The Other 'American Exceptionalism': Why Is There No Soccer in The United States? (WPS 1, 1986) Andrei S. Markovits, With Commentary by Charles S. Maier.
Commentary by Charles S. Maier, Professor of History, Harvard University, and Senior Associate, Harvard Center for European Studies
Original Title
The Other 'American Exceptionalism': Why Is There No Soccer in the United States? (WPS 1, 1986) Andrei S. Markovits, with Commentary by Charles S. Maier.
The Other 'American Exceptionalism': Why Is There No Soccer in The United States? (WPS 1, 1986) Andrei S. Markovits, With Commentary by Charles S. Maier.
by Andrei S. Markovits Associate Professor of Political Science Boston University & Research Associate Harvard Center for European Studies Commentary by Charles S. Maier, Professor of History, Harvard University, and Senior Associate, Harvard Center for European Studies 1 Introduction Once again, the world's most important media event which undoubtedly captured the uninterrupted attention of most of the world's male population for the entire month of June 1986, barely left the realm of esoterica in the United States.(l> Although the quadrennial World Cup was hosted by America's southern neighbor, Mexico, this event failed to capture the imagination of the American public. Interest in the United States was strikingly minute in comparison to that exhibited in virtually every country in the world, including those politically and economically most similar to the United States, i.e. the liberal capitalist democracies of Western Europe, as well as those quite different, i.e. members of the Communist bloc or that loose conglomerate known as the -Third World".(2) Even though American television coverage of World Cup '86 was more extensive than ever before, this major global event remained outside of the mainstream of American sports life, let alone public life in general. (3) Why does the United States continue to be so aloof with regard to the world's most popular sport? Why has soccer played such a marginal role in the public consciousness of this sports-crazed society? What are the origins and ongoing mani festations of this other "American Excepti onali sm"? This paper purports to shed some light on these interesting- perhaps even important - questions. SqIb.rt 8.yill'td ADd Am.rie"1 Socc.r IIExctpUon.U1,", So.. cOlp.r.tly. el.rt fic.tionl Werner Sombart, li ke virtually all European observers of the "New World" before and after him, was both fascinated by and ambivalent .towards this country. The ambivalence reflected the invariable combination of both negative and positive generalizations based on the "uniqueness" of the United States as a European extension with certain puzzling peculiarities. (4) To Sombart, the most puzzling of these IIAmericanisms" was the absence of a large, well-organized, mass-based working class movement headed by a political party. Among the realistic aims of this party 2 would be the improvement of conditions for its members and voters, who hailed from the working class and thus represented the majority of the population in all industrial societies, including the United States. To achieve its aim, the party would first attain and then exercise state power through the channels of parliamentary democral:Y. t3iven Sombart's concern, his question "Why is there no socialism in the United States?" is rather misleading. Socialism did not exist in the Europe of his time either, thus making the United States quite unexceptional to any country in the old world.(S) A far more appropriate though definitely less elegant title for Sombart's book would have been "why is there no large, organized, working class movement led by a social democratic party in the United States?" One could think of few more corroborating compliments to the validity and originality of the study's central observation though, than its continued relevance as one of the most intellectually exciting bodies of literature in American history and social science.(6) The parallels to soccer are striking. Just as Sombart noted the absence of what he called "socialism", we too can observe a basic absence of soccer, as the dominant participant and spectator team sport, in the United States throughout the twentieth century. This is not to say that soccer - like Sombart's "socialism" has been completely absent from the American experience. Both appeared on these shores virtually concomitantly wi th their respective "inventions" in Europe and both continue to flourish in various guises. Socialist parties and movements have always existed in twentieth century America, just like the game of soccer has been played virtually without any interruption in this vast country since its introduction in the nineteenth century. (7) "Socialism's" fortunes have ebbed and flowed in the larger context of American politics and intellectual life without ever coming close to attaining a dominant, let alone hegemonic, position like in Europe. Comparatively soccer has never posed any serious challenge to America's own "big three" featuring baseball, football and the somewhat distant third of basketball. 3 can that of two will in thus to plul"alism in thought, politics and sports. It is to that will a of national in traditional in of will thus I am not arguing that a of and "socialism" in to industrial I will try to show that of which to an "socialism" also account for of among sports. That is insignificant to is in that what of world, with virtually rio calls "football", know only as of "football" is by fact that in most non-English sport has of the term "football" is to conform to orthography and pronunciation of local or a translation such as "Fussball" or Hungarian "labdarugas". It is only in such as "football" sport or Association Football is of that is used. Among cousins, most notably Australia and Canada, but also and the of South Africa, all - like the States - British by immigrants. this case for "American with to thus confining validity of only to "socialism"?(9) I think not for following two First, subordinant position in sports topography of as as of English should not detract from of 4 situation, in which soccer's potential for eminence as a mass sport was preempted by the creation of three indigenous team sports. Baseball, football and basketball have continued to enjoy unrivaled 'popularity among the American public since their respective introductions as mass sports. (10) Ice hockey developed as Canada's national sport. Having successfully exported it south of the border, Canada provided the United States with yet another, though regionally confined, popular team sport and gave many countries of the globe's northern hemisphere one of their favorite winter activities. The rest of Canada's popular sport "space" is dominated by America's "big three" though, with baseball and basketball exact replicas of the American games, and Canadian football showing only very minor modifications from its American cousin. Interestingly, Canada is among the handful of countries where the two most parochial and idiosyncratic factors responsible for America's "soccer exceptionalism" - football and baseball have attained a respectable presence outside of the United States. Cricket occupies a major portion of New Zealand's, Australia's and South Africa's sport "space", as it does in India, Sri Lanka, Pakistan and the Caribbean islands, i.e. the West Indies. The remainder of the sport "space" in these countries is filled by field hockey <India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka), rugby (New Zealand and South Africa) and Australian Rules football (Australia). Common to all of these countries then is the presence of cricket as the national sport, the marginal existence of soccer, and the existence of a second, rather obscure and somewhat modified British team sport. In contrast to the United States, none of these countries developed three virtually new team sports which consumed almost all the existing sport "space" of their society, as the "big three" have in the United States. Curiously, these -big three" - with the notable exception of basketball(11) have remained almost completely confined to the borders of their creator despite the latter's preeminent position as the uncontested global leader in the politics, economic affairs and popular culture of the twentieth century. 5 This brings me to the second reason why America's soccer "exceptionalism" di ffers from the ones briefly mentioned in the preceding lines. By virtue of the Unites States' militaYy, political, economic and cultural hegemony throughout much of the twentieth century often referred to with some justification as "the American century" almost all of America's actions (or inactions) attain meaning beyond their actual reality. The concept of "Americanism" has few, if any, parallels in the twentieth century, thus denoting the uniquely nodal position of the United States in the modern world. This country's hegemony extends beyond the immediate orbit of the liberal democracies of industrial capitalism and is equally significant to the countries of the Second and Third Worlds.(12) Crudely put, the United States matters more in the world's affairs than do Canada, Australia or New Zealand. Important issues within these countries remain unnoticed by the rest of the world or at best become esoteric items gaining the attention of a few specialists. Newsworthy issues in the United States though are of both national, as well as international, importance. Thus, the editors and sport writers of Sovietski Sport have probably never wondered why New Zealanders or South Africans seem unmoved by soccer. Along with the rest of the world's soccer fans however, they have most certainly asked themselves why soccer plays such a marginal role in the United States. (13) American soccer "exceptionalism" like the absence of "socialism" in the United States has received so much attention in good part because of America's predominant global position. Whereas the "socialism" debate has generated much impressive scholarship though, the question of soccer "exceptionalism" has remained confined to the oral tradition of stadium debates and bar room chatter allover the world. Clearly the two "exceptionalisms" and their consequences for the quality of human existence in the United States can not be construed as equally significant. Soccer, while like all major sports a multi-billion dollar business, still remains a game, whereas "socialism" would, at. a very minimum, most certainly diminish, if not alleviate, the misery of the American poor by its creation and maintenance of a 6 well-functioning wei fare state. Thus, Sombartian "exceptionalism" has rendered the United States, far and away the richest country in the world, to be the only major industrial democracy without, among other things, a compulsory, state-involved, comprehensive national health insurance for its sick. Nothing of comparable importance accompanies American soccer "exceptional ism". This second "exceptionalism" isolates the Uni ted States from a leisure acti vi ty and collective involvement though, which has captured the rest of the world's undivided attention since the beginning of this century. It is to the common origins of both "exceptionalisms" that I now turn. Am.r!c. - !h' rir.t Ntw Nation The most important common denominator for both "exceptionalisms" and the single most pervasive underlying variable for an understanding of American politics and society is the quintessentially bourgeois nature of this country's objective development and subjective self-legitimation from its very inception to the present. This "natural", hence all the more comprehensive,bourgeoisificati-on of American politics and society created certain structures and an accompanying atmosphere which definitely distinguished this country from all others in the "old world" and from the latter's mere colonial extensions overseas (as opposed to "new world" which, as a concept, remained tellingly reserved almost exclusively for the United States). (14) Central to this burgeoning "Americanism" was the free individual who was to attain his fulfillment by being an independent, rational actor in a free market unfettered by any oppressive collectivities, be they the state or social classes, organized religion or the army. In short, bourgeois America created a new identity which prided itself on being explicitly different from that found anywhere in aristocratic Europe. Only by separating church from state could this new society develop a politically unchallenged secularism which in turn could be viewed as being among the most religious in the advanced industrial world. (15) Moreover, only by establishing an unprofessional military under strict civilian control - in addition 7 to the continued presence of the "frontier ll , yet another major ingredient of "American exceptionalism ll - could the United States develop into one of the most heavily armed societies among advanced industrial countries.