Mobile Treasure Trove of All Things Baseball

NEW YORK —  Vin Mavaro had been digging through debris at the World Trade Center site for weeks, sifting the rubble for any signs of human remains. And then he found a scuffed baseball.

“It is one of the few recognizable items I have come across,” the New York City fire battalion chief wrote to a company whose name was printed on the ball. “Being a baseball fan, coach and player, this ball has become a symbol of hope for me. I’m happy to hear all of your employees are OK.”

Mavaro’s letter and the ball are mounted in a glass case at the entrance to “Baseball as America,” a huge exhibit of memorabilia from the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, N.Y., that just opened here. And it is a fitting beginning, because the exhibit--which comes to Los Angeles on Sept. 21 as part of a traveling roadshow to 10 cities--is intended to be a gritty, provocative look at baseball as a mirror of daily American life.

It’s all here--from the fixing of the 1919 World Series in Chicago to the 1981 eruption of “Fernando-mania” at Dodger Stadium. None of the more than 500 items on display at the American Museum of Natural History has ever been shown outside of Cooperstown.

“Our goal was to tell the honest story of baseball, to tell it straight and not make any judgments pro or con,” said Ted Spencer, vice president and curator of the National Baseball Hall of Fame. “We all love the game, we all have favorite stories, but there’s much more to it than that.”

Visitors will find original, handwritten lyrics to the game’s most famous song, including a rarely sung introduction that tells of a woman spurning a beau’s advances before she welcomes him to “Take Me Out to the Ballgame.”

For those fascinated by Dodger great Sandy Koufax, the show has one true gem: The inflatable black rubber tube he used to protect his arthritic left arm before bathing it in ice during the 1966 season, his last.

Another exhibit shows visitors how to master the basic pitches. For a fastball: “Grip the ball with your index and middle fingers, cutting across the wide part of the seams. Now, throw it 90 miles per hour!”

The historical sweep of the show--ranging from the ball used in the first game to charge admission (1858) to the bat Mark McGwire used to club his then-record-setting 70th home run in 1998--is rich in storytelling.

Many of these stories are familiar to fans. A special audio exhibit, for example, plays Lou Gehrig’s emotional farewell speech from Yankee Stadium, as well as the scratchy radio recording of Bobby Thompson’s dramatic home run that won the National League pennant for the New York Giants in 1951.

Yet other tales may surprise. Curators have not simply recapped the story of Jackie Robinson’s battle to break the color barrier in 1947. They display copies of the ugly, racist mail that Henry Aaron got as he was on the verge of breaking Babe Ruth’s record of 714 home runs in 1974.

“We also exhibit a heartfelt letter that a fan wrote to Aaron, saying how much he meant to him,” Spencer said. “The idea was to show you both sides of the coin, to say this is what life and baseball are all about.”

Fans will see the facemask of Bernice Gera--who fought to become the major league’s first female umpire. She triumphed after years of lawsuits, yet retired after only one professional game in 1972 because of mental exhaustion.

The wooden home plate from Zenimura Field, located in a Japanese American internment camp during World War II, is no less riveting.

“Baseball, like American society, is not entirely free of the remnants of discrimination,” writes historian Jules Tygiel in an essay that is part of a book published by the exhibition. “Minorities and women remain underrepresented in the ranks of ownership and management. Episodes of racism and sexism periodically mar the game.”

As they streamed through the museum last week, several visitors made a point of showing their children both sides of the national pastime.

“Can you believe how stupid and prejudiced people were?” asked Meredith Shepherd from New York, as she guided her son and daughter through the Robinson exhibit. “It’s hard to believe this could happen.”

Nearby, Anthony Palermo was telling his two young sons about the great Latino ballplayers, and shaking his head over a 1962 Sporting News cartoon that lampooned the way a famous Cuban outfielder spoke English.

“The people who put this exhibit together don’t pull any punches,” said the father, wearing a Mets cap and jacket. “I wanted my boys to see all these things, so they’ll know the history as well as the fun.”

At the moment, however, Palermo was fighting a losing battle. His sons made a beeline for the cafeteria, which offers hot dogs from parks across the country; the Fenway Frank, Milwaukee Brat, Chicago Red Hot, Texas Corn Dog, New York Deli Dog, Cincinnati Cheese Coney and, of course, the Dodger Dog.

Ranting at the owners--and blasting greedy ballplayers--is also part of the game, and the museum has a wing focusing on the business of baseball. After years of superstar salaries, it’s startling to read the original copy of St. Louis Cardinal outfield Curt Flood’s 1969 letter to baseball commissioner Bowie Kuhn, demanding his economic right to negotiate as a free agent.

“After 12 years in the major leagues,” he wrote, “I do not feel that I am a piece of property to be bought and sold irrespective of my wishes.”

The same display case has a copy of a briefing book compiled last year by the agent for shortstop Alex Rodriguez, as he marketed his client to several clubs. Rodriguez eventually signed a 10-year deal with the Texas Rangers for $232 million.

Money’s corrupting influence is an old story in major league baseball. As the New York Evening Standard complained in a 1908 editorial on display: “Sentiment no longer figures in the sport. It is now only a battle of dollars.”

Yet sentiment has a way of outlasting the skeptics. When visitors enter the natural history museum, they see the massive, cracked cornerstone of Ebbets Field. The fabled home of the Brooklyn Dodgers was built in 1912 and torn down after the team left for Los Angeles in 1957.

Few subjects whip up as much baseball nostalgia as the old Flatbush club, and a glimpse of Ebbets Field, however minute, may be worth the $15 price of admission. Yet, as the exhibit points out, that’s only part of the story.

Forty years ago next month, Dodger Stadium opened. And building in Chavez Ravine--which required the forcible eviction of a sizable contingent of Latino residents--is no less controversial in Los Angeles than the 1960 demolition of Ebbets Field. Both left lingering scars.

This is one more social injustice on which the exhibit touches all the bases.

On May 5, the New York museum will present a one-woman play by dramatist Heather Woodbury depicting the simultaneous effect of the Dodgers’ move west on Brooklyn and Chavez Ravine.

“The Brooklyn Dodgers and baseball are symbols of a childhood ethos,” she said in a recent interview. “But they are also truly symbolic, in this case of life and loss, like the proverbial home to which we cannot always return.”