cricket (was: Re: Who pulled my bloody chain?)

Roger Odisio rodisio at igc.org
Thu Oct 14 09:43:32 PDT 1999


Kelley wrote:


> roger, you've read giamatti on baseball i take it? doesn't he say or
> allude to somewhere in there something about the fact that the
> standardization of the game -- or rather the fetishization of measurement
> and geometry--was similar to and encouraged along by the fetishization of
> engineering at the time in US culture? something like david noble,
> _america by design_ applied to baseball, in other words?

I haven't read Giamatti. What I know is from historians of the game like John Thorn and Bill James.

Based on the game's origins and how it developed, I am skeptical of such hifalutin arguments as you attribute to Giamatti. For instance, the distance between the bases. When the game began to be played on a more regular basis by a baseball "club" in New York in the 1840s and 50s, the distances between the bases were simply paced off and later recorded as a number of paces. Most think that distance was only about 75 feet. But the ball was light and flimsy and couldn't be hit or thrown very far. Then they developed a better ball, wound tighter. There was a kind of rules committee by then, as more clubs were formed, and they had their first convention of player representatives in 1857 to try to establish some of the basic rules, including playing field dimensions. It was in the first set of rules that the base path distances were changed to 90 feet. More room was now needed. Not an engineer among the guys who decided that, I think.

Or take the distance between the pitcher's rubber and home plate. The original rules set it at 45 feet, then moved back to 50 feet in 1881. But in 1884 they began allowing overhand pitching (before the pitcher's hand had to pass below the hip like in fast pitch softball) Soon after, in 1893, as pitcher's got better, and they got rid of the idea that a batter could tell the pitcher where he wanted the ball thrown, replacing it with the strike zone, the distance was changed to its present 60 feet 6 inches. While I waxed rhapsodic about how this distance has worked down through the ages, as pitchers have developed in all kinds of ways (they certainly throw a lot harder now), I don't know where that precise measurement came from. Note it's not halfway to second base--that would be about 63' 10". Probably someone added a few more paces, and when there was agreement, it was measured later.

What you had here, at least at the beginning, was workers' control. The rules were developed by the players themselves through trial and error and decided by vote. They tinkered with them a lot in the first few decades. They started with 9 balls needed for the batter to get first base, and changed that one ball at a time until it got to the present 4 balls by 1889. Standardized rules were needed for competition, and certainly if the game was to be sold to spectators. The first pro leagues were started in the 1870s and if you went to a game into the 90s chances are your ticket would be taken by a player. Soon there were owners/financial backers (surprise), but many of the early ones were originally players.

All of the major rules that work so well today were in place by the turn of the century. The influence of capital at that point was still minimal. The game was worked out by the players themselves based on what would work as a game. The main effect of the commodification of baseball as a pro sport, in fact, probably was corruption (throwing games in connection with gambling). The Black Sox scandal in 1919 was merely the culmination, leading to the live ball era and Babe Ruth, of many previous scandals.

In short, the fetishization of measurement and geometry comes more from guys like me today, I think, than from those who created the game in 19th century. You've piqued my interest though. When I get a chance, I'll look up Giamatti to see what his take is on all of this. Does he reference Noble?

RO


>
>
> kelley



More information about the lbo-talk mailing list