Richards of Arabia

In my last post I wrote about film being in its very early stages in the era of Keaton and Chaplin. I just watched The Cameraman last night incidentally, and for an artist unhappy with his lack of creative input with a new studio, Buster shows just how much he still rules the school. Jumping on to the fenders of moving buses for starters.

If there is an area in sports that is still in its infancy, it is the shootout. Yeah, they actually have been around forever, particularly in international and amateur events. I can even remember them from my tween and teen times on the ice. I am a perfect 100%, fyi. One for one. Nothing too fancy. One move deke to the backhand. Shelf. If I recall it was the only move I had. I know that even through those past occurrences we have seen some pretty groundbreaking stuff, my move excluded. Forsberg in Lillehammer and Datsyuk anywhere come to mind. If there is a film parallel, again they are akin to the great comedy shorts or even Melies' A Trip to the Moon.

Since the shootout's inception and obvious added frequency within the era henceforth known as "new" NHL, we have seen variances on things like leg kicks added to the deke. For the most part, it is between this or the pick-your-poison quick shot, to which some players display ridiculous amounts of loyalty. Recently we have seen some somewhat interesting advancements like Rolston with his straight-up blast, but this is still all creativity only on display during the ending of the event. What's that? Where else can we find creativity but in the brief moments before the shot? You need only look as far as Dean Youngblood to find that answer. I know that is a crazy-pretty finish, but he had that Gilles Gratton rip-off beat the moment he skated away from the puck. The shootout attempt begins right after the ref blows the whistle, letting you know it's your turn to shoot, not when you cross the hash marks.

Over the last season or two, we have started to see some players trying the preliminary cut to one side of the rink move, and more advanced variations to varying results, but things really got interesting in the early portion of the program department last weekend. If the players we discussed earlier were Keaton and Melies, then Mike Richards went and pulled out a D. W. Griffith. He dropped The Birth of a Nation on our asses. Only slightly less racist. Should I have said Intolerance? Anyways, it all occurs at the :40 mark of this clip and was met to differing responses from critics. You can hear Dutchie give a gimme-a-break sort of "What's he doing?" in the background. I guess that would put him in the "disapproving" camp.

Richards may not have scored, but his epic length and scope caused immediate ripplings. One night later, enter: pacing. In a game between the Habs and Sens, Maxim Lapierre discovered that this new medium called the shootout is capable of providing an interesting drama with plot twists and a slow but effective finale. It's what Pauline Kael might refer to as "ludicrous at times..." but shows "more spectral atmosphere, more ingenuity, and more imaginative ghoulish ghastliness than any of its successors." Or maybe we've just reached Murnau's Nosferatu.

Btw, notice how Lapierre finished? One move deke to the backhand. Shelf.

You're welcome.

Opening Day

Hello sports fans!

This blog is the start of a project that will hopefully evolve in to something much bigger. Friends who have spent any time with me over the last three months know that this finally begins what I seem incapable of shutting up about. I will extrapolate further in a minute, but right now I feel we need an introduction to explain how this all came about.

Last September, I began the final two classes leading towards my English degree, one of them a 400-level Modernism course that was entirely centred around the year 1922. This was a big year for Modernism. Ulysses' last pages were published then, as was Eliot's The Waste Land. We looked at these along with works by Lawrence and Woolf. Also included were some of the "fringe" artists of the era, including Claude McKay and Mina Loy. You see, there is a definite aura of elitism that looms when reading and examining modernist texts. There came a time to propose presentations to lead class discussion at future dates. I chose the week in which we were looking at film and Charlie Chaplin, but asked for two deviations: 1. - that I can look at Buster Keaton (a personal favourite) as well and, 2. - that I can also write about baseball and Babe Ruth's 1922 season.

There are a lot of reasons for this choice, and those who know me understand that I do not have to explain the main reason. Within the confines of the class, however, the driving force was the idea of art being for a certain group of people. It views its prized texts as "high" art, and one could definitely see this as rightfully so. I cannot imagine anyone who is not extremely well-read reading the aforementioned Joycean epic and well, "getting" it. If I had not read it within the confines of a classroom and the benefits of discussion, there is so so so much that would have gone over my head. I am not saying that you should all marvel at this novel's sheer intellectual might because it was capable of confusing my seemingly perfect brain. I'm just saying, tough read. No, what I was really concerned with was the idea of one form of art failing to be recognized in holding as much merit as another. At the time, the medium of film was still in its infancy and seen as "low." I never reference it in my presentation, but a look at Gilbert Seldes' The 7 Lively Arts discusses this along with other forms and their perception.

