[November 12th
marked the
125th anniversary of the signing of America’s first professional
football player, William
“Pudge” Heffelfinger. So this week I’ll AmericanStudy Pudge and other groundbreaking
professional athletes, leading up to a weekend post on Trump and sports!]
On the iconic
teammates who embody two contrasting narratives of American identity.
One of the most
defining, originating American myths is that of the “Puritan [or
sometimes Protestant] work ethic,” the concept of a community of quiet,
stoic everymen and –women going about their often thankless but vital labors
with determination and persistence. Yet at the same time, two of the first
genuinely famous American individuals would have to be Miles Standish and John
Smith, both boisterous, hard-living, larger-than-life, and
self-aggrandizing soldiers and explorers who famously wooed
the ladies and carved new territories with (seemingly) their forceful
personalities alone. (Seriously, if you haven’t read Smith’s third-person
personal narrative of his own heroism, you have to, if only for the passage
where he fights off hundreds of Indian attackers and uses his guide as a
personal human shield.) And these two narratives came together to form
Revolutionary America’s defining icon, Ben Franklin,
a self-made man composed (if you read his
autobiography) of equal parts persistent hard work and self-conscious myth-making.
Like all
enduring national narratives, these defining images have evolved over the
centuries; yet they have likewise retained some core elements that remain
visible in many different incarnations. For example, we can see strong
respective elements of each in two of the 20th century’s most famous and iconic
sports figures, a pair who happened to be teammates on the New York Yankees: Babe
Ruth and Lou Gehrig. Each was interesting and complicated in his own right,
but there’s no question that their most iconic qualities fit these two enduring
narratives quite closely: Gehrig was known first as “The Iron Horse” for his astounding
and record-setting consecutive-games-played streak, and second for his stoic and inspiring
battle with the tragic illness (ALS) now
generally known by his name; Ruth was known as “The Sultan of Swat,” as
much for his legendary parties and excesses as for his titanic homers, and like
the aforementioned American icons went out of his way to embrace and extend his own
myth on every occasion. (An interestingly similar dichotomy could be
identified in two subsequent Yankees teammates, Roger Maris and
Mickey Mantle.)
It’s easy to
side with Gehrig and quiet hard work over Ruth and boisterous excess, and of
course my own phrasings and frames here have undoubtedly done so. It’s
certainly fair to add that, if we think of icons as role models (an idea that various sports figures have
passionately critiqued), far more of us parents would likely direct our
kids to emulate Gehrig than Ruth. But from an AmericanStudies perspective, it’s
particularly interesting to consider the enduring co-existence of these two
narratives, the sense that we have found ways, across the centuries and in many
different social and cultural contexts, to valorize such seemingly contrasting
and even directly opposed ideals. We are of course big, and
contain multitudes; but narratives and images like these can help us push
past that bigness to consider and analyze some of the communal emphases that
have defined and continue to define us, and that reveal the multiple sides to
our shared national identity and culture.
Next
AthleteStudying tomorrow,
Ben
PS. What do you
think? Other athletes or related histories you’d highlight?
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