(16) By establishing a broad concept of equality which, however, was to remain in a permanently subservient position to the individual's freedom by merely providing him with equal access to an abundance of opportunities, this new country created an ingenious system of popular participation which was at once mediated yet also comprehensive. Above all, it created a framework for the development of powerful myths of unbound freedom and limitless opportunities, which became one of the most attractive ideologies of the modern world. Indeed, as Leon Samson has persuasively argued, Americanism carried a veneer laden with terms rather similar to those used by socialism and other movements of the left, due to the above-mentioned myths. Thus socialism was "crowded out" from the consciousness and praxis of this bourgeois America (Americanism =Socialism so to speak.) (17) The primacy of a bourgeois order is further substantiated by other well-known components of "American exceptionalism": the existence of the franchise for white males; the persistence of two "non ideological", "pragmatic" and sel f-defined middle-class parties who, aided by a highly centrist electoral system, have successfully "crowded out" any newcomers and the crucial role of an integrating nationalism exemplified by the "melting pot". America's soccer "exceptionalism" is also rooted in this bourgeois order. Modern sports are inextricably tied to the development of mass democracies. Sport in its organized form of regulated leisure and, subsequently, of commodified culture, goes hand in hand with such major components of "modernization" as urbanization, industrialization, education and the constantly expanding participation of a steadily growing number of citizens in the public life of politics, production and consumption. The creation and - perhaps more importantly dissemination of modern sports are thus part and parcel of a bourgeois mode of li fe. While most modern sports were actually "invented" by members of society's 8 "higher stations" either of aristocratic or, more often, quasi-aristocratic bent, they soon became the purvie.... of the bourgeoisie and the "masses", if they were to gain any significance beyond that enjoyed by polo or croquet, for instance. Thus, it was the two most bourgeois societies of the latter half of the nineteenth century, Great Britain and the United States, which founded organized, professional, team sports and enjoyed by the masses in their own countries, and - in the case of Britain's "inventions", especially soccer - everywhere in the world. (18) The dissemination of the respective national sports correlated positively with the two countries' global position. Great Britain was still the leading imperial power and as such, the main opinion leader and cultural "hegemon" of the time. People all over the world emulated British ways, especially those related to recreation, relaxation and sports. The United States, on the other hand, ....as still by and large an isolated "new world" which fascinated the European public, but whose concrete presence was very marginal. This isolation was in part self-imposed by America's self-identification as being distinctly non-European, perhaps even anti-European. Whereas Britain derived much of its legitimacy from being the center of a huge empire during the latter half of the nineteenth century, America attained its legi timacy by being a new, sel f-contained "frontier" society, independent of the mother country unlike its Australian and Canadian cousins. This strong ambivalence towards Great Britain, manifesting itself in a clear affinity fostered by a common language and a disdain for the old colonial master, whose very presence threatened the "new world's" identity formation, greatly influenced the development of public discourse in the United States during the latter half of the nineteenth century. This "special relationship", marked by both admiration and rejection, proved particularly significant in the realm of sports. (19) As we will soon see, both football and baseball developed into American sports R2L excellence within the framework of this ambivalent and largely one-sided dialogue which America conducted with Britain about its ways. Both sports developed out of largely pre-industrial, 9 II eli te" British team acti vi ties. Through complete bourgeoisi fication, they became adapted to a new, commercialized industrial order in a "new world ll By the time Britain's own mass sport, soccer, had been successfully exported allover the world, America's sport "space lt was already occupied by former British imports now converted into genuine American games. Why was soccer "crowded out" in the United States? Firstly, the American bourgeoisie had successfully established its own national game, baseball, which largely paralleled the timing of soccer's dissemination as a mass sport in 6reat Britain. Secondly, young elites at the top American universities were keener on playing - and then altering - what had developed into a British "elite" sport <i.e. rugby) rather than expressing their anglophilia by importing soccer which by that time had undergone a "vulgarization" similar to baseball's in the United States. In the following section, I will offer brief descriptions of the developments of soccer, football and baseball respectively, tracing the "massi fication" of each s p o r t ~ Th' D.v.lopm,nt "of Mod.rn Soccer in Br1ta1nl from tts .lit. origins to th. world', lOst popular mass 'port The ancient and geographically diverse precursors to the game of soccer are well documented.(20) In disparate parts of the world such as China, ancient Rome and Greece, India and the Americas, men would gather periodically and kick some round object to and away from each other. Whether it was the skull of a defeated Danish enemy, as some English legend has it, or the stuffed bladder of a slaughtered animal, people would somehow devise"a "ball" with which they played. (21) These periodic festivities, centered around a ball-like object, continued throughout Europe's Middle Ages, occurring virtually everywhere on the Continent as well as the British Isles. The game of calcio, hailing from Roman times, was the biggest IIteam sport" in Florence around 1500. (22) It was widely played in Italy in ,subsequent ,enturies, though - rather tellingly and in tandem with the re,t of the world- modern soccer in Italy stems entirely from the introduction of Association Football 10 by the British in the late 1BOOs/early 1900s.(23) The medieval "precursor" to modern soccer was a wild, disorganized free-for-all which often ended in riots, resulting in serious injuries and occasionally even death for some participants. That authorities more often than not forbade the playing of football attests to the roughness of these riotlike games and also to their potential danger in seriously disrupting the public order. Nevertheless, these uncontrolled, disorganized "matches" in which two opposing sides would try to control the "ball" by kicking, holding, running or throwing it, became regular occurrences on or around certain festivals. Best known in England were the football games on Shrove Tuesday where crowds would gather annually to celebrate their last day of freedom before the strict and dour days of Lent. The contests in Ashbourne and Derby became legendary. In Derby, the "match" between the parishes of St. Peter and All Saints became such an intense tradition, that the term a "derby" developed, connoting the institutionalized contest between two long-standing, usually local, rivals.(24) Through the export of modern Association football, this English term, along with many others, became commonplace in the contemporary vernacular of some continental languages, such as German, Hungarian and Rumanian. These mass happenings had, in fact, little to do with what was to become modern Association football or soccer. As James Walvin has pointed out, this pre-modern form of mass entertainment virtually disappeared from the lives of the common people during the early stages of the Industrial Revolution only to re-emerge circa one hundred years later (i.e. during the 1880s) with a fervor and enthusiasm which was to conquer the entire world with the exception of the United States 25 years later. (25) In the intervening period, the upper stratum of the English bourgeoisie,aided by several far-reaching structural changes particular to a new industrial age, turned this wild, disorganized and dangerous medieval festival into the most popular modern team sport on earth. from the very beginning of its development, modern soccer became inextricably 11 linked to the most fundamental aspects of "modernization": discipline exacted by regulated industrial life; the strict separation of leisure and work; the necessity of organized and regularized recreation for the masses; cheap and efficient public transportation by railroads (intercity) and by trolleys (intracity); prompt and widely available mass communication via the press (introduction of the sport pages in newspapers), to be followed by telegrams (crucial for the development of nation wide betting>, radio, and then television; and - perhaps most importantly - the development and rapid expansion of modern education. Though Wellington probably never said anything about Waterloo h a ~ i n g been won on the playing fields of Eton, the fact that generations of middle class Britons cherished this belief conveys the centrality of the so-called public schools to the dissemination of bourgeois culture in nineteenth century Britain. (26) These public schools, "ideal training grounds for merchants as well as aristocrats", formed the cradle for soccer and rugby, the forerunner to American football. Starting in the 1830s, English intellectuals and educators became concerned with a complete education befitting the new industrial order. The goal was to produce not only the most efficient - but also the most well-rounded and thus fulfilled - lawyers, doctors, civil servants and scholars. Be they the ideas of "godliness and good learning" as articulated by Charles Kingsley or similar concepts put forth at various times by thinkers such as Thomas Carlyle, Herbert Spencer and John Henry Newman, the idea could best be summarized by that ubiquitous Latin phrase "mens sana in corpore sano''.(27) Organized sports had suddenly attained a central role in the proper education of Great Britain's young, male, bourgeois elite. Best described in the famous book Tom Brown's Schooldays published by Thomas Hughes in 1857, it was in this atmosphere that modern soccer emerged. The game of football was played at all prestigious public schools, at both the old guard of Eton, Harrow, Charterhouse, Rugby, Westminster and Shrewsbury, or the new foundations of Cheltenham (1841), Marlborough (1843) and Wellington (1853).(28) 12 Until of 1840s, school basically its own of football, an intramural with almost fluid school's particular kind of football on In schools such as Eton, and which had only narrow "pi at disposal, the- "dribbling in which of hands was Harrovian football, not by 1 imi tations but by di fficul also a on dribbling ball, although catching it in air or only bounce on ground, was still Conditions at kicking and dashing play" with use of hands also Rugby, by schools such as and Marlborough, was main school at which "running (29) ty of this sport to at Rugby in 1830s is in of Tom Brown's Schooldays. This "running split from "kicking and dribbling" in 1863 and into Rugby Football, to both and Australian Football. "kicking and dribbling" Association Football (30) With gradual of national railway by 1840s, traditionally intramural into an in which among various public schools to occur with With of public school alumni in football and In addition to play at and public schools throughout 1850s, first clubs at this all having by and/or on a basis in south of England. Still , sporadic and throughout 1850s. A of had a by 1860s though, of football had into a sport which 13 beyond the confines of England's public schools. In 1862 J.C. Thring, assistant master of Uppingham and one of two Shrewsbury graduates to form the first football team at Cambridge in 1846, issued a set of rules known as "The Simplest Game". (31) Streamlining all the rules into ten pOints, Thring's step al though initially only considered for use at Uppingham represented a major development in making football an easily transferable, ubiquitously applicable game. A lively reaction and revision process followed during which the 14 points of the Cambridge University Rules of 1863 originated. On Monday, October 26, 1863 the Football Association <F.A.) was founded at the Freemason's Tavern on Great Queen Street in London and proceeded to decree football's 13 "laws". (32) These "laws" - in notable contrast to the earlier "rules" - govern the world's most popular sport to this day virtually unchanged. Rule 9 ("No player shall run with the ball.") and Rule 10 ("Neither tripping or hacking shall be allowed, and no player shall use his hands to hold or push his adversary. ") especially dismayed the sti 11 numerous supporters of the "running game". The cleavage between these two increasingly di fferent versions of football became so pronounced during the 1860s that by 1871 the supporters of the "running game" formed their own association. Entitled the Rugby Union, it completely finalized rugby's secession from Association Football and initiated the establishment of the "running game" as an independent sport sui generis. In the same year the F.A., which to this day is the sole organizing body of English soccer, began organizing its first comprehensive tournament including all English clubs and culminating in a final match between the last two remaining teams for the F.A. Cup. Held in London every year since 1872, the Cup final still represents a highlight of the English soccer season and draws much attention on the Continent as well, due to the tremendous respect accorded there to the oldest soccer tournament in the motherland of this sport. Until 1882, the Cup Final was invariably played between two strictly amateur clubs from England's south. 14 More-ove-r, most of the- playe-rs we-re- "ge-ntle-me-n" who had atte-nde-d one- of the- public schools, Oxbridge-, or both. This was to change- for gO'Jd in 1882 whe-n a se-mi profe-ssional te-am from England's north, the- Blackburn Rove-rs, playe-d the- Old Etonians for the- Cup. (33) Won by the- southe-rn ge-ntle-me-n for the- last time-, the- Cup move-d northward as of 1883 (won by anothe-r Blackburn te-am, the- Olympic), re-gaine-d only once- by a London club during the- ne-xt 32 ye-ars. This he-ge-mony of the- North and the- Midlands in English football signale-d the- de-mise- of the- e-xclusive- "ge-ntle-me-n's e-ra" in socce-r and the- concomitant arrival of the- game-'s profe-ssionalization and comme-rcialization - in short, de-mocratization. "Among the- Blackburn playe-rs we-re- thre-e- we-ave-rs, a spinne-r, a de-ntal assistant, a plumbe-r, a cotton ope-rative- and an iron foundry worke-r."