The Ball
Page 28
Paper Lion by George Plimpton
I once had the unlikely honor of shooting late-night pool with George Plimpton at his Upper East Side apartment. He was the consummate gentleman and not only let me win but refreshed my gin and tonic halfway through the game. I’d long been a devoted fan of his journalistic stints (or stunts, more like it) with various professional sports teams, my favorite being Paper Lion. Here, Plimpton recounts his experience in 1963 as a wannabe, third-string quarterback (number zero) with the Detroit Lions. As with his other ethnographic sporting forays—tennis with Pancho Gonzalez, sparring with Archie Moore, a month on the PGA Tour—he was way, way out of his league. But that was the point. With his unique, self-effacing wit, he broke through that soon-to-be-impenetrable barrier between hapless amateur and seasoned pro, spectator and player, and captured a sort-of-insider view of America’s national game.
Buzkashi: Game and Power in Afghanistan by G. Whitney Azoy
Admittedly, this is a totally obscure, academic read that will attract only the bravest of readers. But you’ve got to love a book that explores the cultural meaning of a sport involving bareback horsemen scoring goals with headless, disemboweled, sand-filled goat carcasses! Aside from being a fascinating analysis of the political importance of this bizarre sport, Azoy’s account of his time among the herding tribes of Afghanistan in the 1970s inadvertently describes the cultural backdrop of the current conditions there as well as anything I’ve read. As one Afghan friend told Azoy back then, “If you want to know what we’re really like, go to a buzkashi game.”
Play Their Hearts Out by George Dohrmann
This is one of the absolute best, absolute saddest sports books I’ve ever read. Dohrmann, a Sports Illustrated investigative reporter, made a deal with Amateur Athletic Union coach Joe Keller. The author would get full access to Keller’s star middle-school players, which included Demetrius Walker, a kid glowingly described by the basketball press as “14 going on LeBron.” Dohrmann, in return, promised not to publish anything until the boys were in college. The result is a disturbing but incredibly poignant exposé of everything that’s wrong with the big-time youth sports machine. As extreme as this story is, shades of this same wrongness unfold on local fields and courts every week. Read this book and help stop the madness.
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Notes
Prologue: Warm-Up
8 According to a 2004 study: Juster et al., “Major Changes Have Taken Place in How Children and Teens Spend Their Time.”
1: Play Ball
13 “It is already known to me”: James, The Principles of Psychology, p. 675.
14 “of limited immediate function”: “Taking Play Seriously,” New York Times, Feb. 17, 2008.
14 “purposeless activity, for its own sake”: Cited in Allen Guttmann, From Ritual to Record, p. 3.
14 “not serious”: Huizinga, Homo Ludens, p. 13.
14 “an occasion of pure waste”: Roger Caillois, Man, Play and Games, p. 5.
14 In his schema: Stuart Brown, Play, pp. 17–18.
15 “have not waited for man”: Huizinga, Homo Ludens, p. 1.
15 According to Marc Bekoff: Marc Bekoff, “Social Play and Social Morality,” p. 838.
16 Studies of young mammals: “Taking Play Seriously,” New York Times, Feb. 17, 2008.
16 One of the most dramatic: Ibid.
17 “a central paradox”: “The Play’s the Thing,” From book review in The Atlantic, May 2010.
21 In one study: Cited in “The Serious Need for Play,” Scientific American Mind, Feb.-March 2009.
21 In another study: Brown, Play, p. 33.
21 A recent study conducted: “How Sports May Focus the Brain,” New York Times, March 23, 2011.
22 Neuroscientist Sergio Pellis: “Taking Play Seriously.”
23 EQ is defined: Lori Marino, “Convergence of Complex Cognitive Abilities in Cetaceans and Primates,” p. 59.
27 Vanessa Woods, a researcher: From phone interview conducted Jan. 20, 2009.
28 “In a dangerous world”: Diane Ackerman, Deep Play, p. 4.
30 In the 1960s: Richard Lee, “What Do Hunters Do for a Living, or, How to Make Out on Scant Resources.”
30 “keep bankers’ hours”: Marshall Sahlins, Stone Age Economics, p. 34.
31 “A ball, similar to the one”: W. E. Harney, “Sport and Play Amidst the Aborigines of the Northern Territory.” Mankind 4 (9): 377–379. Cited in Blanchard.
31 the Copper Inuit: Blanchard, The Anthropology of Sport, p. 150.
32 Buzkashi achieved brief fame: Azoy, Buzkashi: Game and Power in Afghanistan.
36 “[His] comrades are roused up”: Cooper, “Buddies in Babylonia,” p. 78.
