Out of the park
For fans of our national pastime, new exhibit of artifacts and interactive displays is a natural
Baseball, alas, long ago became the national pastime in name only, overtaken by the NFL and, who knows, maybe even NASCAR. (The sound of America singing isn't bat meeting ball; it's rubber meeting road.)
Yet "Baseball As America," the splendid peanuts-and-Cracker-Jack-filled extravaganza that opens Sunday at the Museum of Science, reminds us that the sport is something better than a mere national pastime. Baseball is a national museum - the Smithsonian with box scores.
This makes perfect sense. Baseball is the most curatorial of American games. Its long history provides an accumulation of lore and personalities. The intermittent rhythm of a nine-inning game not only allows for but demands savoring and reflection. Baseball equipment ensures a steady supply of reliquary-ready objects - bats, balls, gloves, spikes, caps, not to mention the occasional sanguinary sock.
Yes, Curt Schilling's hemoglobin-laced hosiery is among the more than 500 items in this touring exhibition organized by the National Baseball Hall of Fame & Museum in Cooperstown, N.Y.
This being Boston, there's a special display de voted to the Red Sox. Its contents range from a scorecard for the World Series game played on Oct. 13, 1903, between the Sox and the Pirates, to the cap Clay Buchholz wore when he pitched his no-hitter last September. Best of all is the scarred and pitted bat Ted Williams used to hit his last home run. Relics don't come any more sacred than that.
Williams's bat stands in hilarious contrast to the pristine piece of wood Robert Redford used to slug his epochal tater in the movie version of "The Natural." That's in the show, too. So's Hall of Famer Edd Roush's 47-ounce bat. (Bat? Club is more like it.)
This being the Museum of Science, there's also the Home Plate Baseball Lab: a set of interactive displays organized by the museum to examine the physics of pitching, hitting, and so forth. Museumgoers get to test their reactions to a 95-mile-per-hour fastball. They can tap a bat to find its sweet spot. There's also the opportunity to see how fast they can throw a baseball. Actually, it's a bean bag. That's OK, though: Velocity is velocity.
It should come as no surprise that "Baseball As America" is an elaborate exercise in cheerleading. After all, who goes to the ballpark just to boo? But that, too, is OK, since the cheerleading is so thoughtful, even judicious.
Celebration does not mean triumphalism and whitewashing. It's one thing to display Jackie Robinson's jersey or to give both him and Hank Aaron individual displays. (Babe Ruth is the only other player to get his own.) It's quite another to show a 1953 handbill that blasts the Yankees for not signing black ballplayers.
Not that Sox fans should feel superior. Our beloved nine, to its enduring shame, was the last all-white major league team, a self-inflicted curse far worse than any Bambino nonsense. That Tom Yawkey is in the Hall of Fame is almost as grim a joke as that Marvin Miller isn't.
Attention is given to the Negro Leagues, the impact of Hispanic players, women's baseball, labor strife, and the role of baseball in Japanese-American relocation camps during World War II. For all the goofy fun the show has to offer - a "Play Ball" Ken doll, from 1963; the San Diego Chicken's costume; a Cecil Fielder candy bar (Jenny Craig members, take a rain check!) - this is a shrewd and serious survey that's as much social history as indulgence in nostalgia.
What went on between the foul lines is only a part of the story "Baseball As America" has to tell. There are exhibits devoted to fans, marketing, advertising, popular culture, technology. Among objects on display are a hot dog vendor's bucket from 1910; a 1920s Western Union ticker; Red Barber's first microphone, from 1932; a turnstile from the Polo Grounds.
There are many baseball cards, scorecards, and, of course, uniforms. The most memorable is a 1948 Boston Braves jersey made of satin for greater visibility during night games. If you wear it, they will see?
Not surprisingly, "Field of Dreams" crops up several times. There are a number of audio and visual displays. Visitors get to hear Harry Caray leading the Wrigley faithful in "Take Me Out to the Ballgame," Bruce Springsteen singing "Glory Days," and Abbott and Costello pave the way for Samuel Beckett with their classic "Who's on First?" routine.
Naturally, there's plenty of baseball qua baseball: the first catcher's mask, invented in 1877 (by a Harvard man, of course); an 1887 balls-and-strikes counter; a pair of Shoeless Joe Jackson's shoes; the glove Brooks Robinson wore during the 1970 World Series. No wonder the Oriole third baseman was such a whiz at the hot corner. His glove is only slightly smaller than the mitt Yogi Berra used to catch Don Larsen's perfect game in the 1956 World Series, which is in the same vitrine.
Like any good show, "Baseball As America" raises as many questions as it answers. Was the suspicious number of Alka-Seltzer packets in the trainer's kit used by the Yankees during the early '60s owing to Mickey Mantle's many hangovers? Who knew the first ballpark organ wasn't installed until 1941? Or that the Cy Young Award trophy could be so ugly?
Perhaps in compensation for that ugliness, the show has actual fine art in it: Ralph Fasanella's charming oil "Night Game (Practice Time)"; Norman Rockwell's echt-Rockwellian "Game Called Because of Rain (Tough Call)"; and even an Andy Warhol silkscreen, of Tom Seaver. It's not Andy at his best.
Art meets craft in what may be the most wondrous object in the show, a scoreboard used during the mid-'20s at the Blair Hotel, in Waynesburg, Pa., to help guests and passersby keep track of what was happening in World Series games. Made of wood, this mighty object stands 10-by-6 feet, with such features as movable runners, a mock diamond, and both teams' lineups. It's the most beautiful sculpture - well, at least the most informative - Louise Nevelson never made.
Mark Feeney can be reached at mfeeney@globe.com.