(34) Throughout the- 18705 and into the- 18805, socce-r rapidly de-ve-bJPe-d into a working class sport. Churche-s in particular, se-e-ing socce-r as an ide-al ve-hicle- to combat urban proble-ms, spawne-d clubs all ove-r the- country. Followe-d by schools, ne-ighborhood associations and factorie-s, the- game- soon de-ve-Iope-d into Bre-at Britain's most ubiquitous sport, having by that time- also prolife-rate-d into the- non-English parts of the- British Isle-s. Lastly, some- te-ams de-ve-Iope-d as de- facto "winte-r branche-sOl of alre-ady e-xisting cricke-t clubs, the-re-by e-xte-nding the- sport se-ason for the-ir me-mbe-rs to a ye-ar-round involve-me-nt. This rapid prolife-ration of socce-r in little- more- than a de-cade- was intimate-Iy re-Iate-d to the- nature- of the- game- itse-If. Priding itse-If as "the- simple-st game-", socce-r's rule-s we-re- inde-e-d fe-w, cle-ar and e-asily communicable to playe-rs and spe-ctators alike-. In te-rms of e-quipme-nt, all that was ne-ede-d was a ball and a re-Iative-Iy flat surface-. Eve-rything e-lse- - goal posts, ne-ts, line-s de-marcating the- fie-Id and spe-cial are-as on it, boots and uniforms - was (and in ce-rtain ways still is) not absolute-Iy e-sse-ntial for a socce-r match. Pe-rhaps the most important "de-mocratizing" factor was the- e-arly aware-ne-ss that ave-rage- physical attribute-s suffice-d not only to be- ~ n ade-quate- socce-r playe-r but also a star. Just as the- playe-r(s) with the- be-st physical attribute-s could not control the- flow and 15 outcome of the game, neither could the most intelligent, wily or wealthy_ Indeed, it soon became evident that successful soccer always had to be a team effort in which no one individual could ever exert sufficient control to decide a game completely by himself. With the development of the passing game in the soccer's collectivist identity became irreversibly established. (35) By the mid 1880s, many factors contributed to the rapid rise of professionalism and the concomitant disappearance of amateurism in British soccer: regular newspaper coverage of the games; increased intercity matches among clubs; expanded and modernized playing fields, surrounded by viewin9 areas for a growing number of fans who paid admission fees; and the newly introduced work-free Saturday afternoons. This shift from amateurism to professionalism entailed a sociological change in the class background of soccer players as well as fans. As to the former, a poor working class youth from some Midland industrial slum would clearly seize every to make a better living by being paid for what essentially still remained his hobby. As to the latter, a parallel "downward" shift in class composi tion occurred during the 1880s, which led to a "crowding out" of the Engli sh gentlemen by the working class from both the playing and viewing dimensions of the soccer world. Walvin claims that during this time quite a few English soccer fans and players with bourgeois backgrounds snubbed soccer as an increasingly professional and "vulgar" sport and then pursued their ambitions as amateur sportsmen in other games, such as rugby. (36) With the establishment of the English Football League in 1888, followed by a second division in 1892, the present structure of English professional soccer was established in its essential contours. This format of league play shaped the game of soccer in every country where it became the central sport. The need to maximize profits on the increasingly expensive investments which these professional clubs began to represent, was met neither by "friendly" matches on an irregular basis nor by the potentially one-time involvement in the F.A. Cup tournament. Therefore the 16 football League developed. Its twelve original members - all from England's north and the Midlands - would compete for the League championship by playing a continuous round-robin tournament in which each team would play every other team twice, once "at home" and once "away". By the early 1890s, English football - as the world has come to know it - was fully established in Great Britain. It was poised to conquer the world, a hitherto unparalleled feat in sports history. Soccer enjoyed a "national", i.e. class-transcendent, appeal in Britain by the late nineteenth century in spite of its professionalized "vulgarization" during the 1880s and 1890s. This fact together with the ubiquity and prominence of British presence throughout .. the world during this period help to explain the exportability of soccer. It is telling that the sport was introduced to many countries by an eclectic group of people: visiting English sailors (france, Spain, Brazil>; British embassy personnel (Sweden); British workers engaged in local projects (Russia, Rumania, Poland, Uruguay); local schoolboys bringing the game back with them following the completion of their education in England (Holland, Italy, Spain, Brazil, Portugal); and members of local English clubs which expanded their sport activities from cricket and horseback riding to soccer (Austro-Hungarian Empire, Germany, Argentina). Aided by a proliferation of coaches and other officials imported from England and Scotland, and by frequent "missionary" vi si ts from English clubs who would tour the respective country playing exhibition matches against its newly founded teams, soccer quickly became the most dominant team sport on the European continent and in Latin America by the eve of World War 1.(37) Developments in the United States, conversely, proved a good deal less fortuitous for soccer. In America, soccer remained closely associated with immigrants, a stigma which proved fatal to soccer's potential of becoming a popular team sport in the "new world". The game's various precursors were played in the colonies of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, with documentation of a game as early as 1609 in Virginia. (38) As in England, football was played on the streets and in open 17 squares, often leading to riot-like disturbances which, in turn, led the authorities to forbid the game on a number of occasions. Again similar to England, the game did not attain any social respectabi 1i ty until the fi rst hal f of the nineteenth century, when the nation's top colleges - led by Harvard, Yale, Princeton and Columbia started playing various versions of football on an intramural basis. Outlawed periodically by university administrators because of its raucous nature and accompanying roughness both on and off the field, the game did not become organized until the 1860s. Early in this decade, students and alumni from a number of elite Boston secondary schools united to form the Oneida Football Club which remained undefeated - and even unscored upon - between 1862 and 1865, lending the "Boston Game" exceptional prominence in America's still small, diverse football world.(39) Allowing the use of hands and feet, the "Boston Game" soon became the most popular sport across the Charles River in Cambridge, home of Harvard University. Retrospectively, this synthesis may have proved an early harbinger for soccer's failure to become a major popular sport at American colleges, and subsequently in American society as a whole. By the end of the decade, the game had achieved sufficient intercollegiate uniformity to allow for the playing of the first college football game in American history, which was held on Saturday, November 6, 1869 in New Brunswick between Rutgers and Princeton. This event can be classified both as the first football as well as the first soccer game in modern American history since the game was played according to rules which were somewhere in between those of Association and Rugby Football. (40) Columbia joined the original two in 1870 and by 1872 the group included Rutgers, Princeton, Yale and Stevens. These schools played an Association type kicking game. Even though local differences in rules persisted, all participants agreed that the ball could not be picked up with the hands, caught, thrown or carried. Soccer in its rudimentary form seemed to have assumed an important foothold among leading American colleges. It failed to do so at the 18 country's oldest and most prestigious institution of higher learning though: Harvard persistently opposed the "kicking 'game", clinging tenaciously to its "Boston Game" which it had perfected in the interim. (41) When the other schools uni formly adopted Association rules in 1873, they desisted from calling themselves a league due to Harvard's absence. Indeed, the unique prestige of this very special institution ultimately overturned the "kicking game's" apparent victory among American college students of the early 1870s and led to the running game's complete and ultimate triumph by 1877. In search of an opponent, Harvard turned north of the border to McGill University which played rugby at the time. The two universities agreed to play two matches in 1874, the first according to the rules of Harvard's "Boston Game", the second following McGill's rugby rules. As expected, Harvard won the first encounter easily and was poised to lose the rematch to McGill. Surprisingly, the Harvard team played McGill to a scoreless tie.(42) More important than this unexpected and respectable result for soccer's future, was the Harvard team's unanimous enthusiasm for the game of rugby which they henceforth embraced wholeheartedly as their own. The "Boston ,Game", having been a hybrid between rugby and soccer and thus still including more kicking and foot-involved ball contact than rugby, was dismissed as sleepy and boring. In its stead, the "running game" developed in its then purest form as Harvard's unchallenged team sport. (43) Barely one year later, in 1875, Yale's well-established rivalry with Harvard proved stronger than its membership in a loose association with Columbia, Princeton and a few other schools then playing the "kicking game". In that year the first "Game" between Yale and Harvard was played, with Harvard winning easily in a game Yale had never played until then. That year Yale still fulfilled its "soccer obligations" to Columbia and Wesleyan, but by 1876 Yale had dropped soccer and replaced it with rugby. The other universities followed, with Princeton succumbing last in 1877. Rugby's triumph over soccer at American colleges was so thorough that soccer did not reappear on American campuses on an intercollegiate level until 1902. By that time 19 American Football - rugby's successor in the "new world" - had gained an unshakable prominence in American college life.(44) Stigmatized as slow, boring and devoid of action due to the relative paudty of scoring when compared to any of the "Big Three" American sports, soccer has, since its re-introduction as a varsity sport, languished in the giant shadows cast on it by football and later basketball. At American universities, as in American society, soccer has remained largely the domain of foreigners and recent immigrants, both as players and spectators. Let us now look at the developments of football and baseball respectively, so we can better understand what occupied the American "sport space" upon soccer's arrival on these shores and how this "preoccupation" led to the "crowding out" of the world's most popular sport. Since we just discussed the origins of American football in the context of soccer's failure in the United States, it seems best to continue the paper by looking at football before turning to baseball. "Crowding ou' from .b o y'"' Tb. c.,. of Am.ric.n footb.ll What Harvard had started by sticking to the running game, Yale completed by offering football its charismatic "founding father" and most influential modernizer. Indeed, Parke Davi s, "the Plutarch of early college football", expl ici tly equated Walter Camp of Yale to George Washington by stating that "what Washington was to his country, Camp was to American football the friend, the founder, and the father. "(45) Attaining legendary fame as a player and reformer during the game's most formative years, Camp "was said to have been the model for the fictional character 'Frank Merriwell of Yale''', America's first and greatest sports hero on whom a whole generation of American boys was weaned after 1896.(46) Camp's major and lasting contribution was to transform football from a quasi- aristocratic English game to a quintessentially bourgeois American activity of the twentieth century. Astute observers of American sports and culture such as David Riesman and Michael Qriard have drawn explicit parallels between Walter Camp and 20 Winslow Taylor. (47) Simultaneously, though presumably of each other, both were engaged in the modernization, regularization and systematization of their - football and factory production - which undergoing far-reaching changes of bourgeoisification (and Americanization) at turn of century. Walter Camp could be as the in the "Taylorization" of a sport which, following the successful conclusion of this process, as American football. Camp's leadership, rugby's ad hoc and free-for-all for ball, unpredictable English "scrum", became the clearly American "scrimmage", in which the offensive and defensive teams confronted each Confusion and ambiguity still however with both sides vying for the ball simultaneously at the beginning of each play, often tying up the ball and thereby impeding the commencement of the game. Therefore further clarification was added by awarding what was to become the "center snap" to the offensive team. Undisputed possession of the ball was thus Camp and his' reformers "taylorized" the field by drawing. clear on it, making a team's progress, movement and location perfectly measurable at any time of the' game. The gridiron - in and of itself a Taylorist concept - set stage for football's subsequent and lasting domination by statistics (yards carry; total passing yardage; total running yardage; etc.). In order to and encourage movement on the gridiron, and to counter the "block game" in which each team would the ball for "i ts" hal f of the game, Camp introduced a rule requiring a team to make five yards in three downs, extended to ten yards in four downs in 1912.(48) Camp reduced the number of players per team from 15 to 11 and each player was assigned a specific position in which he was to excel and specialize. He devised the arrangement which became standard - seven linemen, a quarterback, two halfbacks, and a fullback. As part of his "scientization" of football in which game plans, strategy, and tactics assumed an increasingly central role, Camp also introduced a rule which permitted tackling 21 as low as the knees. This maneuver to bring a man down was more efficient, though also more brutal,than the earlier method of wrestling an opponent to the ground. The dangerous "wedge" appeared, perfected by Harvard to become the more devastating "flying wedge", only to be countered by Camp's Yale teams with the "shoving wedge". Play became violent, routinely resulting in major injuries and frequent deaths. Finally President Roosevelt, having seen the photo of a mangled Swarthmore player in the newspaper following a particulariy savage encounter between Swarthmore and Pennsylvania in 1905, personally demanded that the game be reformed to eliminate such obvious brutality. Only thereafter did Camp and others institute changes which eliminated overt and willful maiming without, however, compromising the roughness of the game which was deemed essential by virtually every educator and opinion leader in the country. President Roosevelt's involvement led to the establishment of the Intercollegiate Athletic Association in December 1905, headed by Captain Palmer Pierce of West Point. It was renamed the National Collegiate Athletic Association (N.C.A.A.