Heywood Broun Rides Again

I knew about Heywood Broun for a long time before I read anything he wrote. I knew him as one of the prized wits of the Algonquin Round Table of the 1920s, but it wasn't until I did the research for my book on Victory Faust that I experienced that wit directly. Consider this nugget from Broun's coverage of the 1911 New York Giants in the New York Morning Telegraph: "The Giants played Brooklyn twice yesterday on the Hilltop and won on both occasions. Brooklyn is something like baseball, only much easier." Eat your heart out, Keith Olbermann.

A Harvard dropout, the iconoclastic Broun leaned toward socialism, was a staunch defender of Sacco and Vanzetti, and married a militant feminist named Ruth Hale. An all-purpose journalist, he covered sports and straight news, reviewed books and plays, wrote columns, and was a war correspondent during World War I. Burly and rumpled, he went his own way during an all-too-brief lifetime at the center of New York's literary world.

He also wrote a novel, The Sun Field, published in 1923 and out of print until a fresh edition was brought out this summer by Rvive Books, a publisher whose "mission is to introduce lost literary gems and their writers to a new public." If the rest of Rvive's offerings measure up to Broun's long-lost gem, the new public is in for a lot of treats.

The Sun Field is an untraditional love triangle based on three real people who were very close to Broun. The narrator, called George Wallace, is Broun himself, an earnest, humorous sports writer who falls in love with Judith Winthrop, a Vassar-educated intellectual dynamo and feminist based on Ruth Hale. Before George can claim her heart, he makes the mistake of taking her to her first baseball game, where she becomes infatuated with "Tiny" Tyler, a hulking slugger based on Babe Ruth. Judith pursues Tiny and lands him, and the rest of the novel traces the ups and downs of their unconventional relationship.

That's really all there is to the plot, which is secondary to Broun's focus on their characters and the reasons why they behave as they do. George's character is the simplest; he's on the outside looking in, cares deeply for Judith but recognizes that the only power he has over her is the power of observation. Tiny is more complex. His baseball exploits are clearly Ruthian (though it's ironic that Judith's initial fascination with him comes from watching him make a leaping catch, not a home run), and George speaks of his undisciplined lifestyle, but in Judith's presence we see an uncultured man struggling to keep up with his sophisticated mate. Indeed that's their chief problem; she is attracted to the animal in Tiny, but he sees her as the only "good woman" he has ever known and tries to treat her too well. They're too good for each other.

George and Tiny are both helpless in the presence of the remarkable Judith, who makes the reader realize what an amazing woman Ruth Hale must have been. She is utterly unpredictable. It isn't just that you don't know what she's going to do or say next. You also can't predict what her opinions or values might be or how she will react to the actions or opinions of others. She isn't being contrary; she's being true to her original nature. Nothing gets past her. When Tiny says it must be difficult to understand what's happening at the Moscow Art Theater if you don't know the language, Judith sets him straight by saying, "Don't be silly. I saw you talking to the umpire in Cleveland when he called you out at second. I was so far away I couldn't hear a word and yet I knew exactly what you were saying and you're not an actor." No wonder Tiny, despite his two years at Holy Cross, has trouble feeling comfortable around her.

I wish this novel had been twice as long so I could have kept listening to Judith's original voice. I must admit that it helped that every time she spoke, I heard Katharine Hepburn's voice. There's a good reason for this. I believe that Ruth Hale was the model for the Hepburn character in "Woman of the Year," the 1942 film co-scripted by Ring Lardner, Jr., who probably knew Broun and Hale when he was growing up or at least would have heard all about them. Hepburn's Tess Harding and Broun's Judith Winthrop are virtually identical: highly principled journalists and activists, very intelligent, glib, feminist, passionate, eccentric, disarming, and delightful. Listen to Hepburn's voice as Judith passes judgment on William Shakespeare: "I challenge you to show me that I ever attempted to hurt Shakespeare by spoken or written word. I may have said that the actors have to be genuises to keep him alive, but that's nothing against him. Second rate interpretations of first rate work are always terrible. Of course, I'm not going to swallow Shakespeare whole. He had his off days and he wasn't smart enough or strong-minded enough to take them off and go out poaching or drinking or making love. He was too indolent to stop writing. He insisted on putting words down on paper even when he had nothing to say. A man like Shakespeare ought to be ashamed of himself to have written 'As You Like It.'"

