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Paternal Pastime
By Harrison Kuntz
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“Hey Dad, you wanna go play catch?” I could not possibly enumerate the times that I hopefully posed this question to my father between the ages of six and thirteen. The simple act of sharing something, specifically baseball, with a father has meant so much to so many sons in America over the past century. Early in life the common ground that baseball provides fathers and sons is absolutely invaluable to the bonding process, and to the task of raising a boy to become a man. As young men grow and change, their interests become very diverse and adaptive to the cutting edge of the world around them. These changes require mutual interests in order for the father and son relationship to remain strong. Once again baseball can become the glue that holds men of different generations together no matter how the world, and even the males themselves, change and evolve. This glue is not simply a by-product of already existent positive feelings, but a source of the positive feelings themselves. Unfortunately while men can use the virtues of competition to create positive relationships, they can also be very stubborn and confrontational creatures. These fiery attitudes frequently lead to conflicts between fathers and sons that may never be resolved. Thankfully baseball has always been one avenue on which fathers and sons can meet to vent their frustrations and get past differences. Rather than becoming an emotional mask behind which men can hide their emotions, the game brings those feelings to the forefront and forces them to be addressed. Our memories of and relationships with our fathers are cherished by millions of American men, and our connections with them are held in high esteem. One of the most common of these connections is baseball. Baseball is a medium through which fathers and sons often connect and resolve differences both in film and in reality.
The one form of media that has best captured the emotional relationship developed between between men has been the film industry. We can easily see this value represented in The Sandlot where bonding is a major issue. The Rookie illustrates this by bringing an estranged father and son back together both literally and symbolically in a baseball stadium. The Sandlot examined how reconciliation can occur through the acceptance of responsibility for a boy, while The Rookie showed two older, more mature men who took years to finally reunite. Of course we would be remiss if we did not name Field of Dreams as the one movie that brought all of these values together over the course of a lifetime, and then some. The game provided first a common ground between a boy and his father and by the end it was this same common corn-free ground that allowed a final reconciliation between a mature man and his deceased father. Filmmakers love to tug at the heartstrings of their audiences, but men are usually tough to reach. Luckily for the industry and for us, Hollywood has discovered that bonds established between fathers and sons through baseball translate well onto the big screen.
What could a middle-aged man possibly have in common with a young boy? The fact is that even at a young age, sons possess many of the natural characteristics that their fathers do. They want to compete, they want to impress, and they want to assert their abilities. This is backed up by psychological studies, which have proven that, “One area of competence that is particularly highly valued by the majority of children is athletic ability” (Carr, 20). The fact that both fathers and sons often have competitive personalities opens the door for baseball to enter the relationship. The game can be shared both through active participation in the back yard or on a ball field, and by sharing in the act of being a spectator. When a son is playing baseball in front of or with his father, he is trying to impress, as if it were his first job interview. The father is traditionally the first hero of the son, and the easiest way to gain the attention of this hero is to impress him through admirable athletic accomplishments. This carries over to when the father and son take in a game together either in person or on television. They see men with almost superhuman abilities imitating the experiences that they share together, and these men are heroes to them both. As they live and die with each win and loss of the team, each hit and strikeout of the star player, the father and son are fostering a bond that they will always cherish. The typical father and son bond that is strengthened through the game of baseball can be found in Roger Kahn’s The Boys of Summer, one of the most successful baseball books ever written. Thirty-five years after his childhood, Kahn still described it in very chaotic terms. “What a house. Two parents teaching. A grandfather pulling teeth. A housekeeper screeching. A sister pouting…A radio program, Brahms, sex, poetry, Karl Marx, and Freud. The bond between my father and me was baseball” (Kahn, 15). Thousands of sons from Kahn’s childhood in the 1930’s up to even the present day could make similar claims. Both through active participation in the game and watching others perform great deeds on the diamond, fathers and sons often forge a bond through a common interest in this time-honored pastime.
This bond through baseball serves more purposes than a utility infielder. Most importantly it allows men to express their emotions and grow closer both in spite of and due to our modern masculine ideals. While everyday American life demands that men remain calm, tough, and emotionless at all times, baseball is an escape from these expectations and feelings and also a manifestation of them. It allows for emotions to be expressed in the form of passion for the game, team unity, the thrill of victory and of course the agony of defeat. Without baseball, how would a son ever be able to witness his father show emotion such as was described in Donald Hall’s classic Fathers Playing Catch with Sons?
“Pee Wee hits a home run off Carl Hubbell and the Dodgers win. Sitting there in the front seat, eleven years old, I clap and cheer. Then I hear my father’s strange voice. I look across my mother to see his knuckles white on the wheel, his face white, and I hear him saying ‘The punk! The punk!’ With astonishment and horror, I see that my father is crying” (Hall, 33).
By allowing his son to experience the “shock and horror” of witnessing him weeping over a wall-clearing moonshot, the father unintentionally humanized himself and brought them closer. The game also requires the manly toughness that both fathers and sons are proud of displaying. It is not the part of the weak to stand in a box and attack a hard ball that another man is throwing at high speeds. All of these principles lay the groundwork for fathers and sons to come together. Baseball is necessary in this because just sitting down and talking, as it would with a mother, a sister, or a lover does not easily develop the father and son relationship. Therefore a father’s engagement in baseball with his son does not serve to encourage the growth of the male stereotype; it simply gives the relationship a more personal human dimension. As a result fathers can connect with their sons on deeper levels than they could without the game.
