Baseball and Politics: A Nation Divided

By Chris Manson January 27, 2005 Issue

Here are two books that take place well after the fact. Since we already know how the stories are going to turn out, it’s kind of like seeing Fahrenheit 9/11 post-election. Or as my main man Michael O’Donoghue once remarked, “It’s like looking at pornography after you’ve just had an orgasm.” The presence of Faithful: Two Diehard Boston Red Sox Chronicle the Historic 2004 Season and What’s the Matter with Kansas? showing a renewed interest in history, however recent that history may be.

I’m no baseball fan, but I was attracted to Faithful due largely to my enjoyment of co-author Stephen King’s columns in Entertainment Weekly (as for the rest of the magazine…). I must confess that I’ve read little else of King’s massive output, aside from The Dead Zone and the comic book adaptation of his cult film classic Creepshow. But any guy who enlists AC/DC to compose the score for his first (and so far only) movie as director—the underrated Maximum Overdrive—and names Maria Full of Grace his top flick of the year is pretty cool in my book.

I was born in Chicago, but moved down south at a very young age, so I missed my chance to become a Cubs or White Sox (I still root for the former) superfreak. All that’s left of those hazy memories is a well-traveled Sox bobble-head figure with a broken cap and no photographic evidence of any trips to Wrigley Field, so I’ll have to take Mom’s word for it. Florence, Ala.—my hometown by default—wasn’t much of a baseball town, though you had your share of Atlanta Braves aficionados.

In Faithful, Stewart O’Nan mostly and King (whose contributions are in bold type, so fans can skip right over to his stuff) follow the Red Sox through the tumultuous 2004 season. O’Nan makes the journey to spring training and catches many of the games in person. He never pretends to be a journalist, showing up for batting practice, collecting autographs, and employing a large net to catch foul balls. The Sox are up, then down, always fearing the steroid-fueled New York Yankees. The Sox victory in the playoffs over the best ballplayers Steinbrenner’s money could buy provides the high point; the actual World Series match-up plays like an anticlimax. It can be said that the authors have two favorite teams, the Sox and anyone playing the Yankees.

Don’t look for any heated arguments between the two authors—King is a wee bit more optimistic about his team’s chances to break their 86-year losing streak—but there are plenty of long-winded summaries of virtually every game played during that amazing season. Which is why they say (authors included) ballgames aren’t played on paper. I don’t care how good a writer you are—when you start going into detail about the Sox and throwing all these names and nicknames out without attaching any personality to them, it’s hard for me to stay interested. Still, King is such a gifted scribe he cannot help but inject some wit into the proceedings. He also demonstrates how to watch baseball on television, in particular the Fox Network—turn the sound all the way down. He is also able to read books during the two-minute commercial breaks, good advice for folks who say they don’t have time for the latest bestsellers. And King provides an interesting history of the garage-rock classic “Dirty Water,” the unofficial theme song for the struggling Sox.

To their credit, O’Nan and King have found a way to write off pricey scalper tickets and stadium souvenirs. But I find the lack of drama puzzling. The authors’ devotion to the Sox doesn’t appear to have put any strain on their marriages, so just how diehard are these fans, anyway?

Thomas Frank, returning to his home state, wonders how his old stomping grounds became the laughing stock of America. In What’s the Matter with Kansas? Frank tries to get to the bottom of things and discovers the real culprit for the heartland swing to corporate-loving conservatism is America’s so-called moral decay in general and abortion and homosexuality in particular. These are issues that elected politicians can do nothing about, as Frank points out several times during this fascinating and well-researched work.

History shows that Kansas has long been the center of developing trends in America. Many fine chain stores and fast food joints got their start there. Kansas is often used as a test market for new products (electric scissors, perhaps?). Many a Hollywood pitch session has been interrupted by some clueless studio executive asking, “Yeah, but will the folks in Kansas go for it?” However, did you realize that in the late 19th century this now laughed-at state was a stronghold for progressive thought and populist politics? Genuine leftist views, for cryin’ out loud.

Basically, it boils down to the conservative movement’s endless attempts to make Middle America feel helpless, forever controlled by some imaginary ruling class of latte-drinking liberals (what Frank calls “the great backlash”). Politicians and talk-radio pundits serve up constant reminders that the country is going straight to hell and there’s nothing we can do about it except whine and yearn for the good old days. Particularly memorable is the chapter in which Frank examines the rise of the Christian-pandering conservatives and the decline of the moderate Republicans.

Frank doesn’t come off as some know-it-all liberal who has all the answers, but his questions are always intriguing. Why is righteousness more important to the Kansans than prosperity? Why are so many low-income blue-collar Americans willing to see the corporate fat cats get richer while the small towns wither away? Frank visits some notable Kansans, including a man who started his own version of the Catholic Church and elected himself Pope—yet the author portrays such characters respectfully and without passing judgment.

What’s the Matter with Kansas? was completed prior to the 2004 presidential election, but apparently Frank knew something the hapless Democrats did not. The Dems, thanks in large part to the corporate-friendly policies of the Clinton administration, are beginning to look more and more like the old moderate Republicans. The new breed of conservatives is a frightening prospect, but until someone offers a reasonable alternative, Kansas and the majority of America will continue to move further to the right.

Faithful: Two Diehard Boston Red Sox Fans Chronicle the Historic 2004 Season (Scribner, 407 pages) and What’s the Matter With Kansas (Metropolitan Books, 306 pages) available in local bookstores and libraries.

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