Baseball in the Newsreel

A 1927 Blog-a-thon Contributory Post

So when you say to me “1927” I immediately think of the Yankees, whose edition that year was one of the most dominant in baseball history; and of Babe Ruth’s 60 home runs that year. So I figure there’s got to be some newsreel footage right? Images abound; see Gehrig and Ruth, circa 1927, to the right.

Well, Paramount newsreels started in 1927, so close enough. I couldn’t find a good online archive, but the book Reel Baseball, with its included documentary, comes close. Well, as close as 1933, and having the 1927 Yankees lineup in the background at Lou Gehrig Day at Yankee Stadium (“Today…I consider myself luckiest man…on the face of the Earth.”) So, herein find some brief thoughts on how America’s pastime was experienced by the masses via the cinema, and Ruth in particular.

One thing that struck me is how this must have been the Sportscenter of the day—only far more intermittent. The narration is clearly trying to tell stories that establish our heroes, and surprisingly I found the attempts to be witty in a similar vane to highlight shows now—although, far less snarky, disparaging, or sarcastic. It was a time when the media gladly overlooked the moral failings of sports heroes—the tale of Ducky Medwick’s vicious spiking of Mickey Owen in the 1934 World Series, which led disgusted Tigers fans to pelt him with fruit—is told with a “that’s baseball” wink and a nod.

There are lots of World Series and All-Star game highlights in the 1933-1965 time frame covered on this documentary, but less in between—mostly commemorations and stunts (e.g., Bob Feller throwing fastballs through an Army device which tested the speed of artillery shells, and measured his fastball at 98 miles per hour). One such stunt was a wartime exhibition between Babe Ruth (in his late forties) and Walter Johnson (in his fifties.) Ruth looks mostly like you remember him, even then, although his swing is obviously slower and his timing is way off. Ruth looks (and sounds) much worse later, in footage of him playing Santa Claus in the late 40s, when the throat cancer which would eventually kill him must have been progressing. I’m sure he loved entertaining kids, but I don’t know how well a raspy voiced Santa with a beard that wouldn’t stay put was taken—the kids don’t look entirely thrilled.

But of course, even that footage of how we remember Ruth betrays what he was—he had let the hot dogs and booze soften him around the middle by then, and the mental image most have is of a pudgy, swing from the heels type. He was, of course, much more than that; had he stayed a pitcher his whole career he probably would have been a Hall of Famer for that alone, and early in his career he was a tremendous defender and graceful base stealer as well. Compare his face in this photo from his Red Sox days and this wallpaper from the Baseball Hall of Fame.

I talk in a post below about how I’d disagree with this as a “golden age” of baseball; I think that’s a sentiment of those who tend to romanticize the past and overlook its flaws. But in ways, it was a magical time for the cinema and baseball. Unless you lived in the Northeast or Midwest, you didn’t have major league baseball for most of this time. In 1927—and through 1953, when the Boston Braves moved to Milwaukee--Teams were in New York (3), Boston (2), Philadelphia (2), Washington, Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Detroit, Chicago (2), and St. Louis (2). The rest of the country only saw footage in their theaters.

Did this contribute to the larger than life status of baseball stars, as they were only literally seen that way? Did the associations get made with other famous stars, images of far-off locales (that were really studio lots), and epic tales of valor and romance to elevate baseball to America’s game in the rest of the country as well? I’ll argue it helped, but despite a lack of major league baseball, there were plenty of regional leagues in the south and west, and these minor leagues, at that time, were not the farm system we know today—they were independent, scouted and signed their own players, and while they passed them up to better teams in exchange for fees, they could make local heroes of their own. But the newsreels did bring the top players, the best of the best (save for the color line) to most of America, and no doubt contributed to the sense of wonder.

As a mini "Shameful Book Report," I highly recommend to the baseball fans with a sense of history getting a copy of Reel Baseball from your local library--the documentary CD with the actual footage is certainly worth it, as it contains tons of footage of famous plays you've heard about (e.g., Al Gionfriddo's catch in the 1947 World Series) but probably only seen stills of. A very entertaining hour spent. The book doesn't contain a lot of info I didn't know already, but that's because I've read it before. If you know someone just getting into pre-War and early post-War baseball history, I think it would be a good pickup.