Film, along with its early works from the likes of Chaplin and Keaton, has of course reached a recognition much higher as a medium. I would argue in my presentation that the heroes of the two shorts we would watch, The Pawn Shop and Neighbors share motivations with what one would describe as the "modernist hero" that we would see in other texts. Within that argument would be Ruth's 1922 season. Why? What is the connection? Well, it is no mystery that academia does not recognize athletics and sport. Some might even suggest an elitism towards it. There are obviously a number of reasons for this phenomena to exist. For instance, the brain and what you do with it is in general, universally seen as containing more importance than someones physical strength and ability. Sports also receives enough recognition from the Philistine population, aka almost everybody. Why should it get something else, something grander? Another big factor is the fact that every egghead that made it to some position of power within the hallowed halls of Wherever University, North America and beyond, let's face it, got picked last in every gym class he ever took.

So I guess I was suggesting a couple of things: 1. - Baseball is an art and deserves recognition as so. 2. - Babe Ruth was its most groundbreaking artist, much like those that would be changing the rules of an art form like film. The presentation was prefaced by the two films mentioned, as well as the first six minutes of "The Fourth Inning" of Ken Burns' Baseball*. If you can find it before you read this, it aids in presenting The Babe's importance.

Lovers, Tramps, and Sultans: A Look at the Modernist Hero and the Attitudes Attached Through Keaton, Chaplin, and Ruth
“Who is this Baby Ruth? And what does she do?”
- George Bernard Shaw

“Sometimes when a hero fails, it only makes him more human and real and you love him even more.”
- Bret Hart

Following the Black Sox Scandal of 1919, George Herman Ruth saved baseball by chasing aside the daisy-cutters and small ball, single-handedly ushering in the era of the moon shot. The Maharajah of Mash belted 54 dingers in the 1920 season, more than any other team’s combined total for the year, save the Phillies, whose roster produced one more. He would repeat this feat in the next season, adding 5 more bombs for good measure. These wonders, aided by the articles of the sports writers of the day made him the biggest name in America, a hero to all whose own legend neared that of Paul Bunyan. In regards to a New Jersey hospital visit by the Bambino, New York Daily News scribe Paul Gallico wrote, “It was God himself who walked into the room, straight from the glittering throne. God dressed in a camel’s hair polo coat and flat camel’s hair cap, God with a flat nose and little piggy eyes, a big grin, and a fat black cigar sticking out of the side of it.”

The protagonists in the short films The Pawn Shop and Neighbors demonstrated the incredible talent of their respective real-life stars, Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton, and in doing so, produced characters that seemed capable of anything. Audiences would marvel at the quick thinking and leaps in logic that would often produce desired results for each film’s main character. In The Pawn Shop’s most celebrated scene, Chaplin’s tramp character is forced to deem whether a customer’s clock is suitable for purchase. He is unqualified to make the decision, as he is merely the shop’s custodian, yet he embraces the role of shopkeeper and seemingly on the fly goes through a number of tests to judge the piece of merchandise. Writer Kyp Harness explains, “an alarm clock becomes a doctor’s patient, a can of tuna, and a host of other intricate devices and organisms we can only dare to imagine” (Art, 70). After destroying the clock, he returns it to the customer in his own hat, and denies the transaction. This illustrates a quality of fearlessness in the tramp character that would endear Chaplin to millions.
In the case of Keaton, it was his ability to do stunt work disguised as slapstick that would make him a film legend. In Neighbors, his character’s intentions may be more honourable than Chaplin’s, but the lengths he goes to in order to be with his true love are just as outrageous. In an early scene, he climbs three stories in rapid fashion, is chased out by an angry father, zip-lines across one clothesline, and inadvertently slides down a banister that leads to another clothesline zip across back to the same father. Buster is then clothes pinned by his feet to the line and pulleyed back to his own father, who, in the middle of beating the dust out of an old rug, mistakenly gives Buster a whooping himself. Much like Chaplin’s outside-of-the-box reasoning, Keaton’s physical ability would aid in producing a character that was easy to root for.

The 1922 season would not begin with The Behemoth of Bust continuing his horsehide destruction. The newly ordained commissioner of baseball, Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis announced that Ruth would be suspended for the season’s first seven weeks, due to a forbidden barnstorming tour in the off-season. In his sixth game back, after being called out for trying to stretch out a two-bagger from a single, the Babe threw dirt in the umpire’s face, was thrown out of the game, then stood atop the dugout and challenged two hecklers to a fight. The season’s woes continued through the summer, as his bat was not producing like it could. In September, he was suspended for his “vulgar and vicious language” towards an umpire. It was originally to be a three game ride on the pine, but was stretched to five after The Sultan of Swat confronted the umpire the next day. His boorish behaviour stretched beyond the field as well. He was known for his hard-drinking, long nights of carousing, and a general disregard for authority. When his roommate Ping Bodie was asked what it was like to live with the Caliph of Clout, he replied, “I don’t know. I never see him. I room with a suitcase.” Through all of this turmoil, the Babe’s popularity never dwindled.

