Greenberg to Koufax to Valenzuela: Enicity, Identity, and Baseball in "Chasing Dreams"

The 1965 World Series would prove groundbreaking. It marked the first time that two professional baseball teams from west of the Mississippi - the Los Angeles Dodgers and the Minnesota Twins - competed for Major League Baseball's title. More importantly, it was the stage upon which Sandy Koufax weaved the narrative of his greatness and by extension highlighted Jewish America's connection to the national pastime. Having sat out Game 1 due to its falling on the Jewish holiday of Yom Kippur and then struggling through a less-than-stellar Game 2 outing, Koufax bounced back with magisterial performances in Game 5 and the now-famous Game 7 in which he pitched a complete game shutout, striking out ten.

Whether or not one still considers baseball the national game, for much of the 20th century it embodied the American identity. Our military exported it to imperial outposts in the Pacific and the Americas, believing it would inculcate the ideals of individualism, meritocracy, competition, and democracy.[1] Ethnic and racial communities domestically played the game as a means to celebrate their own cultures while also demonstrating their dedication to America and hopes for equality. African-Americans, Japanese-Americans, Mexican-Americans, and Jewish-Americans all competed in the sport as it wove its way into their lives while stitching their struggles into American history. Like any good competition, whatever racial or ethnic biases that existed could only persist so much in the face of the sport.

The game both conveyed America's ideals and enabled those who found these ideals not fully realized to assert their place and equal status in national life. When Hank Greenberg swatted home runs and extra-base hits for the Detroit Tigers in the 1930s, even anti-Semites had to admit he could play, though it didn't stop them from lobbing racist insults at the Hall of Fame slugger. For each ethnic and racial group in the United States, the game carried different meanings. After all, historically discrimination manifests itself uniquely according to the reigning prejudices of the day and the social, political and economic circumstances of the time.

Hank Greenbergs military ID (from the Chasing Dreams exhibition)

For example, for Japanese-Americans in California and along the West Coast, it provided the glue for a growing diaspora in the first decades of the twentieth century and during World War II internment a means through which to express their identity and connection to the nation despite their unjustified incarceration.[2] For Mexican-Americans laboring in the fields of the Southern California fruit packing industry in the early 1900s, it fostered community, provided needed recreation, and served as an outlet for political action and labor organization. Perhaps most famously, particularly in the case of the Brooklyn Dodgers and Jackie Robinson, for African-Americans it became a bright symbol of civil rights struggles.

Greenberg and DiMaggio (photo courtesy of the Chasing Dreams exhibition)

Ever since C.L.R. James penned his classic work Beyond Boundaries, a memoir about cricket and its political meaning for participants and observers, historians, sociologists and others have sought to explain sport's serpentine, contradictory, and complex social and political importance. The last ten years especially have seen new works on the intersection of athletics, identity, and citizenship, points out Skirball Cultural Center curator Cate Thurston.[3] Hence the reason for bringing the exhibit by the National Museum of American Jewish History (NMAJH), Chasing Dreams: Baseball and Becoming American , to Los Angeles.

Chasing Dreams debuted in 2014 at Philadelphia's NMAJH, the first such exhibit to explore acculturation, immigration, and citizenship through the lens of sport, NMAJH associate curator Ivy Weingram noted in a recent interview.[4] Through approximately 130 objects from public and private collections, the exhibition traces the intersection of Jewish American identity and baseball from the mid-1800s to today. Along the way, it juxtaposes the Jewish-American experience and icons like Greenberg and Koufax against others, such as Italian-American Joe DiMaggio, Puerto Rican Roberto Clemente, African-American Jackie Robinson, Nisei George Matsura, and Japanese Ichiro Suzuki.[5]

Having begun its road trip with a stop in Cleveland, Chasing Dreams now makes its way to Los Angeles. (I could not attend in person but prepared this preview after extensive interviews with key actors in the exhibition's creation.) Though the Jewish-American experience remains of central importance to the exhibit, NMAJH curators Josh Perelman and Ivy Weingram along with Skirball coordinating curator Cate Thurston have sought to highlight how the histories of Los Angeles' Mexican-American, Japanese-American, and Jewish-American communities, their sense of identity, and their struggle for equality can be examined through their mutual love of game. The exhibit refuses to ignore gender, either, highlighting the travails of athletes like Justine Siegal, the first woman to pitch major league batting practice.

Having just celebrated the 50th anniversary of the 1965 World Series and with the 35th anniversary of Fernandomania and the Dodgers' 1981 world championship upon us, one could argue that Chasing Dreams could not have arrived at a better time. However, as Thurston recently noted, the exhibition is not just about big ticket memorabilia. It also looks at how we all connect to the sport in simpler ways. Playing catch with one's father as thousands of kids have - including Thurston as a child in Van Nuys - or how Mexican-Americans would gather together festively to watch local teams play under the auspices of the Los Angeles Department of Recreation and Parks, celebrating the game w

LINK:	https://www.kcet.org/shows/lost-la/greenberg-to-koufax-to-valenzuela-e...
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