> in 1910.(49) With Walter Camp in charge of the American Football Rules Committee., the last substantial rule changes were undertaken yielding a game by the eve of World War I which has basically remained intact on both the collegiate and the professional levels to this day. One of the most important reforms was the forward pass which established the "aerial attack" as yet another weapon in a team's offensive strategy. This reform fostered the honing of finesse and precision at the expense of sheer physical force, thus further contributing to what had already become a highly "taylorized" sport. Baseball had become the sport of the lower classes, "enjoying" the social prestige of stage acting or gambling in Michael Oriard's words. Football developed into the most popular sport among America's middle class by the turn of the century when soccer made its triumphant conquest of the European continent and Latin America. (50) Initially dominant only in the elite schools of the East Coast, football rapidly spread westward establishing itself at places such as the 22 University of Chicago (coached by the legendary Amos Alonzo Stagg), Oberlin, Michigan and Notre Dame in the Midwest, Stanford and the Uniyersity of California at Berkeley'::)n the West Coast. The 1920s witnessed the proliferation of college football in the South and the Southwest, with both regions producing major powers by the 1930s. That football remained the virtual prerogative of collegiate America, underscored the middle class nature of football's first four decades. Football games on Saturday afternoons in the fall, especially around Thanksgiving, became essential ingredients of bourgeois culture. College football attained such a hegemonic position in American middle class culture, that it succeeded in "crowding out" the professional game - as well as soccer - until the founding of the National Football League in 1920, and arguably well into the post-World War II era. Professionalism did not however remain excluded from the world of American football. One aspect of the mens-sana-in-corpore-sano ideology of the American bourgeoisie was the perception of football as a bastion of amateurism, in fact though, professionalization of the college game had clearly set in by the turn of the century. Gate receipts provided welcome revenue even to the wealthiest universities such as Yale, where in 1903 "income from football equaled the combined budgets of the law, divinity, and medical schools". (51) Yale was the first university to professionalize its coaching staff and its rivals, initially protesting this vulgar betrayal of amateur ideals, proceeded to hire their own professional coaches. Staying competitive was critical for winning, which had graduated from being everything to being the only thing. The explicitly professional football game originated in the cultural peripheries of America's steel and coal regions, such as Pittsburgh and the surrounding areas of Allegheny County. Spreading later to the industrial regions of Ohio, professional clubs were established in towns such as Akron and Canton (the location of the Professional Football Hall of Fame). Most teams were owned by 23 wealthy businessmen who liked the game, wanted to provide some entertainment to the local population (which often included a large number of their own employees) and make some money in the process. Initially, most players were local working class members with an occasional college graduate hired as the special star, as was the case with the legendary William Walter (Pudge) Heffelfinger, Amos Alonzo Stagg's teammate at Yale. With the gradual growth of the professional game and its departure from America's hinterlands into the country's cultural centers though, college graduates began to furnish the majority of the players. A situation developed where American universities served as' professional football's farm system, a function which they still perform. American higher education - an essential institution of American bourgeois life continues its deep involvement with football true to its legacy as the cradle and inventor of this quintessentially American sport. (52) All those involved in football (the players, fans, and team owners) came to view the game not only as profoundly American, but also as fundamentally modern contrasting it favorably to that other American sport - i.e. baseball. This led to the erroneous but still powerful myth which continues to glorify baseball as a rural game. Baseball having developed into America's "pastime" populated by the country's masses, seemingly lacked the vigor and drive of modernity associated with football's 'tscienti fic" aura. Rather than cultivating the leisurely image of a "pastime", football prided itself on replicating the tough, strategic, determined and ultimately victorious side of American life. rootball prominently featured all the values central to bourgeois capitalism in the United States: British elite origins to provide the necessary historical legitimacy coupled with American "robust manliness" to distinguish it clearly from its "soft", disorganized, Victorian predecessor(53); individual effort combined with intricate team work; hierarchical control in tandem with corporate cooperation; and equality of opportunity and access accompanied by the survival of the fittest.(54) 24 Just like American capitalism, so too was football made bearable by the "rules of the game". In notable contrast to both soccer and rugby, American football like baseball - developed a mass of intricate rules which served as a lingua franca f.::>r the sport in a multi-ethnic and multi-cultural society dominated by bourgeois values of individualism rather than the noblesse oblige collectivism of the British aristocratized sports world. Whereas a common culture among players - and between players and spectators - permitted British sports to develop with a minimal system of policing, a similar self-regulating approach was impossible in a country with a constant influx of new immigrants, who had the importance of being number one impressed upon them on arrival. In addition to providing a common ground of understanding, rules also helped systematize and quantify American sports. The per formance of a team, as well as of the individual, could be more "objectively" measured than in the murky, collectivist British team sports. One could thus tie remuneration, advancement or demotion to a player's IInumbers", analogous to the reward system in a Taylorized form of industrial production. The existence of written - as opposed to culturally internalized - rules also fostered an atmosphere in which a premium was attached to devising "trick plays", designed to consciously mislead the opponent by staying just this side of what the rules permitted or indeed by violating them outright in the hope that the policing authorities would not notice. "Trick plays", basically unknown to soccer, rugby and cricket, became woven into the fabric of American football and baseball. Lastly as in politics clearly stated, written and universalistic rule had an equalizing effect on American football by enhancing its attraction to otherwise disparate social groups. Rules thereby enhanced participation and contributed to the popularization - if perhaps less to the democratization - of this sport. It is now time to turn to America's earliest popular sport. which helped "crowd out soccer from below". 25 Crowding out from b.low, Tb. ,.,. of b.,.b.ll Purportedly, Jacques Barzun once said, "Whoever wants to know the heart and mind of America had better learn baseball". Until the 1950s, baseball was far and away America's most popular sport. From the very beginning of its development, baseball's successful proliferation among America's maSSeS depended on its identity as "American". Football never denied its British origins and indeed proudly pointed to William Webb Ellis' alleged run at Rugby in 1823 as the inception of the game. In contrast, baseball went to great length to deny having had any relationship to the British game of rounders, all the while stressing the truly "Americanness" of the game's every facet. In this context, the still widely held myth of Abner Doubleday having originated the game in Cooperstown, New York in 1839 was created. To the enthusiastic cries of "No rounders!", a group of 300 prominent baseball enthusiasts, including Mark Twain and Chauncey M. Depew, gathered at Delmonico's in New York City in 1889 to hear the fourth president of the National League, Abraham G. Mills, declare that "patriotism and research" had established beyond any doubt the American origin of baseball. (55) The creation of the Abner Doubleday myth was to forever squelch the British claim that baseball was a descendant of rounders. Baseball's "devotees found it increasingly difficult to swallow the idea that their favorite pastime was of foreign origin. Pride and patriotism required that the game be native, unsullied by English ancestry. "(56) Intense American natiVism, apparent already during baseball's "take-off period" in the 1850s, ensured baseball's eventual success as "the American National Game". Ties to rounders were consciously' denied and baseball was systematically defined as "anti-cricket": faster, more action-packed, tougher, requiring more ingenuity and individual initiative. In short, baseball was better suited to and more accurately reflected li fe in the "New Worl d". The following analysis will focus on the evolution of baseball as a game and as a national institution in a curious temporal parallel to soccer's development in 26 England. Baseball's tempestuous era - reflecting central conflicts in American society of the late nineteenth century - came to a more or less accepted conclusion by 1903, at the exact time of soccer's conquest of the world. Having developed into America's mass sport and national pastime between the end of the Civil War and the turn of the century, baseball had successfully ensconced itself in America's "sport space". Thus little room remained for soccer to develop on the popular level, as it did first in Great Britain, then on the European Continent and in Latin America, and eventually in the rest of the world. Baseball's precursors stretch back to America's colonial period when an array of games with names such as "town-ball" and "round-ball" were played on village greens primarily in New England and New York. Completely regional in character - as attested to by such names as the "Massachusetts Game", "New England Game" and "New York Game" - virtually all of baseball's forerunners hailed from the British game of rounders in which a batter would "round" the bases - or "goals" after having "struck" the ball which was thrown to him by a "bowler" belonging to the opposite team. In an interesting and lasting parallel to soccer, baseball success was in part based on the fact that virtually no equipment or special physical attributes were necessary to enjoy or excel at the game. Like soccer, baseball thus enjoyed "democratic access" in that the game was accessible to all and no exotic equipment or locale was required. (57) Any elongated bat-like object, be it a broomstick, paddle or rifle, served adequately for hitting the ball. Any vaguely round object- regardless of exact size and consistency - could serve as a ball. Versions of this game - involving hi tUng and throwing a ball and running "the bases" - proli ferated in the northeast of the United States in the 1830s and 1840s. Like football (as yet undifferentiated into Association and Rugby), the initial and all-important codification of baseball occurred in the quasi-aristocratic milieu of educated gentlemen. In 1845. a group of 40 bourgeois male New Yorkers (professional men, merchants, white collar workers and several "gentlemen") joined 27 together in forming the New York Knickerbockers, the world's first organized baseball team. (58) Under the leadership of Alexander Cartwright, the Knickerbockers created the first written rules of baseball. Despite constant changes since, these rules have provided the main contours of the game to this day: the four-base diamond; gO-foot base paths; three out, all out; batting in rotation; throwing out runners or touching them; nine-man teams with each player covering a definite position; and the location of the pitcher's box in relation to the diamond as a whole to mention but the most important ones. (5g) Cartwright and his reformers also specified the weight of the ball as well as the circumference of the bat in order to provide uniformity for competition. The Knickerbockers played their first game at Elysian Fields in Hoboken, New Jersey against the New York Base Ball Club on June 19, 1846. In that same year, J.C. Thring, one of soccer's major codifiers, organized the first football team at Cambridge. The baseball game lasted only four innings, "because by that time the New York Club had scored the 21 'aces' (runs) necessary to win under the rules". Also an elaborate social affair, the ensuing dinner assumed almost equal importance to the contest on the field. This tradition continued until the end of the next decade as other teams joined the Knickerbockers in New York (notably the Gothams, Eagles and Empires) as well as in Brooklyn (The Excelsiors, Putnams, Eckfords and Atlantics) and competed in a series of regular games held on an inter- as well as intra-city basis. In 1858 a team of Manhattan all-stars first played their Brooklyn counterparts and thereby inaugurated a rivalry' which was to last exactly one hundred years. Throughout the 1850s, baseball caught the fancy of people in all walks of life leading to a proliferation of clubs organized largely along