37 The ancient Greeks played it: Neils et al., Coming of Age in Ancient Greece.
37 “Give the word”: Percy Gardner, Catalogue of the Greek Vases in the Ashmolean Museum.
38 The actual balls used: Wolfgang Decker, Sports and Games of Ancient Egypt, pp. 111–116.
41 Every city had its stadiums: Guttmann, Sports: The First Five Millennia, p. 19.
41 “Nausicaa hurled the ball”: Harris, Sport in Greece and Rome, p. 81.
42 “He caught the ball and laughed”: Stephen J. Miller, Arete, p. 116.
2: From Skirmish to Scrum
50 “a soft and musical inflection”: Muir quote cited on Orkneyjar.com: The Heritage of the Orkney Islands.
50 “Hundreds of years ago the people of Kirkwall”: John D. Robertson, The Kirkwall Ba’, p. 215.
55 The origin of the Uppie and Doonie division: Ibid., p. 6.
59 “A round ball and a square wall”: Guttmann, Sports: The First Five Millennia, p. 40.
60 As one British scholar has humbly pointed out: Morris Marples, A History of Football, p. 4.
60 One of the earliest mentions of a football-like game: Francis Peabody Magoun, History of Football, p. 1.
61 “drove balls far over the fields”: Ibid, p. 4.
61 “After dinner all the youth of the city”: Marples, A History of Football, p. 18.
63 “seven balls of the largest size”: Robertson, The Kirkwall Ba’, p. 286.
64 “We’ll surely hae guid tatties”: Ibid., p. 160.
67 the only time women played a ba’: Ibid., pp. 115–122.
73 “died by misadventure”: Magoun, History of Football, p. 4.
74 “Neyther maye there be anye looker”: Teresa McLean, The English at Play in the Middle Ages, p. 8.
74 “Whereas our Lord the King”: Magoun, History of Football, p. 5.
75 “dangerous and pernicious [game]”: Cited in William J. Baker, Sports in the Western World, p. 54.
76 “In the face of moral preachments”: Ibid., p. 55.
3: Advantage, King
80 “And those standing at the one end”: Heiner Gillmeister, Tennis: A Cultural History, p. 1.
81 “On Easter Day, after dinner”: Robert Henderson, Ball, Bat and Bishop, p. 50.
83 “the French are born with rackets”: Baker, Sports in the Western World, p. 67.
83 In 1596, there were 250 jeu de paume courts: Guttmann, Sports: The First Five Millennia, p. 63.
85 Your typical lawn tennis ball: Feldman, When Do Fish Sleep?, p. 36.
86 They used dog hair instead: Gillmeister, Tennis: A Cultural History, p. 77.
86 “and not containing sand, ground chalk”: Baker, Sports in the Western World, p. 66.
88 Looking at the near-finished product: Yves Carlier, Jeu des Rois, Roi des jeux, p. 37.
91 In fact, he loved tennis so much: Julian Marshall, The Annals of Tennis, p. 18.
93 “Let us leave the nets to fishermen”: Baker, Sports in the Western World, p. 86.
98 “played all day with them at ball”: Malcolm Whitman, Tennis Origins and Mysteries, p. 26.
99 “13th June 1494”: Gillmeister, Tennis: A Cultural History, p. 21–22.
&nb
sp; 103 “Some members of the clergy”: Ibid., p. 32.
103 “priests and all others in sacred orders”: Henderson, Ball, Bat and Bishop, p. 54.
104 The Book of the Courtier: Baker, Sports in the Western World, p. 60.
104 “Water which stands without any movement”: Roman Krznaric, The First Beautiful Game, p. 38.
105 Henry II built his courts at the Louvre: Baker, Sports in the Western World, p. 65.
107 Molière’s troupe of comedians: Carlier, Jeu des Rois, Rois des Jeux.
4: Sudden Death in the New World
112 “He was decapitated”: Elizabeth Newsome, Trees of Life and Death, p. 84.
113 pallone, a handball game: Anthony Fischer, The Game of Pallone.
114 “I don’t understand how when the balls hit the ground”: Mártir d’Anglería, Décadas del Nuevo Mundo.
114 “Jumping and bouncing are its qualities”: Duran, Book of the Gods and Rites and the Ancient Calendar, p. 316.
114 For 3,500 years or so: Laura F. Nadal, “Rubber and Rubber Balls in Mesoamerica,” p. 24.
116 “Rubber is the gum of a tree”: Toribio de Benavente, cited in Tarkanian and Hosler.
