work of fiction rather than reality, such as the time Cleveland Indians’ pitcher Ray Caldwell was struck by lightning during a game then got up after a few minutes and completed the game and the time when the New York Giants lost the 1924 World Series over a ball coincidentally bouncing off of a random tiny pebble on the field twice (both of these incidents also really happened).
Like most shows and movies, the game of baseball definitely had its heroes and villains in this era too. Take for example, Lou Gehrig who was known for his polite personality and always did what was right and wanted to help his team win, and then take players such as Eddie Cicotte and the 1919 “Black Sox” team who lost the World Series on purpose, resulting in their banishment from the game (who actually had a movie called “Eight Men Out” made about them), or their lesser-known possible inspiration, Bill Craver and his 1877 Louisville Grays team who did something similar years prior, or even players who had become notorious to the point of earning nicknames like Bill Dahlen, who was known as "Bad Bill." Even the game's more extreme villains seem like something out of a gothic novel, with complex emotions and stories that go way deeper than you'd think. Some examples would be Ernie Hickman, who shot his wife and then himself, with the belief that he was "freeing" them, and Marty Bergen, a schizophrenic man who murdered his wife and children with an ax before slitting his throat with a razor.
Besides the fact that various movies and plays were made about some of the players from this era, the game quite literally had some direct ties to the world of acting on its own. Many players in the 19th century dated actresses, as well as the fact that cards featuring photos of various actors and actresses of the time were printed along with some of the first cigarette box baseball cards, sometimes even being included in the same sets together. Many people shunned actresses who starred in shows that went against society’s strict and judgmental standards of the time, as well as baseball players. A great number of players in the league at this time, to put it bluntly, were depressed drunks who suffered from severe mental illnesses in an era where mental health issues were obviously not taken nearly as seriously as they are nowadays. I can assume for some, they probably felt like outcasts and became attracted to each other. On August 20, 1888, the St. Paul Daily Globe published the following statement: “How would you like your photograph on a cigarette package? What a horrible suggestion! Only actresses, base ball players, and other dreadful people have such things taken!”
Some players such as Cy Morgan and Mike Donlin even had acting gigs themselves, and a player named Fay Thomas played the part of Christy Mathewson in a movie called “Pride of the Yankees” which was about the life of Lou Gehrig. I think it is also worth mentioning that two baseball players named Charlie Dexter and John Houseman were actually responsible for saving a great number of people from the Iroquois Theatre Fire on December 30, 1903, after a stage light caught a curtain on fire, resulting in the single deadliest theatre fire in American history, which claimed 602 lives.
In conclusion, while early baseball and theatre may not seem too similar at first glance, largely due to the fact that early baseball is a more or less forgotten about subject to the majority, there are a number of notable similarities as well as connections between the two, and I personally believe they are both beautiful things.
Sources:
Rube Waddell - BaseballBiography.com Baseball outfielder Charles Dexter survived Iroquois Theater fire in 1903 Boston Baseball Tragedy: The Sad Tale of Marty Bergen – Society for American Baseball Research (sabr.org) Crowds of Days Gone By – Society for American Baseball Research (sabr.org) Frank Houseman and Charles Dexter helped save fellow theater goers at Iroquois (iroquoistheater.com) Our Greatest Hits: Satchel Paige pitched on the Peninsula - one game in the life of a legend. - Yahoo Sports Lou Gehrig – Society for American Baseball Research (sabr.org) That time former New York Giant “Dude” Esterbrook walked from New Orleans to Baltimore | by BaseballObscura | Medium The 1877 Louisville Grays Scandal – Society for American Baseball Research (sabr.org) The Glory of their Times, p. 30 c. 1966 1st edition by Lawrence S. Ritter The Pride of the Yankees - Full Cast & Crew - TV Guide Rube Waddell: Baseball’s Peter Pan | by John Thorn | Our Game (mlblogs.com) Who Was Who on Screen, p.32 c.1977 2nd edition by Evelyn Mack Truitt ^ Who Was Who on Screen, p.96 c.1977 2nd edition by Evelyn Mack Truitt ^ Who Was Who on Screen, p.352 c.1977 2nd edition by Evelyn Mack Truitt