Imagine today’s Major League Baseball stars picking up offseason side jobs as theater actors.
While that may sound strange now, it actually happened relatively often a century ago in the sport’s “deadball” era.
The book “Baseball On Stage” by Bradley University associate professor of theater Travis Stern takes a look at performances by the likes of Babe Ruth and Ty Cobb.
Stern says he first noted a connection between the stages and the ball fields while studying for his Ph.D. at the University of Illinois.
“I took a class and we were talking about where vaudeville performers were getting their mail. It happened to be Louisville, St. Louis, Cincinnati, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia – and it dawned on me, those are the original National League teams,” Stern said. “I should look into that.
“So it became a nice little rabbit hole to go down, and I quickly found out there was much more to it: The ballplayers were riding the rails at the same times as the actors were. One was working in the afternoon, one was working at night. So they could go and see each other’s work, and it just it kind of spiraled from there.”
Stern says the style of theater that was popular at that time allowed ballplayers to fit in with audience expectations.
“Melodrama as a theatrical form is very simple – there’s clear good guys, there’s clear bad guys, (and) there’s something to be saved,” he said. “Audiences would take that and put it in the context of whatever type of entertainment they were dealing with.
“So when they came to the ballpark, there’s a clear good guy: the home team; there’s clear bad guys: the visiting team; and there’s something that’s always in danger of needing to be saved, right? So that’s the ball game. Or sometimes it’s the series, sometimes it’s the season.”
Stern’s book focuses on six superstars from the era: Along with Ruth and Cobb, he covers Hall of Fame players Cap Anson, Christy Mathewson, King Kelly and Rube Waddell.
So why did such famous athletes turn to the stage?
“Part of it was money, right? These are players who are not being paid nearly in any way the salary the players are being paid today,” Stern said. “So they would need some kind of lucrative offseason work, and if you had stardom, it was easy to go on stage and do a little routine for 45 minutes and get a really nice salary – rather than going back and working in the mines, or working in the fields, or working in a store.
“Every one of them were terrible actors, and that was part of the fun – that audiences could go and see someone who was a star in one area be obviously terrible in something else.”
“It was just really easy money. But because it was easy money, it meant they’re visible, and there’s something going on with that visibility that transfers into the next season, or into their overall persona.”
Stern admits these ballplayers’ performances would not have earned any awards.
“They were terrible. Every one of them were terrible actors, and that was part of the fun – that audiences could go and see someone who was a star in one area be obviously terrible in something else,” he said.
Stern notes the style of the player-performers he examined differ greatly. For instance, Mathewson was well known as a college-educated New York Giants pitcher with a reputation that earned him a nickname as “The Gentleman Hurler.”
While he didn’t actually act, Mathewson co-wrote a play with Rida Johnson Young called “The Girl and the Pennant,” featuring a hero character modeled after himself.
“He’s a college-educated player when college-educated players were incredibly rare. He’s very financially successful; he’s incredibly smart and he’s very kind, which is all the traits of Mathewson. And that idea of heroism played into what the popular melodramatic hero was,” Stern said.
On the other hand, Cobb, the irascible Georgia-born Detroit Tigers star, had crafted his on-field reputation as an instigator and agitator.
“And that idea made Cobb a villain for a lot of fans and for a lot of other teams – and for some of his teammates, actually,” Stern said. “He goes on stage and he tries to play the hero of a play by George Ade called ‘The College Widow.’ He tried to play the lead football hero, and fans in northern cities would not buy him as a hero.”
Stern says the parallels between melodramatic theater and the drama of team sports resonate with audiences. In both, the observers pick a side to root for and a side to root against – even when things aren’t going as well as they hoped.
“He tried to play the lead football hero, and fans in northern cities would not buy him as a hero.”
“It becomes a real clear story. We pick heroes in the stories we look for and on your team, whatever your team is, you find heroes there and you have villains on opposing teams,” Stern said. “And sometimes, when you have a year like the White Sox did this year, you look for kind of the fools – you look for the jokes of it, that some of it is, ‘we know that the season is terrible, things are going really poorly. But there’s still some fun to be had.’”
Stern also notes that as the years have gone on, pro athletes have continued to be drawn toward performing away from the fields as a way to shape their public image and expand their fan base.
“We start to see it kind of change in the ‘80s specifically, but even in the ‘70s, you see players showing up on sitcoms or showing up in a movie occasionally as just a way to kind of supplement their salary,” he said.
“Now, players are absolute brands. Every player has their brand, and they have the ability to go on social media or through The Players Alliance website and present their story directly to the fans. So they’re very active in the craftsmanship of their own narratives.”
Stern’s book “Ballplayers On Stage” is available on Amazon or at utpress.org.