Ted Williams used to claim that hitting a baseball is the hardest thing to do in sports. However one of the hardest things to do in life has to be raising a son. Parents, especially fathers, can use all the help that they can get in this task, and baseball is often an important tool in that toolbox. Psychological and social studies have recently proven that the role of a father is absolutely crucial in the development of children. Dan Poulter, a Los Angeles psychologist, claims that a father’s involvement in his son’s interests “is like giving your son gold bricks. He gets emotionally fluent. He becomes comfortable with showing love, hopeful, generous, and compassionate” (Neubert, 1). The easiest way for a father to get involved in his son’s interests is to engage in the activities that both share an interest in, and this frequently means baseball. Poulter also claims that the inverse of this is true. Sons whose lives are devoid of a strong male connection are much more likely to engage in violent crimes and to at least suffer from major psychological issues (Neubert, 1). No amount of money or power in the world can raise a son to be a man who makes positive contributions to society. The only thing that a father can do is to nurture his son through the commitment of time during childhood. This time is most effectively spent as fathers and sons create memories by sharing in common interests. If this interest happens to be music, theatre, politics, or art, then those could all be effective mediums. However sports are most popular with sons because they allow the children to physically explore their relationship to their fathers. “(My son) looks at me and shouts ‘Daddy’ making the fiercest face he can muster. He is working on knowing his own being, his physical and emotional body, through contact with me” (Vogt, 193). Often the gap between generations at a son’s tender young age is bridged by the timeless game of baseball.
The makers of The Sandlot knew exactly what they were doing when they illustrated many of the complexities of the father and son bond through baseball in their movie. Scotty Smalls moved to a new town because his mother had married a man that he barely knew named Bill. Baseball was Scotty’s only connection to the other boys in the town, and so he went out and played every day. Bill, who happened to have been a baseball fan since he had learned it from his own father, desperately wanted to in some way develop a relationship with his new stepson. The only way to do this was to relate to Scotty through baseball, just as his father had done with him. This was symbolized when Scotty’s mom told him about Bill’s Babe Ruth autographed baseball that he had received from his father. She quipped, “Maybe he’ll give it to you one day.” In fact, Bill was already trying to pass on the game of baseball to Scotty. He initially attempted to play catch with Scotty but the game, like the relationship, went badly and Scotty ended up with a black eye. However by the end of the movie, after many trials and tribulations, the relationship had improved as Scotty and Bill got to know each other through their common ground in baseball. At this point we can see them playing catch together, and even throwing curveballs. The makers of this film fully recognized that a son’s relationship to his father can often be illustrated only through baseball, and they portrayed this fact very accurately in The Sandlot.
At what point does the bond that fathers and sons have through baseball expire? The fact is that usually it does not expire, simply because few men ever completely grow up. A quick observation of the conduct of grown men at professional sporting events would present more than sufficient proof of this fact. The bonds that fathers and sons share do however change greatly as the sons enter manhood and the fathers begin to enjoy AARP benefits. After the son has matured, he and his father can now share many similar life experiences, and often relate to what it is like to support a wife and children while holding a job. They also have increased opportunities to bond. The relationship is now completely devoid of the father’s dominance over the son. They are now free to cultivate a manly friendship through baseball. Renowned poet Donald Hall commented how the “one guy to another,” “Let’s go have a few drinks,” type of bond can manifest itself through the pleasures of the sport for fathers and sons. “Baseball connects American males with each other, not only through bleacher friendships and neighbor loyalties, not only through barroom fights but, most importantly, through generations” (Hall, 49). The role that baseball plays in the man to man friendship of a mature son and his father is not diminished as soon as the term “grandfather” enters the equation. The relationship between father and son changes greatly over time, but baseball often serves to keep American men close.
The Rookie effectively showed how two men who were veterans at life found a way to relate to each other in the game. Jim Morris was a man who had given up his own dreams and settled down with a family and a steady job. Like many men, he was at odds with his father over choices that he had made long ago. Although he did not speak to his own father, he was raising his children to appreciate the game, just as his own father had raised him. When Morris finally decided to pursue his own personal dreams again, many questions of fatherhood became a part of his situation. Not least of these was the fact that Morris missed his own father’s support. He needed the paternal bond that baseball had helped establish long ago in order to perform his best on a baseball diamond. Finally he did reestablish that bond, and the location of this event was no coincidence. Morris met up with his father in the baseball stadium of his first major league game, thereby showing that the two came together through baseball both early in life and in old age. The Rookie strongly showed how a father and son can relate to each other through baseball when the son has grown into a man using both symbolic and literal devices.
Few would deny that many American men enjoy baseball, and that as a result fathers and sons often partake in the game’s pleasures together. Some, however, would question whether baseball has such a direct effect on the bond. The problem then becomes, can baseball really become a source of positive interactions between fathers and sons, or are its effects merely by-products of already present emotions? Experience and psychology have shown unequivocally that baseball is often the only source of positive feelings between a father and his son. Roger Kahn could not possibly found any connection with his father through the maelstrom of “Brahms, sex, poetry, Karl Marx and Freud” had they not been able to put it all behind them to play baseball or watch the Dodgers. Donald Hall would only have understood his father as cold and emotionless if Pee Wee Reese had not belted a game winning blast and evoke an explosion of emotion. Dan Poulter demonstrated common interests such as baseball are crucial to father and son relationships. Also David Carr and Gregory Vogt both separately felt that the competitive urges inherent in both boys and men provide grounds for positive relationships. These competitive urges are certainly satisfied by participation in baseball-related activities. Without baseball many fathers and sons would not be able to establish many bonds that could not be cultivated through other means. One can therefore conclude that baseball provides for many positive feelings rather than merely feeding off of them.