Since 9/11 such feelings have been growing in me. I am not sure how much of it is due to the aftermath and fallout from that tragedy as I have watched my country sink into a hate and an arrogance that troubles me deeply, and how much of it is a realization that what I have been viewing is merely a symptom, that something fundamentally is wrong with this culture.
Then something struck me while watching the game: when the boys came to the plate, they were all using the same batting stance. There was no individuality, for the coaches, who are well schooled in the game, demand they use what is presently considered the proper form.
This continued with the fielding. Everyone was to stand with the correct positioning in the proper place and all use the proper throwing motion. Only the pitchers were allowed any leeway, but this, too, was minimal.
Now, I understand within baseball there are certain ways things need to be done to get the most efficient effort and results for the good of the team; however, I was struck last night how this has slowly evolved to the point where the game has become one of a "sameness" that almost borders on an assembly line mentality. It would have made Henry Ford proud.
Perhaps this is part of what is troubling me about American culture. In the name of efficiency and increasing the rates of production we have stripped away the importance of individual creativity. The person is merely a cog within the system, a number whose bottom line is to produce and consume at an ever-faster rate.
I see this producing two results. First, this person is dehumanized. Their worth is not in them as an individual, but as a mean of production and consumption. There is little noted about them as unique, and since they have no individual worth, they can easily be replaced by another. This inhibits any loyalty or pride developing among the populace and isolates the individual.
Second, if one is not unique in some form and has nothing unique to contribute, beyond being a means of production and consumption, this person has no responsibility to the people and community around him. He becomes ever more narcissistic and selfish in his actions. The concept of common good is lost.
This creates a society of the soulless who are bent only upon the consumerism that is pushed upon them. The tension grows within a populace that is strained and emotionally stretched thin because they can never be satisfied. In the end you find a nation where everyone retreats into the television, the internet, and others such distractions, unable to truly communicate, relate, or care about those around them. Quiet desperation and alienation become the norm.
So why "In Search of Stan Musial"? Perhaps, it is a longing back to a world seen through the eyes of a child that seems like a simpler time; however, I believe I am not quite that deluded. The study of history has taught me that every age has its tensions and difficulties.
What I am doing is taking the baseball metaphor to show part of what has been lost in our culture with our incessant demand to produce and consume with the same repetitious motions and thoughts.
I grew up in a small town where little league was totally different than what my son is experiencing. There were no divisions. All boys in the age range of little league played on the same teams. We had no uniforms. Some boys didn't even have ball hats. The league field was a sandy plot in the middle of the racetrack at the county fairgrounds, instead of the three well-kept fields where my son plays. Our managers were mostly fathers whose love and duty to their sons far outweighed their knowledge of the game.
Thus, we boys taught the game to each other, handed down from older kid to younger kid. This, I believe, resulted in us bonding as a community as well as a team, and created a closeness between us that went far beyond baseball.
We also were allowed much more individual creativity in how we approached the game. For example, when I was seventeen, I coached a ten-year-old boy who could throw the ball underhanded from third to first harder than I could overhand. Although I knew baseball, I saw no need to make him change a style that worked.
As for Stan Musial, when I first became aware of baseball, he was a living legend on my favorite team, so I adopted his batting stance. If I had had one of my son's coaches they would have quickly changed my stance and would have destroyed what became perhaps the first "Zen-like" experience of my life.
Within Musial's crouch I learned that one does not battle the pitch, one becomes the ball as it leaves the pitcher's hand. You are almost like a snake, coiled around the motion of the ball and allowing its power to recoil off your bat and be placed in the direction you desire. For me it worked ideally. I was small and could never hit for power, but it allowed me to find the holes and get on base.
More importantly, it taught me how to get outside of myself, how to meld with something else. Although I wouldn't have articulated it so at that age, it illustrated the results that could be accomplished through creativity and the true beauty of such results. If not for Stan Musial, I doubt if I would have become an artist.
I doubt if my son will ever experience such community and creativity within baseball. He will have to learn the lessons elsewhere. Luckily, he attends a church that cultivates such concepts in people and has parents who believe they are much more important than the alternatives.
As the game ended in the gathering twilight, I watched my son and his teammates cheer as they pulled out a late inning victory. I could sense within them, as within all youth, the seeds of community and creativity if only it would be allowed to grow.
I would love to see them play the game without parental interference. I would love to see them take the field, choosing their own sides and playing as they want, not as how they are taught, like one of the many pickup games of my youth when we just assumed that getting together for a game on a summer afternoon was a given in life.
My son has a rather unorthodox throwing style that works well for him. His arm is accurate and powerful enough throwing that way. Perhaps, it is time I leave him alone with that style and allow him to discover where it will take him.
Perhaps, it is time to allow him to search for his own Stan Musial.