occupational lines. Policemen, barkeepers, schoolteachers, doctors, lawyers and even clergymen had their own teams. This rapid "downward" dissemination led to baseball's development first as "New York's game", then the "Nortneast's game" and ultimately "America's game" following the conclusion of the Civil War. Since baseball was most popular and its 28 rules most codified in New York, what was known as the "New York game" became nationally accepted by 1860. As with football in England at that time, the increased facility and expansion of railroad travel fostered intercity contests. M.:;)reover, the growing availabi li ty of newspapers, in which the first regular sports pages appeared, also helped the game's popularity during a critical formative period. A fundamental transformation of the game accompanied this geographic and social expansion. Though still dominated by amateurs, competition became keener. Winning, which had been accorded only incidental status during baseball's "gentlemen era", developed into the game's raison d'etre. Gone was the view which allowed each batter to have "hi s hi til. The central aspect of modern baseball developed, which dictated a fundamentally and structurally antagonistic relationship between the pitcher and the batter. The pitcher was no longer to "serve" the batter a "hittable" ball, but in fact do just the opposite. By trying to make it as difficult as possible for the batter to hit the ball, pitchers developed fastballs, curves, sliders and various breaking pitches to confuse, mislead and basically trick the batter whose repeated failure to "strike" the ball would lead to his forfeiting his role as a batter. To keep pitchers from throwing balls out of the batters' reach, the system of "balls" was invented whereby the batter was allowed to advance to first base in case the pitcher exceeded his permitted allotment of throwing "faulty" balls. Baseball's anti-English, anti-cricket self-identification increased with the game's gradual distancing from its amateur" roots. This nativist strain was also evident in certain rule changes such as the elimination of making an "outU by catching a batter's hit on one bounce, which was associated with the more serene, slower and gentlemanly cricket. "Surely, what an Englishman can do, an American is as capable of improving upon", boasted a sporting paper (60) and thus this "archaic" rule was relegated to baseball's "muffins", as amateurs became known in the days of the game's increased professionalization. Gate receipts developed into an important 29 source of revenue for the clubs,leading to baseball's "enclosure movement". Fences provided a clear separation between "ball parks" and the outside world. They also helped separate spectators from players, providing a more orderly spatial arrangement for a rather unruly crowd. Last, but certainly not least, these "enclosures" eventually led to the institutionalization of the "home run", one of baseball's most exciting events. With victory assuming paramount importance, professionalism rapidly displaced amateurism during the post-Civil War era. While every team had its share of "rounders" (baseball's equivalent to football's "ringers") who "revolved" from one team to the next following the most lucrative offer with reckless abandon of any team loyalty or moral constraints, in 1869, the Cincinnati Red Stockings appeared as the first official all-professional team in baseball, indeed in any modern sport. Two years later, the first professional league, the National Association of Professional Base Ball Players, was established. Lasting only four years and representing 10 teams, this league was dominated by the Red Stockings who had moved from Cincinnati to Boston. Best described as the most unregulated capitalist phase of baseball, the charismatic entrepreneur, best represented by Albert Goodwill Spalding, the pitching star of the Boston Red Stockings, characterized this early era. Spalding, typical of entrepreneurs in America's burgeoning bourgeois society, was a missionary, modernizer and moneymaker all rolled into one. By further standardizing the game's equipment (balls, bats, uniforms) Spalding continued to develop the modern game of baseball while simultaneously helping his sporting goods business become a flourishing enterprise. His missionary zeal to spread baseball and also the wares of his company - extended beyond the confines of the United States. Having returned from a triumphant baseball tour of Canada, Spalding "conceived the idea in 1837 of taking a baseball team over to England to. demonstrate what the Americans had cooked up out of rounders crossed with cricket. "(St> His conviction that the superior American game would inevitably catch on with the 30 English during a numbe-r of e-xhibition matche-s playe-d in 1874 prove-d utte-rly illusory. Base-ball did not e-xcite- the- British who found it dull and hardly a worthy de-parture- from the- childre-n's game- of rounde-rs. Conve-ying the- unbound optimism of that spe-cial bre-e-d of Ame-rican e-ntre-pre-ne-ur, Spalding re-maine-d unde-te-rre-d by his faile-d mission clf 1874 and e-mbarke-d on a se-cond, e-ve-n more- ambitious, journe-y in 1888/89 to bring base-ball to the- re-st of the- world. He- took an all-star te-am calle-d "All Ame-ricans" to Hawaii, Australia, Egypt, Italy, France- and England. The- re-sults we-re- e-ve-n more- e-mbarrassing for base-ball than during the- first trip though. Othe-r than in Australia whe-re- the- game- me-t with a polite- but une-nthusiastic re-ce-ption, base-ball was gre-e-te-d with a mixture- of disinte-re-st, de-rision and e-ve-n hostility on the- te-am's othe-r stops. Italian and Fre-nch spe-ctators found the- game- dull and uninspiring. The- British still dismisse-d it as the- Ame-rican ve-rsion of rounde-rs, though some- particularly be-ne-vole-nt critics conce-de-d that base-ball was faste-r and more- scie-ntific.(62) Not until the- mid 1920s did base-ball's prophe-ts once- again e-mbark on a prose-Iytizing mission which - with the- e-xce-ption of attaining positive re-sults in Japan - faile-d abysmally once- again. Thre-e- e-xplanations se-e-m plausible for base-ball's failure- to capture- the- imagination of sports fans outside- the- Unite-d State-s and its imme-diate- ge-ographic orbit. Fi rst, its "Ame-ricanne-ss" not only re-nde-re-d it incompre-he-nsible- outside- 5ts cultural conte-xt, but also le-nt it a re-al albe-i t unjusti fi e-d aura of irumaturi ty and vulgari ty, parti cularly in Bri ti sh e-ye-s. Se-cond, the- 1888/89 trip occurre-d at a time- whe-n the-se- countrie-s we-re- still insufficie-ntly bourge-oisifie-d to e-mbrace- a sport on a mass le-ve-l. This had alre-ady happe-ne-d with base-ball in the- Unite-d State-s and socce-r in Gre-at Britain, but the-se othe-r countrie-s we-re- not ye-t re-ady for it. Third, the- 1920s e-xpe-dition faile-d be-cause socce-r was alre-ady we-II e-nsconce-d as the- pre-mie-r mass sport in the- world, and "crowde-d out" any se-rious compe-titjon. The- one- notable- e-xce-ption, whe-re- the base-ball mission actually proved rathe-I" was Japan. Re-turning to base-ball's unregulate-d capitalist phase- of the e-arly 1870s, this 31 era witnessed open gambling and drinking among the spectators and players before, during and after the games. Players, as well as umpires, accepted bribes to "fix" games in full view of the public. The generally anarchic atmosphere was heightened by the common practice of "raiding" players. A club had been "raided", if some of its top players, whom it had barely signed a few weeks before, disappeared from its roster only to show up in a rival team's uniform the next day. By the mid 1870s all involved saw that baseball was in dire need of some sort of streamlining. Begun in 1876, this process lasted until 1903 when the present organizational form of major league baseball was established. Led by Spalding, baseball's "domestication" commenced with the founding of the National League in 1876, the world's oldest still functioning professional sports league, predating the English Football League by twelve years. The National League was limited to eight clubs. Each was guaranteed "territorial rights.. by being the sole representative of a city which had at least 75,000 inhabitants. In addition to this important monopolistic market position, clubs agreed to refrain from "raiding" each other's players by introducing the so-called "reserve clause i'
This cartel-like agreement, which lasted nearly one century, gave each club complete, quasi-feudal control over its players by giving it a continuing option to rehire them each year and thus prevent them from selling their labor power to the highest bidder in the free market. (63) Players thus became a team's property, a serf-like arrangement common to other professional sports with mass appeal, such as soccer. With baseball having become America's most popular form of entertainment by the early 1880s, other entrepreneurs saw the sport as an excellent venue to make money. Therefore the rival American Association developed in 1882, its eight teams charging lower admissions than their counterparts in the National League and playing on Sundays. (64) Periodic trade wars, Qenefitting fans and players, ensued between the two rival leagues. The result was the eventual demise of the American Association 32 in 1891 and the absorption of four of its teams by the National League, thereafter comprised of twelve clubs. In addition to trade wars, another occasional occurrence in the baseball of the late nineteenth century further strengthens our analogy with feudalism. Just as there were numerous, destructive, peasant revolts which brought about few tangible gains f.;:)r the peasants in the Middle Ages, so too did baseball players conduct periodic costly "wars" against the owners leading only to minor attainments for the players' cause. Efforts to unionize were invariably defeated and the owner-imposed "reserve clause" successfully stymied the players' attempts to use their market power to gain better conditions and, more importantly, to enhance their control over their own existence in baseball. After a trade war at the turn of the century, the National League, weakened by internal strife and the jettisoning of four of its clubs, entered into a peace agreement with the newly formed American League forming the pinnacle of what became henceforth the cartel of "Organized Baseball". The peace agreement between the two leagues led to the establishment of the World Series(65) and an arrangement in which the sixteen major league teams (eight in each league) represented ten cities. This format lasted for fifty years until the Boston Braves of the National League transferred to Milwaukee, thereby sparking a period of relocation and the establishment of new franchises which continued until the 1970s. Following another organizational restructuring in the wake of the 1919 "Black Sox" World Series scandal, "Organized Baseball" was led by a single commissioner beginning in 1920. The game entered its golden era which not even World War II could interrupt. With the gradual proliferation of radio broadcasting during the 1920s, the establishment of the "Yankee dynasty" and the introduction of night games in 1935, baseball achieved an unchallenged hegemony in American sports. Not until professional football's meteoric rise in the 1.960s was that hegemony challenged. Baseball's overwhelming popularity with the American masses proved sufficient to "crowd out" 33 so.:cer "from below" in the Uni ted States. Conclusion This paper argues that the particular nature of America's development as "the first new nati.)n" contributed considerably to the "crowding out" of soccer as one of this country's major spectator sports. Specifically, it is this essay's contention that some of the most salient social and historical constellations which led to the absence of a large working-class party in the United States, making it the world's only advanced industrial country to suffer from this considerable deficit in the conduct of its politics, also helped exclude the United States from the world's most popular mass sport. It was above all America's early and comprehensive bourgeoisification as myth and reality - which created both "exceptionalisms" whose legacies are with us to this day. Just as the literature on why there is no socialism in America mainly focuses on the period between the Civil War and World War I, so too did I concentrate much of this paper's empirical material on the pre-1914 era. As such, any serious concern with either one or both of the two "exceptionalisms" demands by necessity a historical approach since it was at a certain era of American development that the overall stage was set. The overall contours of this stage have by and large remained in tact. Thus, a thorough historical exploration of topics such as the two American "exceptionalisms" not only helps us understand their origins but also their continued presence in our world. This, of course, is not to say that an understanding of the pre-World War I situation remains sufficient as an explanation for the failure of socialism and/or soccer in contemporary America. Surely one would have to spend some time analyzing the phenomena of Stalinism and McCarthyism just to mention perhaps the most obvious cases - for a proper analysis of the continued absence of a large, mass based, left-leaning party in the United States of the 1980s. Similarly, soccer's 34 marginal as a major sport in has probably a lot to do with its inability to land a contract with of major with it out" by "from and fo.;)tball "from turn of fact that of has willing to such a contract back to an public in mass sports all world and with a In that, cannot claim to an
