Baseball

[Brian D. McCary]

> From: "Aaron Yeater" <AYEATER at ksgrsch.harvard.edu>
> 
> can i ask a question?  what do people think--is baseball sinister in 
> that it is part of "them" or in that it undermines "them".  Is it 
> surreptitiously part of the conspiracy, or is it subversive?  The 
> reference to white lines implies the former, but baseball's potential 
> for "transcendence" of time, of "death" (no such thing in baseball as 
> "sudden death"--only long slow strides into the bottom half of the 
> 10th, i guess...) implies the latter.
> 

I think that it would be the organized, manipulative aspects of baseball
that would be seen by Pynchon as sinister, or at least cynical.  The 
conspiracy would lie in the actions of a small group of owners (remember,
this is pre-70's baseball) who "own" their players, joined with sports-writers
who provide free publicity and cover up the less wholesome acts of those 
same players.  It is the cult of professional baseball, or of elevating 
a particular entertainment above other topics ("I had a better year than
he did") which was, and remains, so sinister.

On the other hand, *playing* baseball could be construed as quite subversive.
If one goes outside and plays the game with one's neighbors and friends,
instead of going to church, or watching TV, or participating in some other
of the cults of control, then one is, in effect, rebeling against the system.