116 “The balls are made from the juice”: Mártir d’Anglería, cited in Tarkanian and Hosler.
117 In the 1940s Paul Stanley: Tarkanian and Hosler, “An Ancient Tradition Continued.”
118 At El Manatí: Nadal, “Rubber and Rubber Balls in Mesoamerica,” p. 27.
126 One match on record from 1930: Ted Leyenaar, “The Modern Ballgames of Sinaloa.”
126 “I do not know how to describe it”: Bernal Díaz del Castillo, The Discovery and Conquest of Mexico, p. 269.
127 “The playing of the ball game began”: Bernardino de Sahagún, Primeros Memoriales, p. 200.
127 “The man who sent the ball”: Duran, Book of the Gods and Rites and the Ancient Calendar, p. 315.
129 “On a lucky day, at midnight”: Antonio de Herrera Tordesillas, Historia General de los Hechos.
131 Though it was first recorded: Dennis Tedlock, The Popol Vuh.
132 “Life is both taken and renewed”: Mary Ellen Miller, “The Maya Ballgame.”
134 According to a 17th-century account: Ralph L. Beals, The Acaxee.
138 In what almost seemed a sadistic homage: “Mexico Cartel Stitches Rival’s Face on Soccer Ball,” Associated Press, January 9, 2010.
5: The Creator’s Game
144 As early as 1374: Baker, Sports in the Western World, p. 46.
144 “There is a poor sick man”: Cited in Stewart Culin, Games of the North American Indians, p. 589.
145 “They have a third play with a ball”: Ibid.
146 In this way, the Iroquois confederacy: Donald Fisher, Lacrosse, p. 14.
147 In 1763, a group of Ojibwe: Ibid.
155 In 1878, a group of Mohawk and Onondagan Indians: Ibid., p. 58.
156 “the fact that they may beat the pale-face”: George W. Beers, Lacrosse: The National Game of Canada, p. 55.
159 “a fighting band of Redskins”: Fisher, Lacrosse: A History of the Game, p. 172.
161 “In his dream, the boy saw”: Thomas Vennum, American Indian Lacrosse, p. 30.
162 Traditionally, the outcomes of games: Ibid., p. 36.
163 “Sometimes, also, one of these Jugglers”: Cited in Culin, p. 589.
168 “On one side of the green the Senecas”: Vennum, American Indian Lacrosse, p. 104.
169 “didn’t seem to be so much a point of the game”: Ibid., p. 110.
171 In 2010, lacrosse in the United States: Sporting Goods Manufacturers Association, U.S. Trends in Team Sports, 2010 edition.
6: Home, with Joy
175 “every prospect of becoming [America’s] national game”: George B. Kirsch, The Creation of American Team Sports, pp. 21–23.
175 “he sometimes throws and catches a ball”: David Block, Baseball Before We Knew It, p. 237.
177 “This is not a museum, it’s a church”: Bernard Henri-Lévy, “In the Footsteps of Tocqueville,” The Atlantic Magazine, May 2005.
178 Baseball Reliquary: Dorothy Seymour Mills, Chasing Baseball, pp. 48–50.
178 “Well—it’s our game”: Walt Whitman, from Horace Traubel, Walt Whitman in Camden.
179 A letter sent to the Hall of Fame: Block, Baseball Before We Knew It, p. 101; and SABR Protoball Chronology, Up to 1850.
179 Romanian Oina Federation: SABR Protoball Chronology, Up to 1850.
180 Danish researcher Per Maigard: Donald Dewey, “The Danish Professor and Baseball.”
182 “To shote, to bowle”: Block, Baseball Before We Knew It, p. 230.
184 “In the winter, in a large room”: Ibid., p. 140.
185 working trap-ball into the saucy mix: Richard Thomas Dutton, Women Beware Women and Other Plays, cited in SABR Protoball Chronology, Up to 1850.
185 What about cricket, then: Block, Baseball Before We Knew It, p. 144.
186 “to avail themselves of passing the Fourth”: Warren Goldstein, Playing for Keeps, pp. 132–33.
189 “When the batsman takes his position”: Peter Morris, A Game of Inches, p. 29.
191 The Industrial Revolution had transformed the leisure lives: Kirsch, The Creation of American Team Sports, p. 67; Goldstein, Playing for Keeps, p. 24.
192 “a class of players who are”: Cited in Paul Dickson, The New Baseball Dictionary, p. 333.
193 “a German immigrant who was the possessor”: Morris, A Game of Inches, p. 44.