35 Endnot., *1 would to thank Oriardfor his in his work in progress and sharing his extensive knowledge with me. Special thanks once again to Karen Donfried for and assistance in this paper. 1. I would like to draw in this context to Paul Hoch's useful term of "sexual apartheid" denoting the fact that sports often transcend most rigid lines of (be they class, status, or among only to women almost It is to note that this of "sexual is virtually ubiquitous all world. Paul Hoch, Ripp off Big The Exploitation of Sports by the (New York: 1972), pp. 147-66. 2. While it is very difficult to obtain data on how many the World Cups of 1978, 1982 and 1986 can be little doubt that events have attracted more viewers than anything in human history. than 2 billion watched the World Cup final in 1978 with figures being 3 billion and 3.5 billion for in 1982 and 1986 respectively. Over 5 billion the tournament in 1982 and 8 billion followed it four years later. (All these obtained from of Federation Football Association (FIFA) in Zurich.) In substantiating point that soccer is far and away the world's most popular spectator sport, Janet in excellent study on soccer in Brazil states the following about the final game of the 1978 World Cup: "In words, half world's people shared a single event. (Emphasis in original) To put this figure in for two of Olympic was bi 11 ion in 1976. II (Chicago: University of Chicago 1983), p. 20. 3. are to marginality of this on in The ratings for World Cup finals thus far by of major of final Rating 1966 NBC 4.5X 21X 1982 ABC 6.6X 22X 1986 NBC 4.1X 13X If looks at the NBC data for six of 1986 which network in addition to final, the with all the usual and colorful a 2.5X rating and a 9X down as follows: Rating
1 (Sunday 1.6X 5X 8 (Sunday 1.4X 4X 15 (Sunday 1.8X 6X 21 (Saturday 3.4X llX 22 (Sunday 2.3X 8X It should added that of at of soccer's major powerhouses such as Italy Brazil, Argentina, franc., Spain, or England. I also at by sports ESPN. As far to NBC's. Thus, 36 only once - on June 3 - did the rating percentage exceed 1 with the share never attaining 27.. To put all of this into perspective, I obtained the television figures for the most recent major events in American sports: Superbowl 1386; World Series 1985, NCAA basketball final 1986 and NBA championship series 1986. They are as follows: Event Network Ratinq ~ Superbowl 1986 NBC 48.37. 707. World Series 1985 ABC 25.37. 397. (averaged over 7 games) NCAA basketball final 1986 CBS 20.77. 317. NBA championship series '86 CBS 14.17. 31.17. (averaged over 6 games) The Nielsen system's two figures stand for the percentage of all T.V. households in the United States in the case of the "rating", and for the households that have their television sets switched on at the time of the measurement in the case of the "share". It is estimated that 99X of all households in the United States have televisions, which translates into 86 million households. In order to corroborate my hypothesis that soccer - at least as a spectacle continues to remain confined to immigrant subcultures in the United States, I obtained data from the Spanish International Network (SIN) regarding its viewership of the World Cup. While the data are not comparable to those listed above since SIN's programs are not measured by the Nielsen company, it nevertheless seems clear that among the 4.3 million households receiving SIN World Cup '86 was a popular event. The opening game attained a 557. rating with the final reaching 65.67.. SIN constructed a six game aggregate composite to measure its viewership of the World Cup which yielded some interesting results: the highest rating composite - 77.97. was reached by male viewers between the ages of 18 and 34 with the lowest figure for adults over 18 being the 47.2X attained by women between 25 and 54. The overall composite for all male viewers over 18 was 677. with the corresponding figure for women being 45.7X. "Sexual apartheid" still seems to exist among America's SIN viewers, though the excluded group seems to have participated in surprisingly large numbers, at least as far as this event from Mexico was concerned. 4. On how the United States has from its beginning as an independent country exerted a special, though very ambivalent, attraction on European - in this case particularly German - intellectuals, see Andrei S. Markovits, "On Anti-Americanism in West Germany" in New German Critique, Number 34 (Winter 1985), pp. 3-27. America's fascination on European intellectuals such as Tocqueville, Martineau, Bryce, Weber, Heine among many others is very well known and superbly documented. 5. The original title of Sombart's work as published by the renown house of J.C.B. Mohr (Paul Siebeck) from Tuebingen in 1906 was Warum gibt es in den Vereinigten Staate'., keinen Sozialismus? The Englisn translation is: Why is there no Socialism in the United States?, first published by The Macmillan Press, London and by the International Arts and Sciences Press of White Plains, New York in 1976. Alas I would argue that the title continues to remain just as flawed in Europe as it was when Sombart published his work. By dismissing the Soviet Union's and Eastern Europe's political economy as having little in common with socialism and by seeing the welfare states of capitalist Western Europe also falling considerably short of what socialism is supposed to be, I cannot help but conclude that Sombart's title continues to convey a flawed image not only of the United States but of all the major industrial countries in the world. 6. The literature dealing with "American exceptionalism", or at least certain aspects of it, is vast. H.r. 1 will list only those works which I have found particularly important in my teaching and research over the years. Louis Hartz, ~ Liberal Tradition in America: An Interpretation of American Political Thought Since 37 the Revolution (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1955); rrederick Jackson Turner, The rrontier in American History (New York: Holt and Co., 1947); John M. Laslett and Seymour Martin Lipset (eds.), railure of a Dream? Essays in the History of American Socialism (Garden City: Doubleday, Anchor Books, 1974); Seymour Martin Lipset, Political Man (Garden City: Doubleday, Anchor Books, 1960); idem, The rirst New Nation (Garden City: Doubleday, Anchor Books, 1967); idem, Agrarian Socialism (Garden City: Doubleday, Anchor Books, 1968); idem, Revolution and Counterrevolution (Garden City: Doubleday, Anchor Books, 1970); the exchange between Sean Wilentz and Michael Hanagan in International Labor and Working Class History, Number 26; Gwendolyn Mink, Old Labor and New Immiarants in American Political Development: Union, Party. and State 1875-1920 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1986); and Jerome Karabel, "The railure of American Socialism Reconsidered" in The Socialist Register (1979), pp. 204-227. 7. ror the most thorough account of soccer in the United States see Zander Hollander (ed.), __ (New York: Everest House Publishers, 1980). 8. As to soccer's existence in the United States, the two following quotations seem rather revealing: "Although various attempts have been made, soccer has obstinately refused to take root in the United States. It has for many years been extensively played at a minor level, particularly in Philadelphia, where there has long been a proliferation of leagues, and in St. Louis, where it is very popular in schools," [John Arlott (ed.), The Oxford Companion to Sports and Games (London: Oxford University Press, 1975), p. 381J; and "Soccer is a sport you play, but you don't watch or follow," [An 11-year old girl on Boston television in the summer of 1986. J Especially the latter item is highly revealing about soccer's recent fate in the United States. There is ample evidence that soccer has in fact increased as a participatory amateur sport since the ignominious demise of the North American Soccer League's major push to make the game an integral part of major American professional sports and a lucrative spectacle comparable to soccer's presence in the rest of the world and that of the "Big Three" (plus hockey, perhaps) in the United States. Research has corroborated my hypothesis that soccer in the United States is an important participatory physical activity, especially for the very young, while at the same time continuing its marginal existence as a general cultural phenomenon and as a preoccupation in the male population's involvement with spectator sports. According to data obtained from the United States Soccer rederation, 1.2 million American youngsters under the age of 19 played soccer on a regular basis in 1985. 20X of this group was female. The youth component of this sport becomes rather evident when one compares these figures to the 120,0()Q soccer players above 19, a marked drop from the previously mentioned 1.2 million. In other words, soccer in the United States is predominantly a game for middle class, suburban boys and girls who then stop playing it as they grow older, never having seen the game as more than a pleasant and "egalitarian" form of recreation.) It is striking, however - and in notable contrast to soccer played virtually everywhere else in the world - that the percentage of female players over the age of 19 still remains at 18 in the United States, once again underlining the sport's "nonsexist" presence in this country. The game, most popular in California and Texas, continues to grow nationally at an annual rate of 10X for the under 19 group and at 5X for those over 19, with parts of the discrepancy due to the unavailability of proper facilities for the more advanced players. Much of the continued growth in both groups occurs on account of the increasing level of female participation in soccer. Some interesting results about soccer's particularly "American" existence as a participatory and relatively gender-neutral activity also emerged an my research on the game's presence on America's college campuses. According to the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), out of its more than 900 members in 1985, 38 549 soccer teams with 200 colleges fielding women's. For basketball, the figures were 757 for men and 764 for women respectively. 507 American institutions of higher learning belonging to the NCAA fielded football teams, an all male sport at the varsity level. It is also interesting to look at growth as a sport during the late 1970s and early 1980s: Among the circa 750 NCAA members in 1975/76, 469 schools had football teams and 423 men's teams; by 1980/81 the numbers had in favor of soccer, with 487 colleges playing varsity football while 510 had soccer teams by then. Under lining 's status as a participat.)ry rather than a sport, on the college, let alone professional, level (where, of course, it does not exist in the United States), are the following figures: 36,312,022 people college football games at all 4-year colleges (not just NCAA members) in the States during 1985; for men's basketball, the equivalent figure was 30 million for the 1985/86 season; in contrast, while no for soccer available (in and of itself a fact), educated do not viewers' at college soccer games to be above the 700,000 level during the 1985 season. A European friend of mine once aptly described soccer's predicament in United States: "As long as young American children continue to collect baseball instead of soccer cards, the game, which the rest of the world calls football, will never emerge beyond its historically marginal status in the United States." 9. These countries - with the notable exception of South Africa all have Sombartian "socialism" in the form of a large, organized labor party which, in case of Canada, has always been a relatively weak third party on the national though often dominant in some of that country's Western provinces. As to Australia and New Zealand, both are governed by labor at the time of this writing, i.e. the summer of 1986. 10. It is very interesting that if any, countries have like the United States in developing three major team sports, all of which attained national significance in their professional version. Even in the United States, however, it is somewhat erroneous to speak of the "Big Three" in terms of popularity as spectator sports. As some of the following figures illustrate, it is quite that basketball is a distant third to football and baseball in terms of enjoying the attention of the American public. Tellingly, soccer completely fails to appear in one of. the surveys and is in a distant fourteenth - and last - place in the other. To question "What is your favorite sport to watch?" posed to Americans by the Gallup Sports Audit in July 1985, the answers were as follows: Football 26X Baseball 21X Basketball lOX Tennis 4X Golf 3X Wrestling 3X Hockey 3X Boxing 2X Gymnastics 2X Auto racing 2X Ice skating 2X Touch football 2X Other . lOX None 101. By comparison, in the 1981 Audit, football led baseball by better than a 2-to-l margin, 38X to 16%, with basketball cited by 9%. Thus, baseball seems to be once 39 again gaining on football with perhaps having a decent shot at reconquering its position as Americans' most favorite spectator sport which it lost to football during the 1960s. Here are some selected national trends of the "Big Three" between 1937 Gallup's first Sport Audit - and 1981: Football Baseball Basketball 1981 1972 1960 1948 10% 1937 26% 36% 11% As to the 1985 Audit, football has a disproportionate appeal to men, of whom name it as their favorite, compared to 20% of women, among whom it is tied in appeal with baseball. It also enjoys somewhat greater popularity among younger adults, persons who attended college, the more affluent, and southerners as well as westerners. In the Midwest, football and baseball are statistically tied for the lead, while in the East baseball holds a modest edge. Among blacks, football, baseball, and basketball have about the same number of partisans, with the latter far more popular among blacks (20% named it their favorite sport) than with whites
N.B.: Gallup Sports Audit does not differentiate between amateur (e.g. college) and professional sports. It also does not distinguish between television viewing and watching sports in person. Source: George Gallup, The Gallup Poll: Public Opinion 1985 (Wilmington: Scholarly Resources Inc., 1986), pp. 223-225. Here are the replies to the statement: "Let's talk sports. Please tell me which of these sports you follow" (multiple answers allowed) posed by the Harris Survey in November 1984: 1984 1992 Pro football 59% 591 Baseball 55% College football 46% 511 College basketball 33% 32% Pro basketball 31% 35% Boxing 31% 35% Tennis 36% Auto racing 25% Track and field 231- 27% Hor se r adng 21% 23% Bowling 20% 22% Golf 19% 24% Hockey 15% 18% Soccer 11% 15% Here are the very interesting results to the subsequent question: "If you had to choose, which of these sports would you say is your favorite?"
