Muse Droppings
By:
C.C. Youngren

The DH

I have been a baseball fan literally all my life.  I know “literally” is often misapplied to mean “figuratively,” but I contend this is a literal “literal.”  I was taken to my first major league baseball game when I was 2 ½, September 1947.  I was carried through the Ebbets Field rotunda by my Uncle George.

Uncle George was actually Great Uncle George (my grandmother’s brother-in-law) and was 70 in late-summer 1947.  He had witnessed (literally!) all of modern baseball and some decades before that when the batter could order a high or low pitch, when 9 (later 8) balls constituted a walk, and 4 strikes a ”K” (1887 only), and when runners could be “soaked” (called out when struck by a thrown ball between bases).  He had attended the Ebbets Field opener in 1913, and the first night game in Brooklyn (1938) when Johnny Vander Meer pitched the second of his record consecutive no-hitters—a record Uncle George considered tainted since neither fan, nor batter, nor umpire could actually see the ball clearly.  And HE wanted to be the one to introduce this toddler (the first of his generation in this extended family) to the National Pastime and a notable Dodger rookie, Jackie Robinson.

I cannot claim I actually remember the game.  I have a hazy latent image of a green rectangle, as in the “letterbox” format on an equilateral TV screen, with broad black borders top & bottom.  As we were sitting far back in the lower deck behind home plate, the underside of the upper deck and span of lower boxes & reserves in shadow could be the matte of that primal image.  Anyway, the story was told and retold throughout my adolescence at family gatherings to the point where primary and secondary sources merge.  The story goes like this:

Sitting in the crook of Uncle George’s left elbow I tried to sight down his right arm to the vicinity I now know as first base.  He was seeking affirmation from me that I was able to identify the “black man” who was patrolling that space.   That was the phrase he used—“black man”—not “colored” or “Negro,” the P.C. terms of post-war America.  He knew those terms where probably not yet entered in the rolodex of a 30 month-old’s mental thesaurus.  “I don’t see him,” I insisted repeatedly to a growingly frustrated senior citizen.  Finally I said, “I see the black man!” but Uncle George’s relief was short-lived when I said, “and there’s another.”  No, there weren’t any others, only Jackie.  (Actually Dan Bankhead was probably in the bullpen that day.)  “And there’s another!” I added with evidently some satisfaction for pleasing one’s elders.  At which point Uncle George realized that I had located the dark-suited umpires. Black men = MIB; the racial consciousness of a 2-year old.

Throughout the ensuing years, Uncle George taught me much about baseball and what we now call “critical thinking.”  He lived in a brownstone on a street parallel to, and a few blocks south of, the 1st base foul line at Ebbets.  He had a room in the basement, with a desk and a cot, a reading chair and a radio, the only room in the house where he was allowed to smoke his cigars.  I can still taste the second-hand smoke as we poured through the Brooklyn Eagle sports pages.  Before I was able the read phonetically, I could pick out “Campanella,” the longest name in the box score, “Cox,” the shortest, and “Brooklyn” in the standings.  Later he taught me arithmetic, long division, fractions & decimals well ahead of my peers in school, as we recomputed batting averages in real time with each at bat and ERA with each inning pitched.  Always in a dress shirt and bow tie, often with vest and pocket watch, he tutored me with the demeanor of an Oxford Don on the Pythagorean secrets of “games behind” and the significance of the late season “Magic Number.”  He taught me the hieroglyphics of the score card and I learned to translate between his Mayan version and my Dad’s Toltec.

Uncle George died in 1959, accelerated I am convinced by the desertion of the Dodgers 18 months before.  He never knew of the Mets, the LCS, or the Designated Hitter.  He would have been appalled by the latter.  His Puritan baseball views might rub some people the wrong way.  He insisted on “Sunday dress” for ballpark attendance, for example, and that baseball should be played only during the day, and not west of St. Louis.  But his objection to the DH I imagine would have been aesthetic, not political. 

He talked often about the symmetry of the game, though maybe never actually used that term.  There are 3 strikes, 3 outs; 9 players (3 up the middle: C, P & CF, and 3 symmetrically posed on each side), 9 innings (3 times through the batting order minimum), 3 bases (home plate is not a base to be occupied when the ball is in play and “home base” is for Ringolevio, not baseball), and 3 fundamental baseball skills—catch the ball, throw the ball, hit the ball.

There has always been specialization in baseball to be sure.  The relative aptitude for the three skills determines defensive position in the field and offensive position in the lineup. Dropping the requirement for a player to have to endure ANY test of one of these fundamental skills, however, breaks the symmetry of the game.  Relieving a player of TWO of the three (the DH) is just plain sacrilegious. I may remain nostalgic for the field goal kicker who was also a star tackle (Groza) or halfback (Hornung), but kicking is a specialized skill not required of everybody even at some minimalist level for the game to proceed.  It’s not the same as a DH or as a designated (tennis) server would be, stepping aside for the rest of the point.

“Adds to the scoring and thereby excitement,” proponents argue.  So why stop with one DH?  An offensive lineup made up 6 DH’s who never wear a glove. (You only need six to insure that there would not have simultaneous batting & base-running tasks.)  More runs & more excitement, no?  Possibly, but it wouldn’t be baseball; it would be something else.  Baseball with a DH is something else.

Baseball as metaphor for Life is itself a metaphor for bad analogies.  We are a highly specialized society.  In our game, the certified welder need not have the skills of a clinical psychologist or actuarial accountant on his/her resume. Yet I have a heightened awareness of those who abrogate some basic attribute of citizenship with the excuse that their proficiency lies elsewhere or “it’s not my job.”   I’m speaking of things like civil conversation, informed voting, parenting, and general courtesy required of all participants in order for there to be a next inning.  Uncle George I am sure would agree.

C.C Youngren's Archives

Post Your