193 baseballs were reputedly made from sturgeon eyes: Ibid., p. 396.
193 “We had a great deal of trouble”: Daniel “Doc” Adams, The Sporting News, February 29, 1896.
194 Doc Adams’s solution: 19cbaseball.com.
194 “escorted in carriages”: Goldstein, Playing for Keeps, p. 19.
195 As Warren Goldstein points out: Goldstein, Playing for Keeps, pp. 17–31.
198 “Baseball clubs . . . are now enlisted”: Kirsch, The Creation of American Team Sports, p. 79.
201 “What . . . can any club do?”: Goldstein, Playing for Keeps, p. 32.
202 “The boys have a say”: Kirsch, The Creation of American Team Sports, p. 65.
204 Albert G. Spalding, a rising pitching star: Peter Levine, A. G. Spalding and the Rise of Baseball.
212 “For creation myths”: Stephen Jay Gould, The Creation Myths of Cooperstown.
7: Played in America
216 “Baseball . . . is what America aspires to be”: Cited in Michael MacCambridge, America’s Game, p. 454.
219 “breaches of peaces, and pieces of britches”: Mark Bernstein, Football: The Ivy League Origins of an American Obsession, p. 5.
220 “the jerky little ‘dummy’ engine”: Parke Davis, Football: The American Intercollegiate Game, pp. 42–50.
222 “At one time it was banned”: Marples, A History of Football, p. 95.
223 an all-out attack on traditional mob football: Ibid., pp. 98–100.
223 “ludic zoos of the age”: Goldblatt, The Ball Is Round, pp. 24–26.
225 “The two sides close”: Thomas Hughes, Tom Brown’s Schooldays, p. 103.
225 “do away with the courage and pluck”: Cited in Goldblatt, The Ball Is Round, p. 31.
226 “I will not permit thirty men”: Bernstein, Football: The Ivy League Origins of an American Obsession, p. 9.
226 the “Boston Game”: Davis, Football: The American Intercollegiate Game, p. 53.
227 “Football will be a popular game”: Ibid., p. 65.
229 “Kicking it. That’s what the rest of the world does.” Sal Paolantonio, How Football Explains America, p. xxii.
230 England looked to spread its newly sanctioned game: Goldblatt, The Ball Is Round, pp. 87–98.
233 Richard Lindon of Rugby: Historical details to be found on www.richardlindon.com.
234 Fourteen managers from 10 professional teams: Robert Peterson, Pigskin, p. 69.
238 70 percent of the world’s stitched soccer balls: From la
borrights.org.
241 Frederick Winslow Taylor: Taylor, The Principles of Scientific Management.
241 “managerial and technocratic perspective”: Michael Oriard, Reading Football, p. 37.
242 When his teammates twice bucked his strategy: John Sayle Watterson, College Football, p. 19.
243 “A scrimmage takes place”: Football: The American Intercollegiate Game, p. 468.
243 “What is, therefore, in the English game”: Walter Camp, American Football, pp. 9–10.
245 “so disgusted spectators”: Camp, cited in Bernstein, Football: The Ivy League Origins of an American Obsession, pp. 19–20.
245 “If on three consecutive fairs and downs”: Davis, Football: The American Intercollegiate Game, p. 470.
246 “Division of labor . . . has been so thoroughly”: Walter Camp, “The Game and Laws of American Football,” cited in Guttmann, Sports: The First Five Millennia.
248 In 1884, Wyllys Terry of Yale: Bernstein, Football: The Ivy League Origins of an American Obsession, p. 22.
249 his take-no-prisoners play: McQuilkin and Smith, “The Rise and Fall of the Flying Wedge.”
250 “No sticky or greasy substance”: Davis, Football: The American Intercollegiate Game, pp. 96–97.
251 “is no longer a solemn festival”: Cited in Oriard, Reading Football, p. 93.
252 “Captain Frank Ranken of the Montauk football team”: Cited in Marc S. Maltby, The Origins and Early Development of Professional Football, p. 26.
253 Charles Eliot, Harvard’s president: Watterson, College Football, p. 30.
255 “playing baby on the field”: Maltby, The Origins and Early Development of Professional Football, p. 28.
255 Roosevelt was a fan of rough sports: Watterson, College Football, pp. 64–65.
256 “Out of heroism grows faith”: Bernstein, Football: The Ivy League Origins of an American Obsession, p. 38.
256 “not soft but honest”: Maltby, The Origins and Early Development of Professional Football, p. 33.
257 “I believe that the human body”: New York Times, Dec. 11, 1905, cited in Watterson, College Football, p. 76.