Baseball - In the Arts

Edgar Rice Burroughs (1875-1950)

American speculative fiction writer best known for his adventure and fantasy stories, which include Tarzan of the Apes and John Carter of Mars

Burroughs was a Chicago Cubs fan, and one of his poems "O, Yes It's Getting Thick", published in 1911 under the pseudonym Normal Bean, focuses on the Cubbies victories and losses:

My dear, he said at breakfast time,

The Cubs have lost some more,

But as a loser I'm sublime,

A Good Game Loser, that is I'm;

List' not you'll hear no roar......

Ernest Hemingway (1899-1961)

American novelist, short-story writer, journalist and sportsman. awarded the 1954 Nobel Prize in Literature

From an article in the NY Times by Joshua Robinson in 2008:

Speaking with Cubans who grew up while Hemingway lived on the island: "Not sure what to do with 12 and 8-year olds, he would round up boys from the barrio to play baseball with them just inside the black and white gates of the farm. It was during these endless sandlot games that the local children came to know a man who loved baseball..."

Memories of Hemingway's Ball Field

Robert Frost (1874-1963)

American poet, known for his realistic depictions of rural life. Awarded four Pulitzer Prizes for Poetry, Congressional Gold Medal (1960), poet laureate of Vermont (1961)

Wrote for Sports Illustrated magazine on the 1961 MLB All-Star Game

Quotes:

"Poets are like baseball pitchers. Both have their moments. The internals are the tough things."

"When I was young, I was so interested in baseball that my family was afraid I'd waste my life and be a pitcher. Later they were afraid I'd waste my life and be a poet. They were right."

Paul Robeson : In the Arts

Paul Robeson (1898-1976) born - Princeton, NJ

Robeson was an American bass-baritone concert artist, stage and film actor, professional football player, and activist who became famous both for his cultural accomplishments and for his political stances

Robeson attended Rutgers University on an Academic Scholarship, but proceeded to earning varsity letter in multiple sports, although he excelled in football earning all-American status in both his junior and senior years 

 

Norman Rockwell - Baseball in the Arts

Norman Rockwell's Three Umpires and The Rookie

Norman Percevel Rockwell (February 3, 1894 – November 8, 1978) was an American painter and illustrator. His works have a broad popular appeal in the United States for their reflection of the country's culture, many of which depicted baseball.....

Frank Sinatra : Baseball in the Arts

Frank Sinatra (1915 – 1998) American singer and actor. Nicknamed the "Chairman of the Board" and later called "Ol' Blue Eyes", Sinatra was one of the most popular entertainers of the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s. He is among the world's best-selling music artists with an estimated 150 million record sales

Sinatra co-starred again with Gene Kelly in the musical film Take Me Out to the Ball Game (1949), in which Sinatra and Kelly play baseball players who are part-time vaudevillians

1968 Sinatra joined friend Leo Durocher, manager of the Chicago Cubs at a spring training game. It was reported by the players that Sinatra "managed" 2-innings of the game

Sinatra had his own charity softball/baseball team the "Swooners" which featured Anthony Quinn, Barry Sullivan, Sammy Cahn and Jule Styne, with cheerleaders: Virginia Mayo, Marilyn Maxwell, Shelley Winters and Ava Gardner

Silent Film Stars - Baseball in the Arts

 April 27, 1994 the USPS issued a series of steps honoring film stars of the silent screen. The stamps were designed by famed artist Hirschfeld. Four of the stamps issued had baseball in their lives

Charlie Chaplin (1889-1977) - shown participating in a 1917 charity baseball game

English comic actor, filmmaker and composer who rose to fame in the silent film era. Became a worldwide icon through his comic portrayal as the Tramp

Harold Lloyd (1893-1971) American actor, comedian and stunt performer. Considered as one of the most influential film comedians alongside Chaplin and Keaton

Lloyd incorporated the game of baseball into his movies "Speedy" and Over the Fence"

 

Clara Bow (9105-1965) - American actress in the silent film era as The It Girl, and a leading sex symbol of the times. Publicity photo of Bow in a Hollywood Stars uniform, grew up as a tomboy playing baseball, football and learned to box

Buster Keaton (1895-1966) - American actor, comedian, director, producer, screenwriter, stunt performer

Keaton wrote in his autobiography.."baseball has been my favorite sport. I started playing the game as soon as I was old enough to handle a glove." Keaton starred in College (1927), The Cameraman (1928) and One Run Elmer (1935), and often used baseball to relax while making movies

Hollywood actors c1938: William Warren, Vince Barnett, Walter Abel, Joe E Brown, Hugh Herbert (top hat), Wayne Norris, Dick Powell, Maxie Rosenbloom

front row: Keye Luke, Jackie Coogan (Uncle Fester), Buster Keaton, Carl Sawyer

ZaSu Pitts co-starred in Casey At The Bat

updated 2023-05

Literature - Baseball in the Arts

 

Robert Penn Warren (1905-1989)

Poet, novelist and literary critic. Funded the literary journal The Southern Review in 1935. Received the 1947 Pulitzer Prize for the novel All the Kings Men and the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry 1958, 1979

Published in the anthology collection Baseball's Best Stories, is Goodwood Comes Back by Robert Penn Warren

Luke Goodwood could always play baseball, but I never could, to speak of. I was little for my age then, but well along in my studies and didn't want to play with the boys my size; I wanted to play with the boys in my class and if it hadn't been for Luke I never would have been able to. He was a pitcher then, like he always has been, and so he would say, "Aw, let him field." When he was pitching, it didn't matter much who was fielding anyway, because there weren't going to be many hits to amount to anything in the first place.

James Thurber (1894-1961)

Cartoonist, author, humorist, journalist, play-write

Best known for his cartoons and short stories published mainly in The New Yorker magazine and collected in numerous books. Several of his works have been adapted into film

You Could Look it Up published Saturday Evening Post, 1941

It all begun when we dropped down to C'lumbus, Ohio from Pittsburgh to play a exhibition game on our way out to St. Louis. It was gettin' on into September, and though we'd been leadin' the league by six, seven game most of the season, we was now in first place by a margin you could'a' got it into the eye of a thimble, bein' only a half a game ahead of St. Louis.

The story tells of Pearl du Montville, a midget thirty-four to thirty-five inches high, swingin' a bamboo cane and smokin' a big cigar...

Eddie Gaedel, standing at 3'7" would not play for the St. Louis Browns until 1951

Carl Sandburg (1878-1967)

Poet, biographer, journalist, editor

3-time Pulitzer Prize winner

Hits and Runs (1918)

I remember the Chillicothe ball players grappling the Rock Island

ball players in a sixteen-inning game ended by darkness.

And the shoulders of the Chillicothe players were a red smoke

against the sundown and the shoulders of the Rock Island

players were a yellow smoke against the sundown.

And the umpire's voice was hoarse calling balls and strikes and outs

and the umpire's throat fought in the dust for a song