1982 Pro football 24% 20% Baseball 211- 231 College football 9% llX College basketball 77. Auto racing 67. 40 Boxing 6X 5X Pro 5X 6X Bowling 5X 3X Golf 4X 47. racing 4X 37. 47. 77. 37. 27. 27. 2X Track and 17. 37. It is that without of football, football's commanding has all but placing two sports at virtually at top, way of any it is that within of "Big pro in popularity by a small, though significant, margin. Harris to Public Opinion 1984-1985 York: 1986), p. 517. 11. It of a to why only hailing from "Big its can by fact that, following it world's most popular sport. in 1932, had 133 in 1982, with football Association (flfA), in 1904, 147 nations (13 nations than by multisport Olympic - IOC). pp. 27, 33-34. of could account - at in part for this sport's in contrast. to parochialism of football and first, just is with having This that was to most it was and only which has it than and a good than football which much Lastly, football and was as a indoor, sport. As such, it has had any rivals, which could a major to its following bUild-up of indoor during post-World War II in virtually country of first and Worlds. 12. can no doubt that and scholars of $0 "capitalist world school substantially to our of as a within World Capitalist and Origins of World-Economy in York: 1974); and L. Goldfrank of Capitalism: Past and Hills: Publications, 1979). 13. "A at top of its Sport works hard to its on NBA, NHL..... , in Boston July 20, 1986. 14. Thus, for Antonin Dvorak's famous symphony in E minor, opus 95 known to music as "from World", to and something "typically Am&rican", not Canadian or Australian, to its Europ&an audi&nces. The was fascinated by the United States as a and multicultural 41 society whose music he experienced as having original elements which could only enrich that of the "old world". See Friedrich C. Heller, "Antonin Dvorak: 9. Symphonie 'Aus der neuen Welt' in Playbill of the Salzburger Festspiele 1985 (July 29,1985), n.p. 15. For the best comparative analysis on this issue, demonstrating a more ubiquitous and serious religious involvement on the part of American population when contrasted with inhabitants of other advanced capitalist societies, see Walter Dean Burnham's superb essay: "The 1980 Earthquake: Realignment, Reaction, or What?" in Thomas Ferguson and Joel Rogers (eds.), The Hidden Election: Politics and Economics in the 1980 Presidential Campaign (New York: Pantheon Books, 1981), pp. 98-140. It is especially in Appendix A of the article, entitled "Social Stress and Political Response: Religion and the 1980 Election" (PP. 132-140) that Burnham demonstrates how in the United States religion is "very important" to a larger percentage of the population than in countries such as Canada, Italy (still relatively high), the Benelux countries, Australia, France, the United Kingdom already a good deal lower, followed by West Germany, the Scandinavian countries and Japan at the bottom. Moreover, in no other advanced industrial country would it be natural for all politicians - even those to the left of the country's political center - to close campaign speeches with "God bless you" as is still - or perhaps again - commonplace in the United States among Republicans and Democrats alike. 16. The data about the United States being an "armed society" is nothing short of seriously frightening. According to information obtained from Handgun Control Inc. in Washington, D.C., there were 102 million firearms in the United States in 1968, with the quantity increasing to 165 million by 1978 and 240 million by 1985. One out of every four U.S. households has some sort of firearm, half of which are loaded. Contrast the 60 million licensed handguns in the United States to the 250,000 licensed pistols and rifles in the United Kingd.om with a population of over 50 million accidental (1981 figures). firearm deaths l It is ooks as not follows: surprlslng than that the statistics for Country Year USA 1982 Accidental Firearms Death 1,756 Israel 1982 1983 12 25 Japan 1983 1984 10 12 West Germany 1983 1984 28 29 Poland 1983 1984 43 34 Yugoslavia 1982 43 Australia 1982 1983 48 40 Norway 1983 6 Swi tzerl and 1982 1983 5 10 42 1984 6 Source: World Health Organization, World Health Statistics Annual - 1985 (Geneva: World Health Organization, 1985). 17. Leon Samson, Towards a United Front (New York: Farrar and Rinehart, 1933). 18. It is interesting to note that Great Britain and the United States dominated the five Olympic Games held before World War I (1896, 1900, 1904, 1908 and 1912). Among the total of 211 gold medals awarded in this period (with one event having been voided out of a possible 212), the United States won 82 and Great Britain 36 bringing their total to 118 which amounted to 55.77. of all the gold medals obtained by winners in these five Olympics. If one adds the 4 gold medals won by Australians, 3 by South Africans and 5 by Canadian athletes, the "Anglo-Saxon" total of 130 gold medals yields 61.37. of all the gold medals awarded in these events. The Anglo-American dominance becomes even more pronounced when it is contrasted to the 81 gold medal winners hailing from other countries among whom none achieved a position of clear superiority. The countries belonging to this group of "others" were Greece, Sweden, France, Cuba, Italy, Belgium, Finland, Hungary, Germany, Switzerland, Netherlands and Austria. [See Encyclopedia Americana, Number 20 (1982); pp. 723b-723r.J This is yet another clear manifestation of the fact that the invention, development and practice of organized sports were very much the domain of the most pronouncedly bourgeois societies at the turn of the century, i.e. the United States and Great Britain. 19. Michael Oriard has superbly captured the essence of this "special relationship" between Great Britain and the United States, highlighting the American side of the dilemma: "As former colonials, Americans looked to the mother country for leadership in athletic matters as surely as they imitated British art, literature, and other cultural expressions in the nineteenth century. But it is equally important to note our distinctive adaptations of English sporting customs. The historical moment of America's colonizing, the rejection of monarchy and aristocracy for an egalitarian ideal, and the consequent differences in American social, political, and educational institutions had profound implications for the native sports culture." Michael Oriard, "In the Land of Merriwell: Fair Play and American Sports Culture, II Chapter Two of the manuscript of a forthcoming book, p. 87. 20. The word "soccer" is an abbreviation of Association Football. More precisely, it derives from "association" forming a linguistic parallel to "rugger" which in turn became the vernacular for Rugby Football. Brian Glanville, certainly among the foremost soccer experts in the world and one of the game's best chroniclers, tells this interesting anecdote in connection with the origins of the word "soccer": "Why soccer, though? (Emphasis in original.) The only plausible theory I have ever come across is that the credit, or blame, belonged to Charles Wreford-Brown, a famous center half for Old Carthusians and the Corinthians. Sitting in his rooms in Oxford University, so it is said, he was visited by a friend who asked him whether he were going to play 'Rugger' or Rugby football. To this, in a burst of inspiration, Wreford-Brown replied, 'No: I'm playing soccer,' the world being a corruption of , Association' in the sport's correct name, Association Football." See Brian Glanville, A Book of SOccer (New York: Oxford University Press, 1979>, pp. 4, 5. 21. Hollander, The American Encyclopedia of Soccer, p. 14. 22. Ibid. 23. Calcio's only major contemporary legacy is, of course, the fact that the game 43 of soccer referred to in most languages by a variant of the English term "football" - is still called "calcio" in Italy. 24. Glanville, A Book of Soccer, p. 4; and James Walvin, The People's Game: A Social History of British Football (London: Allen Lane, 1975), p. 14. 25. See chapter one in Walvin's The People's Game entitled "Pre-Industrial Football", chapter three "The Rise of the Working-Class Football", and chapter five "England's Most Durable Export". 26. Michael Oriard, "In th.e Land of Merriwell," p. 95. 27. Ibid., p. 90. 28. See Percy M. Young, The History of British Football (London: Stanley Paul, 1968), p. 62. 29. It is in this context that the name of William Webb Ellis means a lot to American football fans. According to a number of first-rate sources such as The NFL's Official Encyclopedia History of Professional Football (New York: Macmillan Publishing, 1977), p. 10; Young, The History of British Football, p. 63; and David Riesman and Reuel Denney, "Football in America: A Study in Culture Diffusion" in the American Quarterly, Volume 3, number 4 (Winter 1951), pp. 311, 312, it was in 1823 that William Webb Ellis, a Rugby student, picked up the ball in a match at his school, tucked it under his arm and ran with it past the goalline. Walvin, in an interesting departure, claims this whole thing to be untrue and maintains that this myth was invented by Rugby fans and alumni in 1895 as a post-hoc reassertion that the game of rugby had originated at their school. (See Walvin, The People's Game, p. 34.) If Walvin is right, then the origins of American football - via rugby - are based on an equal myth to that of baseball's supposed invention by Abner Doubleday in Cooperstown, New York in 1839. It is interesting that baseball's Doubleday Cooperstown myth also arose at the end of the nineteenth century, thus paralleling football's William-Webb-Ellis myth with respect to time of creation. 30. On this point, see Walvin, The People's Game, pp. 42-43; Young, The History of British Football, pp. 89-92; and Ph. Heineken, Das Fussballspiel. Association (ohne Aufnahme des Balls): Seine Geschichte, Regeln und Spielweise (Stuttgart: Gustav Weise Verlag, n.d.), p. 15. 31. Young, The History of British Football, p. 79. 32. Ibid., pp. 93, 94. Among the many commonalities between SOCCer and basketball - team effort, both centered on collective strategies requiring constant on-the-spot improvisation as opposed to the execution of clearly defined plans brought in from the outside of the actual contest a la American football - is most certainly the fact that both only had 13 rules at their respective founding which to this day still form the core of each sport's essential existence. It is telling that Dr. James Naismith, the founder of basketball, used a soccer ball when he invented the new winter sport in 1892 in Springfield, Massachusetts. Both sports are "simple games", making them easily understandable and readily transferable across diverse cultures. Soccer, however, is even lIIore "democratic" than basketball. Not in need of hoops and indoor arenas, soccer, above all, continues to be played by "normal" people rather than giant-like athletes who have all but become de rigueur in any kind of competitive modern basketball. For a nice analysis contrasting basketball and soccer on the one hand with football and baseball on the other, see Robert W. Keidel, "'The Soccer-Basketball Connection", Letter to the Editor, The New York 44 July 17, 1986. 33. Young, A History of British Football, p. 113. 34. Walvin, p. 74. 35. again comparisons to - and contrasts to and football - in 32. 36. Walvin a good analysis of with on part of English had by working class in of 1880s. 37. of major until 1939 was famous Corinthians. in 1883 by N.L. Jackson with of a which could to uphold of old at play football, Corinthians of among whom such that in 1904 Bury by a of 10-3 following 6-0 victory in that F.A. Cup final. Always arriving in top hats and to ballparks typically cloth caps, Corinthians an anachronism of 1860s and 1870s in a gam. had mass sport par in world. fact that so popular all world had at l.ast to do with Corinthians world, playing against local clubs and all-star in a numb.r of on such an impact in Brazil, that a in Sao Paolo was Corinthians .Sao Paolo to this day of that country's clubs. Corinthians also in 1911 routing all six whom This prompted th. old Oxfordian Wr.ford-Brown - of as - to his disappointm.nt stagnation he soccer had in Corinthians in 1939, having by half a century yet proving to and important of wcrld's most popular mass sport. On Corinthians, Walvin, p.' 88; and Young, A History of British Football, pp. 128-131. On Corinthians' visit to in 1911, of p. 35. 38. of p. 35. 39. Ibid., p. 21. 40. Ibid., p. 22. 41. It is unclear to why Harvard so steadfastly to play kicking sticking to Boston game and conv.rting to rugby following matches with McGill in 1874. might that anglophilia and strong with imitating Oxford and as as it to with rugby as sport for at oldest and most can no doubt, that, it was Harvard's and standing among at which the away from a football, which playing making them the running Thus, Harvard can be an 45 important role in the development of America's "soccer exceptionalism". 42. Hollander, The American Encyclopedia of Soccer, p. 25. 43. It is faSCinating how the stigma of soccer as being a boring sport has persisted among Americans. It is equally interesting to observe how Europeans in turn label baseball, and to a lesser degree even football, as being boring. This leads me to the conclusion that a lack of understanding and appreciation of any sport easily renders it "boring" in the eyes of the uninitiated spectator. 44. Hollander, The American Encyclopedia of Soccer, p. 26. 45. The NrL's Encyclopedia History of Professional rootball, p. 10. In a brilliant application of Max Weber's tripartite scheme of domination - charismatic, traditional, legal-rational Seymour Martin Lipset shows how the early institutionalization of George Washington's charisma as this "first new nation's" first president and foremost military leader helped create a smooth transition to and a legitimate continuation of the legal-rational form of authority which has regulated much of the public discourse and behavior in the United States for over two centuries. See Lipset, The rirst New Nation, pp. 21-26. 46. The NrL's Official Encyclopedia History of Professional rootball, p. 10. 47. Riesman and Denny, "rootball in America," pp. 318, 319; and Oriard, "In the Land of Merriwell," p. 112. 48. All of the preceding information is deri ved from Riesman and Denny, "rootball in America"; The NrL's Official Encyclopedia History of Professional rootball; and John Arlott, The Oxford Companion to Sports and Games, pp. 321-323. It is helpful for the argument to furnish yet another detail concerning the orlgln of the necessary yardage rule, since it conveys the difference between the myth of a leisurely and gentlemanly activity on the one hand, and the reality of a .fiercely contested bourgeois game in which winning became all-important on the other. When Camp and his colleagues devised the American scrimMage out of the British "scrum", they assumed "that the chivalrous Ivy would gladly give up 'the ball when they could not gain ground during the scrimmage." (The NrL's Official Encyclopedia Historyof Professional rootball, p.