Is it any wonder that poor George couldn't stay away from her? Or that Tiny put her on a pedestal and tried to live up to her standards? Or that I'll be heading for a library sometime soon to read more about Ruth Hale?

All I know now about Ruth Hale is what I read in the first-rate introduction to the Rvive edition of the novel, written by the esteemed baseball novelist Darryl Brock. He notes Hale's protest of the phrase "to obey" in the marriage vows and her work in forming the Lucy Stone League, which campaigned on behalf of married women keeping their maiden names, a big issue with Judith Winthrop as well. The principles raised by Judith are timeless, overcoming the small instances in which the novel is dated. Brock says it best: The Sun Field is "a one-of-a-kind vintage confection with some surprising and delightfully modern flavors."

Read it and savor it.

The Despiction Accolodes Award

I created the "Despiction Accolodes Award" in 2006 to dis-honor instances of conspicuous mangling of the English language. It was named for two verbal gaffes committed by Tom Seaver at the 2006 Hall of Fame Induction ceremony. Seaver was reading the text of the Ford Frick Award for broadcasting, given that year to Gene Elston. The text noted that Elston had received many accolades for his depiction of baseball action, but that isn't how it came out of Seaver's mouth. Errors on the pitcher making the presentation in front of thousands of spectators, but also a charmingly jarring phrase which seemed to me appropriate for other occasions when English has taken an inadvertant beating.

Only a couple of weeks after Seaver uttered those non-words, I announced the inaugural winner of the award, the John F. Turner Company, which produced the "2006 New York Yankees Day-by-Day Calendar." Like most sports-related calendars, this one included daily factoids and historical snippets, including this item: "In 1999, each Yankee wore a [sic] African American #5 armband in honor of Joe DiMaggio."

What?

When contacted, the company representative explained that "African American #5" was not some obscure font, but rather the result of their computer editing program deeming the word "black" to be politically incorrect in these days of modern times, and therefore not fit for publication. The editing program routinely replaced the word "black" with "African American," regardless of content.

I have not found out the name of the company which produced that editing program, but they will get an award, too, when I do. Meanwhile, the award went to John F. Turner Company for not having the common sense to re-correct that ill-conceived "correction".

That was, quite obviously, an African American day for the English language, but it does put many other things--in and out of baseball--in a new perspective. Here are some other examples of how that editing program would be mis-applied:

1) At home games, New York Yankees wear white uniforms with African American pinstripes.

2) Until Pete Rose came along, the most disgraceful gambling-related episode in baseball history was the so-called "African American Sox" scandal involving the fixed 1919 World Series.

3) The 1952 National League Rookie of the Year was Joe African American, who by sheer coincidence was African American.

4) Elizabeth Taylor had her first starring role in "African American Beauty."

5) The HUAC hearings of Joseph McCarthy resulted in ten prominent Hollywood figures being African American listed.

6) Ozzy Osbourne is the lead singer of African American Sabbath.

7) The most disastrous day in stock market history was October 29, 1929, known forever as "African American Tuesday."

8) Aspiring fraternity brothers hope and pray that they won't be African American balled.

9) I have several correspondents who regularly contact me using their African American Berrys.

10) Tommy Lee Jones and Will Smith co-starred in "Men in African American."

11) The fourth-longest tenure in Supreme Court history (1937-1971) was that of Justice Hugo African American.

12) After his fight with Muhammad Ali, George Chuvalo had African American-and-blue marks all over his face.

13) There are regions all over the vast universe in which entire galaxies have vanished into African American holes.

14) In the movie "Bus Stop," Marilyn Monroe sang a scintillating version of "That Old African American Magic."

15) Kudos to the MIT students who were able to beat the Las Vegas casinos at African American jack.

16) Thank Paul McCartney for that haunting lyric, "African American bird singing in the dead of night."

17) One of the most notorious pirates was Edward Teach, better known as "African American Beard."

18) If you have a problem with African American heads, go to a pharmacy and get some ointment.

19) Beware of the venom of the African American widow (spider).

20) When an airplane crashes, the first thing investigators look for is the African American box.

21) [From George Steedle] "I'm old-fashioned, I still watch African American and white television."

Suggestions for additions to this list are welcome, as are nominations for future winners of the "Despiction Accolodes Award."