replays, rivalries, and rumbles
Reviewed by Dr. Mark D. Howell, Professor of Communications, Northwestern Michigan College
5 october 2018 archive
Collective memory, according to Steven Gietschier, who compiled and edited a fascinating collection of sports-related essays, is fluid and forever changing. In the foreword to his most recent book, Gietschier – an associate professor of history at Lindenwood University in St. Charles, Missouri – proposes that "We remember, but we exaggerate, and we simplify, and in the process, we distort." (vii)
There is perhaps no more exaggerated and distorted derivative of shared memory than what we recall (and define, and debate) about famous athletic endeavors: the performances, participants, and events we communally celebrate, commemorate, and classify as being historically and/or culturally "iconic". In an attempt to cut through the clutter of collective reinterpretation and redefinition, Gietschier turned to the expertise of twenty-three experienced and acclaimed sports historians from American academe. The end result is a collection of essays that are both highly educational and wildly entertaining.
I'll admit it: I'm a sports historian who specializes in the esoteric world of motor racing. That said: I'm only marginally familiar with subjects like Olympic Game traditions, the Chicago "Black Sox" scandal, the story of collegiate wrestler Dan Gable, Muhammad Ali's famed "rope-a-dope" technique, Curt Flood's lawsuit against Major League Baseball, and the historic exploits of legendary figures such as Babe Didrikson, Althea Gibson, and Notre Dame's George Gipp. My severely-limited knowledge of such recognized events as Babe Ruth's "called shot" during the 1932 World Series or the famed "Battle of the Sexes" between Billie Jean King and Bobby Riggs at the Houston Astrodome in 1973 always felt like some kind of cultural deficiency. As a card-carrying Popular Culture scholar, people (especially sports aficionados) often assumed I understood the particulars and the sociocultural significance of such meaningful sports narratives.
I may have recognized the specific histories of such events, which rarely shifted very much from names, locations, and dates, but what curious sports aficionados often wanted to know was what such historic sports stories meant within the larger context of a particular league, an era, an economy, or an athlete's legacy. Getting to the bottom of such detail meant thinking about collective memory and how our "knowledge" was affected by time, place, trends, and sociocultural leanings.
Thank goodness for Steven Gietschier's anthology of historical analyses. …
The twenty-three essays published in Gietschier's collection address the larger role that history plays when we try to decipher what significant events truly mean. With the passing of chronological time, the integral content and intentions of "real life" stories change as the tales are retold. Like folklore, sports narratives will evolve through continual imitation and repetition. As contributor Daniel A. Nathan states about the 1919 Chicago "Black Sox" scandal, "contemporary events – including all manner of cheating and sports scandals, from Pete Rose to BALCO to Lance Armstrong – often resurrect or reinvigorate Black Sox narratives and memories" (19)
Resurrection of such legendary sports narratives, according to many of the essays published in Gietschier's volume of historical scholarship, are filtered through the lens of popular culture. The troubled "Black Sox" career of "Shoeless Joe" Jackson was retold on-screen in the beloved 1989 film Field of Dreams, a mythical tale that brought the disgraced ballplayer back into national consciousness. Same is true for the televised tennis spectacle of King vs. Riggs in 1973, a sports narrative that has been reexamined and reinterpreted through the making of a major motion picture starring Emma Stone and Steve Carell as the primary protagonists. Whether it be via music, literature, television, or cinema, recognized narratives gleaned from the sports page often serve as a vehicle for, as the experts in this collection tell us, new takes on old legacies.
The sports historians assembled in Steven Gietschier's book share insights built from lifetimes of dedicated study, teaching, analysis, and authority. Whereas the casual observer hears about famous events and tends to think "Who?" or "What?" the contributors to Replays, Rivalries, and Rumbles introduce us to the "Why?" and the "How?" While New Yorkers widely believed that the Brooklyn Dodgers' owner Walter O'Malley moved the ball team to Los Angeles in 1957 solely for financial reasons, historian Robert Trumpbour, in his essay, explains that "the reality was much more complex", involving changes in politics, transportation, and the often-uncertain relationship between teams and their home cities. (85) While O'Malley seemed intent on profiting from a growing urban area, it was actually the emergence of an automobile-based culture and new ideas about urban planning that led to the club's infamous exodus.
Such "zombies of American sport history," according to Steven Gietschier, are "always ready to spring back to life." (viii) It is the "scholarly knowledge" of the experts appearing in this anthology that serves as "the ultimate weapon" against the forces of collective memory. As Gietschier states, "They [collective memories] are mythic, and regardless of how well academic historians dissect them, they [the debates over the meaning of famous sports narratives] will endure." (197)
Is Replays, Rivalries, and Rumbles the perfect collection of critical sports history analyses? No, but it comes awfully darn close. Most of the essays published in this volume adhere to what might be defined as "mainstream" sports. We get insightful articles about baseball, football, basketball, hockey, and tennis, which is logical since even the most sports-averse bystander likely recognizes the significance of well-known traditional events like the NCAA men's basketball championship tournament ("March Madness") and the Olympic Games. Even non-sports fans understand the importance of the World Series, the Super Bowl, and a heavyweight championship prizefight involving a legend like the late, great Muhammad Ali.
Are there other sports out there guilty of redefining and reinterpreting significant and controversial events? There certainly are, but the challenge of compiling an edited collection of essays is that the editor is typically at the mercy of the scholars who contribute material. That said: the majority of scholars explore topics relevant to the majority of curious readers. While there are a great many baseball, football, tennis, hockey, and basketball fans, and plenty of academics studying these sports, it sometimes felt that Replays, Rivalries, and Rumbles: The Most Iconic Moments in American Sports maintained a somewhat limited focus. Two subjects worthy of study and inclusion in a collection such as this were the plight of Tiger Woods and his fall from both professional and personal grace in the aftermath of his marital infidelities, and the 1979 Daytona 500 where NASCAR drivers Donnie Allison, Cale Yarborough, and Bobby Allison got into a fistfight live on CBS television after Yarborough and Donnie Allison crashed while battling for the lead on the final lap of the race. The controversial event introduced big time stock car racing to mainstream audiences literally overnight, and that particular race's mythic stature allowed NASCAR to eventually become the second-most popular professional sport in America, following just behind the National Football League.
Such exclusions are to be expected when putting together a collection of academic essays. A "call for papers" casts only so wide of a thematic net. The twenty-three scholarly articles compiled by Steven Gietschier in Replays, Rivalries, and Rumbles are nothing short of thorough and impressive. The book is accessible and informative and a wonderful window into the curious, fluid nature of American sports history. If you think you know American sports, read this book, then think again. …
Replays, Rivalries, and Rumbles: The Most Iconic Moments in American Sports edited by Steven Gietschier. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 2017. 218 pages, including brief biographies of contributors, bibliographical information, and index.
Copyright © 2018 by Mark D. Howell