Pitching Baseball to the French Can the quintessentialy American game catch on in France? BY HENRY HARDWICK ILLUSTRATED BY SOPHIA FOERSTER
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ank sounds like the perfect baseball hero.” Written in the middle of a baby book with smiles abounding, those were the words where an American Dream was born. Embedded in the mythos alongside the likes of John Henry’s hammer and the flag at Iwo Jima are the swings of every man, woman and child who ever picked up a baseball bat. From the neighborhood sandlot to Yankee Stadium, that mound of dirt is where a kids’ game can turn into a career. A roster full of amateurs and heroes alike, it doesn’t matter whether you need help from “Angels in the Outfield” or can shatter lights with a home run like “The Natural” you are. All you need is “a beatup glove, a homemade bat, and a brand-new pair of shoes” to join those nicknamed ranks of lore where “Heroes get remembered, but legends never die.” Still, ask any baseball fan, and you’ll know it’s not really about the stats or the pennants won. Rather, there’s a reason why people stick baseball cards in boxes and bicycle spokes alike, visit every stadium across an entire continent, and play catch with their kids every day. Just like the atomic household and the melting pot, baseball’s more than a name, and more than an idea—it’s a collective memory shared by the masses. A way of life that’s not just for the American, but for any freedom-loving person who ever saw a ball fly and thought that they too could reach for the heavens. From the streets of Old Havana to the bright lights of Tokyo, it was never about the fame, but the game. Whether you stick it in your pocket or in a drawer, that little piece of leather will stick with you for life. It doesn’t matter if you toss it at a wall like “The Great Escape” or throw it high up while lying in bed. Each ball’s as great as its pitcher and catcher ever was, and that’ll always be enough. A beat-up Rawlings scrawled with the fading names of local legends long forgotten. A black-and-white photograph of a state school king from “the Greatest Generation.” A ticket stub to a major Hollywood production about tearing down the barriers of segregation so that “Maybe tomorrow we’ll all wear 42, that way they won’t tell us apart.” That’s
what baseball is about. Tough luck finding that in Paris. On a clear day you can see forever, but in an ancient city of Haussmannian streets and churches aplenty, there ain’t “Plenty of room to swing a rope,” much less a bat. Still, between the Tour de France being re-enacted at your friendly neighborhood Vélib’ station and rugby broadcast at every pub across Paris, it’s like Tolstoy said, “there are as many kinds of love as there are hearts,” and there’s no better place to prove that “Love is Like a Ball Game” than the city of love itself. Baseball is a global sport: just like Alphaville, it’s Big in Japan, the Caribbean and even Iraq amidst the War on Terror. Like Manifest Destiny set in motion across God’s green earth, no stone (or city) ought to be left unturned in the name of the “Old Ball Game.” Bypassing both time and space, even strangers in a strange land can find a sense of belonging in the most unlikely of places. That’s where a local amateur ball club comes in—Les Patriots de Paris. As an underdog team overshadowed by a city that barely acknowledges them, they know that they’re at the “bottom of the hierarchy.” Still, you don’t need numbers when you’ve got l’esprit d’équipe. With something to believe in, every day can feel like Opening Day. While baseball uniforms may not be haute couture, baseball and Paris have gone hand-in-hand since the turn of the 20th century. It all began with Albert Goodwill Spalding’s 1888–89 “Australian Base Ball Tour” played between Chicago and All-America. With the goal to share this “embodiment of American Spirit” with the world, the tour traveled from the Sandwich Islands to Paris. At the height of “a French baseball explosion,” the 1913–14 World Tour pitched baseball stars under the New York Giants against the Chicago White Sox across Asia, Africa, Australia and Europe. Despite this clash of the Titans, what really captivated the audiences in Nice were the attractions of grandeur such as the aviator Lacrouse’s aerobatics and Olympian Jim Thorpe’s acrobatics. However, with a rain check that never came through for Par-