Charlie Chaplin’s character in The Pawn Shop behaves in a manner that is far from virtuous. He comes to work late, and eventually gets in to a fight with his co-worker. He then concentrates on earning the affections of the shop owner’s daughter. He seems to want to do everything but work when at his job. It gets worse when a thief has made his way in. In his book, Silent Clowns, Walter Kerr writes that Chaplin’s tramp character is “both coward and hero of the occasion” (93). He hides out in a trunk, and waits for the opportunity to spring on the thief, levelling him with a rolling pin. Kerr continues, “Charlie hops from the trunk, turns directly to us, and goes into a cross-ankled, spread-eagled dancer’s applause-finish, quite as though the orchestra were now blaring out a sign-off ‘Ta-taa!’” Despite his morally questionable tactics, Chaplin finds a way to place a twinkle in his eye, maintaining his protagonist status.
Keaton similarly behaves in ways that could be considered childish in Neighbors. He devises a contraption described as a “flyswatter” on the title card, but it is there, simply to smack his potential bride’s father upside the head and in the rear end, while confusing him in the process. As it happens, he sits atop the fence and hides behind a piece of clothing on the line, just to watch the show. He is creating chaos for chaos’s sake and revelling in it. Eventually even policemen are involved. Policemen are seen in relatively the same way by Keaton and Chaplin in the two pieces as well. Each is busted at times by officers, and the characters’ way of escaping their clutches is through proclaiming innocence by springing in to dance, of all things. Authority is seen as something that can be outsmarted by both Chaplin and Keaton, and they are recognized as champions in doing so.

The Rajah of Rap was anything but in the 1922 season. He finished with 24 less round-trippers than he had in 1921. Even though his Yankees made it to the World Series, he was a loathsome 2 for 17 at the plate. Rumours flew that the reason for his team’s inability to win in the October Classic were due to his non-stop partying and disciplinary action was expected. On November 15, Ruth attended a baseball writers’ dinner at the New York Elks Club. State Senator James Walker was the guest of honour and stunned the onlookers by loudly proclaiming, “Babe Ruth is not only a great athlete, but also a fool!” He continued, by adding that he had let down every child in the United States:
You carouse and abuse your great body, and it is exactly as though Santa Claus himself suddenly were to take off his beard to reveal the features of a villain... the other day a ragged, dirty-faced little kid asked me for a dime to make up a quarter he was trying to get together.
‘And what will you do with a quarter?’I asked him.
‘I wanna get me a cap with Babe Ruth on it, like the rest of the gang.’
If we did not love you, Babe, and I myself did not love you sincerely, I would not tell you these things... Will you solemnly promise to the dirty-faced kids of America, to mend your ways?
The Babe replied through tears, “So help me Jim, I will. I’m going back to the farm and get in shape!”

*

Buster Keaton and Charlie Chaplin would go on to produce the only two comedy epics of the Silent era, The General and The Gold Rush.

Babe Ruth would begin the 1923 season by hitting one out of a park filled with more than 74,000 people, a stadium built only for him. He finished his career with 714 homeruns, a record that would stand for nearly forty years.

Works Cited
Burns, Ken, dir. “Fourth Inning: A National Heirloom 1920-1930.” Baseball. DVD. Warner
Bros, 1994.
Chaplin, Charlie, dir. The Pawn Shop. With Chaplin and Henry Bergman. Mutual, 1916.
Dickson, Paul, ed. Baseball’s Greatest Quotations. New York: HarperCollins, 1991.
Harness, Kyp. The Art of Charlie Chaplin: A Film By Film Analysis. Jefferson, NC: McFarland
& Co., 2008.
Keaton, Buster, dir. Neighbors. With Keaton and Virginia Fox. Metro, 1920.
Kerr, Walter. The Silent Clowns. New York: Random House, 1975.
Montville, Leigh. The Big Bam: The Life and Times of Babe Ruth. New York: Doubleday, 2006.
Wagenheim, Kal. Babe Ruth: His Life & Legend. New York: Praeger, 1974.

So, the presentation went well, I had a ball writing it, and I found myself thinking something that I had never once in my life thought previously: I should write a book. Not just about this, but sports in general. A game of baseball or any team sport for that matter, can be seen as a piece, with its different events, moods, atmospheres, and even textures that are contained within one. You will often hear coaches after an "ugly win" remark something along the lines of, "it wasn't a Rembrandt, but we'll take it." This is sort of what I am getting at, but to sum up the real reason I want to write a book came from something I thought before I even took this class. It will be the mantra for this project and it goes like this:

A goal from Alexander Ovechkin is capable of producing as much artistry and creativity that there is found in a line from T.S. Eliot's The Waste Land.

I was explaining this to my friend Marissa just before this Christmas and she remarked, "they call them superstars."

This conversation helped produce a book title perhaps, a blog title for sure. I will continue to write about the works and sports that I watch and follow most in relation to this topic, and look forward to any input from those willing to aid me on my journey. I also welcome discussion on my initial presentation, as it is the heart of this endeavor. This is an obvious labour of love, but I will definitely need all the help that I can get. With that in mind - let's play ball.

* - Great News!