"Fat Mens Base Ball Game" vs. "Pipe Smoking Contest"
Two invigorating sporting events for the working man.
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In a recent discussion with Blaze TV employees Ben Domenech and Emily Jashinsky, Jason Whitlock argued that, “American adversaries abroad and within understood the importance of sports as a unifying force in America and they are undermining all unifying forces in America. Sports at the forefront of that, Christianity at the forefront of being undermined, we’ve become more of a secular society.” Sweaty as Whitlock’s argument may be, there is a kernel of truth somewhere amongst the right-wing grievance dross. The kernel of truth is just very different from what Whitlock thinks it is. The truth is that sports are a unifying force, and have been for a while. While true, it’s also uninteresting. The more important question, which Whitlock has an answer too, but dodges around, is “to what ends are sports used for unification?” That is what is the goal or the purpose behind trying to unify people through sports. Whitlock does not investigate or interrogate this in any meaningful manner. Listening to Whitlock, you’d come to believe that “sports” is some powerful entity with an agenda and will of its own. This isn’t true. There are always people behind the “sports,” making the decisions. Some recent research I did gave me two great examples of how sports can be unify people toward completely different ends.
I was recently in the archives at the University of Pittsburgh, collecting documents for work on my dissertation. While hunting through their fantastic collections I came across several pieces of material dealing directly with sports. I can’t show the pictures of them here, due to copyright reasons, mostly not wanting to pay for the rights, but trust me, they’re cool. I can show you a picture of me in the archives though. I’ve added it below. The first document, chronologically, comes from 1920. A little history before we look at the document.
The 1920s marked a time of low union power in the Pittsburgh steel industry. Having gutted union power in the wake of 1892’s Homestead Strike, Pittsburgh had become a company town run largely by Carnegie Company executives and anyone willing to do their bidding. While there were pockets of organized resistance to this state of affairs, and the dearth of union power wouldn’t last forever, there wasn’t much happening by the way of union strength in the 1920s. World War One had led to the development of “company unions,” which were about effective at protecting workers rights as the name suggests, and the First Red Scare had led to any and all sympathizers with the left being labeled as “Communists,” “Traitors,” or “Anarchists.” Needless to say, steel unions weren’t getting up too much in Pittsburgh at the time.
Back to the brochure. It announces a “Basket Picnic’ for employees of four mills in the Carnegie Steel Company. Taking place on Saturday, September 11th, 1920, the picnic was packed with sporting events throughout the whole day. The printed brochure tells of a “Base Ball Game,” a “Fat Mens Base Ball Game*,” a “Mushball” game, “Peanut And Spoon Race,” and a “Pipe Smoking Contest.” The Carnegie Company did not put this picnic on without an ulterior motive however. This Basket Picnic brochure comes marked with multiple safety warnings. “Modern ‘A’ ‘B’ ‘C’ – Always Be Careful,” “To Be Careful, Thoughtless, Or Reckless Means Injury: ‘Act Safe.’” Fair enough. The iron industry is a dangerous one, especially at this time, and it can’t hurt to remind people to be safe.
This is where it’s important to know who is putting on the event. The Carnegie Steel Company was getting a lot of pressure at the time both internally and externally to make their works safer. The Progressive Movement had made some headway nationally in putting pressure on governments and companies to enact worker safety precautions. One of the ways that companies poushed back against this was by putting the onus for maintaining safety on the worker, instead of the company. The “it’s not our fault excuse.” This brochure is evidence of that. The fact that this message is being sold through sporting events is an interesting one. While I don’t have records of the results of the picnic, or if it even took place, the fact that the company spent a lot of time setting this up, and printing brochures for it, says much. They clearly understood the unifying purposes of sports, and watching sports. By hosting an event pushing a message of worker responsibility, during a time of heightened comradery, Carnegie Steel executives used the unifying power of sports to push a type of worker safety that made them less responsible for their workers. Even though it took place just over 100 years ago, this sort of event should ring familiar to a lot of people. The Office parodied corporate retreats of this nature in their “Company Picnic” episode, as did Party Down, to greater effect,in their “Brandix Corporate Retreat” episode. Companies take advantage of the communal feelings generated by sports and other athletic activities to promote things like corporate culture, and “fun at work.” This is not a new concept in the business world. It’s just that no current company would dream of running a “Fat Mens Base Ball Game.”
*you had to be over 180 pounds to participate in this one, which, lol.
The second piece of archival material I found is a flyer for a “Union Bowl” hosted by the Committee of Concerned Unionists. Taking place in Pittsburgh on Saturday February 4th, 1978 the Union Bowl was not hosted by any company but organized by union workers in support of a coalminer’s strike. Similar to the 1920s, the 1970s were a time of waning union power in the United States. Deindustrialization was starting/in full swing in many parts of the country, and unions were feeling the pinch. The Cold War, and its resulting Red Scares, weren’t at their screaming 1950s heights, but the political left in general was also a feeling a pinch. In short, unions needed all the support they could get.
In order to garner that support, these unionists organized an all-day festival of support, including movie screenings, lectures, and most importantly for this essay, football games. Fourteen football games in total, spread out over two fields. And remember this was in the middle of February in Pittsburgh. It was cold. And yet people came out. As reported in some notes by the organizing committee contained in the same folder I found the brochure in, the Union Bowl raised $1,015.85. Not an overwhelming amount of money, but pretty good for a single-day event in the middle of winter, during an economic downturn. And the sports aspect was a big part of their efforts. As a follow-up letter says “On a snow and ice packed field in Pittsburgh, Saturday Feb. 4th, some 400 union brother and sisters from over 2 dozen union shops played an all day marathon football game raising over $1000.00 for the mineworkers’ cause. It was a game with a purpose much larger than football and it wasn’t anywhere near as boring as the Super Bowl…. P.S. The final score of the Union Bowl (Steel & Coal vs. Teamsters & All Union) was 115 to 66, with Steel & Coal the victors. In reality, Union Solidarity was the Big winner over the companies’ attempts to divide the union movement.”
This is what Whitlock doesn’t get. That’s mean. Maybe he does get it. But in either case it’s left unsaid. It’s not that sports don’t have a unifying power. Anyone who has ever been to a game of any type knows what it’s like to give a high-five to a complete stranger after your team does something good, or do the wave with thousands of people, or sing “Take Me Out To The Ball Game,” or whatever. Sports bring people together. But it’s more than that. Whitlock presents unity as an unqualified good, as if unity alone is the goal. But as we see from both the 1920s and 1970s, sports-based unity can be used for a multitude of purposes. It can be a tool of company propaganda or a form of cross-union solidarity. Looking outside these two examples, it can be a form of jingoism, of bitter ethnic rivalry, racism, sexism, all sorts of other ways that unify some people and leave others out. Sports based unity is a powerful force, but it can be wielded in awful ways. Unity for unity’s sake, which Whitlock seems to be promoting, isn’t a good cause. Unity is only a worthwhile goal when there is a worthwhile cause to get behind.
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