I think sliding reflects American ambivalence about social authority. Baseball players dress up in fine clothes (how many other sports require a belt?), as if they're going to church or court--and then they throw themselves in the dirt. Respect and disdain for authority are in tension with each other in baseball and American society. Respect the rules, but kill the ump. Get dressed up, but slide in the dirt. Sliding is controlled social rebellion.
We should remember that sliding didn't have to become part of baseball. For roughly the first hundred years of baseball's existence, there was no such thing as sliding. The slide was a novelty when first introduced in the mid-1800s and many people opposed it, arguing that players should be allowed to overrun every base rather than sliding. This is how the crowd reacted to one of the first recorded slides, during an 1859 game in Portland, Maine: "the feat fairly astonished the natives, who at first roared with laughter, but Chandler scored the run, and they then woke up to the fact that a large, new and valuable 'wrinkle' had been handed out to them" (quoted in Peter Morris's excellent book, A Game of Inches: The Stories That Shaped Baseball, p. 265).
This early phase in baseball history reminds us that sliding didn't become popular for purely practical reasons. There were other ways to reach the bases, just as basketball could still be played without a shot clock, as it was in its early years. Sliding has become such a fixture in baseball because it resonates with American ambivalence about social authority.
And what about the catch?
The catch seems to simulate a key aspect of human history: sharing. The writer-director of Field of Dreams, Phil Alden Robinson, touched on this when he described a catch this way (in the DVD bonus materials and a 2009 SI article):
"I give to you. I receive from you. It's a lovely experience with nonverbal communication, the sharing of something very sweet."
Of course, the best example of this sweet sharing is the father-son catch at the end of the film ("Dad, you wanna' have a catch?").
Such sharing is not only deeply emotional--it's the very reason homo sapiens are here today. Without reciprocal gift-giving and sharing of information, homo sapiens never would have made it. One of my professors in grad school used to say, "Early hominids were dumb, friendly, and good to eat. How in the world did they ever survive?" I'm finally ready with a short answer: Sharing.
I usually resist "We're Hunter-Gatherer" explanations for contemporary cultural patterns, since they often lead to dangerous claims about unchanging "human nature," but I'm making an exception in this case because the parallels are too overwhelming.
What else? Do the slide and the catch have other resonances with that nebulous, ever-changing thing we call American culture?
Related Posts about Baseball:
What would George Carlin say about baseball vs. basketball?
All my posts about baseball and Field of Dreams
10-Second Video of a Little League Player Stealing 2nd Base While the Pitcher's Not Looking:
Posts
Sliding: I don't think you can overlook the practical question of needing to stop suddenly while sprinting at full speed. You won't reliably end up on base without the help of friction.
ReplyDeleteCatch: Notable to me is the fact that most catch is played before games or between innings. Game play uses catch to get outs and for the pitcher to deliver the ball to/past batters, before the game and between innings, everyone is playing catch simultaneously, a beautiful thing to watch all on its own. I'm probably stretching a little, but as a pre-game ritual it seems to have this bonding function, the kind of bonding before a major undertaking like a hunt or a battle.
If this is stretching, I like it--your theory works for me!
ReplyDeleteThis helps explain something else I've always marveled at: the throw around the bases after someone makes an out. True, there might be some need to keep the other players alert, but practical concerns don't have to preclude social symbolism, right? Those mini-catches also seem like a bonding thing, as you say: the group reasserting itself after battle, as well as before. Hmmm, pretty interesting. Thanks.