- 10.) This, however, was clearly not the case. Worried about being outperformed and outwitted by its opponents, each team chose to play it safe by simply maintaining possession of the ball as long as possible, which in effect meant for one-half of the game. Trust in the opponent's honest intentions and the simple desire just to enjoy playing a good game regardless of winners and losers so essential, to a quasi-aristocratic, non-competitive, gentlemanly atmosphere - had all but disappeared in American sports and society, even at the nation's most elite universities. 49. Surely the involvement of a military man at the highest level of the country's sports world connoted some affinity between the "scientization" and strict regulation of sports on the one hand, and very similar values expressed by the country's military establishment on the other. Tne common denominator between sports and the military was furnished by the fact that both of them were perceived by the eli tes as "modern". SO. Oriard, "In the Land of ,Merriwell, II p. 107. 51. Ibid., p. 114. 46 52. It is worthy mentioning in this context one of early pro football's most significant legacies to America's sports world. It was in New York City's Madison Square Garden that a "World Series" was played indoors between two professional football teams in 1902 and 1903 giving rise to the same - and subsequently much more popular event in the game of professional baseball. See The Nfl's Official Encyclopedia History of Professional football, p. 12. 53. In the context of discussing professional football's precursors, The Nfl's Official Encyclopedia History of Professional football contains a passage which provides an excellent example of the atmosphere underlying the formation of American sports (especially football) which - if not explicitly anti-British - was clearly conduci ve to separate the "new world's" sports from those of the "old"; "Pi ttsburgh' s first athletic clubs were the Allegheny Athletic Association and the Pittsburgh Athletic Club. Such clubs emerged after the Civil War, according to researcher Thomas Jable, as an antidote to Victorianism. American men could through competitive athletics at their clubs 'countermand the Victorian principles of delicacy and refinement.' football, aggressive and sometimes violent, served this need especially well; it 'represented a significant triumph of robust manliness over tender and fragile feminini ty'. II Ibid., p. 11. 54. The link between American football and capitalism has often been made. for a relatively recent comparison between "democratic" and "capitalist" American football on the one hand and "socialist" European soccer on the other, see Congressman Jack Kemp's following views as expressed in liThe old quarterback doesn't approve of that other football game" in The Boston Globe, Hay 12, 1983: "In debate about a resolution urging the United States to try to snare the World Cup games, up leaps this ex-quarterback, a 13-year veteran of pro football, to snipe at soccer. first he thinks there still may be folks out there who don't understand that what the rest of the world knows as 'football' is not the football he knows and 10ves 'I think it is important for all those young out there, who some day hope to play real football, where you throw it and kick it and run with it and put it in your hands, a distinction should be made that football is democratic capitalism, whereas soccer is a European socialist ' 'He [Jack Kemp] believes that football is entrepreneurial capitalism, it has a quarterback, someone who is in charge, while soccer is based more on the European socialist tradition; no one's in command, it's more of a sharing, cooperative game.' Jack was speaking 'extemporaneously,' the aide continued, as if that alone should explain it. ' ~ e tells that all the time to little league footballers when he travels around the country, and their eyes glaze over.' .. 55. Harold Seymour, Baseball: The Early Years (New York: Oxford University Press, 1960), pp. 8, 9. 56. Ibid. 57. One of the reasons baseball and soccer developed into "people's sports" has a lot to do with the accessability of both games. Just as stickball, for example availing itself of such urban props as fire hydrants or parked cars in lieu of bases - formed an integral part of inner city dwelling in the United States, so has soccer continued as a street game in the cities of Europe and latin America. These environments have created many a major star for both sports respectively. There is yet another dimension to the "democratic" component of soccer and baseball. In noticeable contrast to football and basketball, neither of the two previous sports necessitates any special physical abilities such as exceptional height or strength. Indeed, exceptional physical attributes which are the sine qua UQn for any successful football or basketball player could in fact be detrimental to a career in 47 either baseball or soccer. While excellent athletes, soccer and baseball players look "normal". In the not so distant past, when both games were a good deal less "athletic" and "physical" than they are today, one could observe a number of aging and paunchy players who maintained their careers in baseball or soccer, something they could never have done in major league football or basketball. 58. Seymour, Baseball: The Early Years, p. 16; and Robert Smith, Illustrated History of Baseball (New York: Grosset &Dunlap, 1973), pp. 18-22. 59. Seym.:::>ur, Baseball: The Early Years, pp. 19, 20. 60. As quoted in ibid., p. 65. 61. Smith, Illustrated History of Baseball, p. 44. For a detailed biography of Spalding and his role in baseball, see Peter Levine, A.G. Spalding and the Rise of Baseball (New York: Oxford University Press, 1985). 62. David Q. Voigt, "Reflections on Diamonds: American Baseball and American Culture" in Journal of Sport History, Volume 1, Number 1 (Spring 1974), pp. 18, 19. 63. On Organized Baseball's "reserve clause" which ruled the game's capital-labor until the courts struck it down as being unconstitutional in the early 1970s, see John Arlott, The Oxford Companion to Sports, p. 59. 64. Ibid .. 65. The term "World Series", as previously mentioned adopted by major league baseball following football's immodest claims in the same direction in 1902 and 1903, is very telling of America's "sport exceptionalism". On the one hand, few aspects of American culture seem more peculiar, incomprehensible and irritating to European sports fans than calling the contest between two domestic teams for what essentially is the United States championship "world series" as in baseball, and following that sport "world championship" in both professional football and basketball. What better reflects America's self-contained, parochial yet at the same time self-assured, even smug, culture than equating itself with the world, at least as far as sports are concerned. Contrast the three American "world championships" to soccer's World Cup where virtually all 144 countries belonging to FIFA play in lengthy elimination tournaments for the right to participate in the quadrennial final event still comprising 24 teams. The eventual winner can thus legitimately bear the title of "world champion" during its four-year incumbency. World championships in all team sports other than the American "Big Three" are bestowed upon a country in this world of nation-states, not upon a club. Thus, world championships, typically, are won by all-star teams whose members are all citizens of the same state. (It is interesting to note that in the never-ending quest to make more money, a "World Cup" for clubs rather than countries was introduced in soccer during the late 1960s, pitting the European club champion against its Latin American counterpart on a yearly basis. Tellingly, this tournament has never really captured the imagination of soccer fans on either continent, remaInIng an incomparably less important event than the "real", i.e. "inter-national" World Cup.) And yet, precisely because baseball, football and basketball are America's games, the arrogance of calling the winner of the American championship "world champion" enjoys not only a certain. logical consistency but is also supported by empirical reality. For there can be no doubt that the respective American champions in football, baseball and basketball are indeed the world's best in their sport by virtue of being almost the only ones. No other country plays American football, 48 thus making the American superbowl champion the automatic champion of the world. In baseball, the winner of America"s "world series" surely represents that sport's best team in the world, though this champion's uncontested position may be a bit more precarious than football's since baseball is, after all, being played in a number of Caribbean countries, Mexico and Japan. What would happen if Tokyo's Yomiuri Giants successfully challenged our "world champion" baseball team, beating it decisively in a series of games? Would this then expand baseball's world to include Japan? Would it eventually lead to the "nationalization" of the sport pitting American all-stars fielding only U.S. citizens as players against the Japanese national team? As for basketball's "world champion", the claim can again be justi fied. Though basketball is the second most popular team sport in the world, the professional game - with some minor exceptions such as the leagues in Italy and Spain - is exclusive to the United States, thus arguably making the NBA champion the best in the world. But the potential dilemmas delineated for baseball hold e fortiori for basketball. What would happen if Dynamo Moscow, Real Madrid or Partisan Belgrade would beat the NBA champion some day? The fact that this hypothesis is not completely without precedent is best demonstrated by the bursting of hockey's previously exclusive North American world, following the first USSR-Canada series in 1972 in which the Canadians barely prevailed after their smug and self-contained predictions that they would demolish and humiliate the Soviets. Ever since that series, no Stanley Cup winner can continue to enjoy its "world championship" without a somewhat fr ightened glance across the Atlantic. 1 Comment on Andrei Markovits, "The Other 'American Exceptionalism': Why is there no soccer in the United States?" Let me start by saying this is a wonderfully conceived piece, a delight to read, one that unites serious concerns with playful research in the best sense. I do not wish to contest its major point, namely that each society has a certain "space" for games, as it does for political parties. Once that sports space is filled, it is not easy to uproot the established choice, nor to fit another game in. The American sports space could accommodate two major outdoor games. Baseball was the first, and certain contingent, historical factors made American football, not soccer the second. Of course, as Andrei Markovits recognizes, the problem is also: why is there no baseball in Europe? But what then would be the parallel question for Sombart's inquiry? Why is there no Democratic Party in Europe? My reflections, in fact, are prompted more by the question concerning Europe than the one concerning the United States. For the inability to export baseball suggests that more may be at stake than the contingent circumstances by which a sports space gets filled. The key may be in the way given sports reflect a national cultural configuration. We can make more progress in decoding this relationship, I believe, if we recognize that the social-class categories proposed in the paper are not the most refined possible. The paper itself provides the clue for its own deconstruction when it refers to American football ("the running game") as Taylorized. Precisely -- but Taylorism represented a revolt of the engineering mentality against class 2 categorization. It allegedly transcended classes and was not a simple imposition of bourgeois norms. Obviously it reinforced capitalist class hierarchies -- but did so in the name of a technical intelligence that denied the relevance of social class and insisted on a functional division of labor. To my mind, the point is that in America baseball is an "artisanal" sport, football, its Taylorized supplement. As an artisanal support (replete with craft rituals, premodern methods of production -- i.e. assignments by position, not by function) baseball could cut across the class hierarchies of capitalism. The paper might think further about the games themselves. I bring up several distinctions that Dan White painted out to me many years ago. The first was the one just mentioned: baseball anchors its men to places, football has increasingly gone from designation of positions according to place to designation according to function. The wide receiver has replaced the left end. What the player does, not where he lines up is crucial. Football restricts players from certain options: only certain players can receive passes. It has pushed specialization to the two-platoon system. Its stadiums are in the suburbs and attract a less raffish, far more managerial crowd. The general point is that baseball has remained popular because it appealed to a rural myth of pre-class society. It has overtones of Masonic like rites: what outsider could possibly understand the game? But it is a freemasonry in which all of small-town America could share. The analogue in American history is more the community of the elect than the working class. Baseball is the generalized extension of John Winthrop's covenant. This raises the issue of American exceptionalism in general. As a comparativist I find the concept over-used. On the one hand, the idea was the creation of an unsuccessful American Communist Party that needed a social theory to explain its frustrations; on the other hand, it elaborated that , 3 Partisan Review-type celebration of American values precisely during the period of the late 1940's and 1950's, when a generation of academics, neo conservative avant la lettre, were renouncing the socialist enthusiasms of their City College or Columbia youth. American exceptionalism, like Turner's frontier hypothesis, has been largely a myth. The reason that an American Socialist Party was weaker than the SPD, but hardly negligible in 1912 -- was less the absence of a feudal past than the ethnic divisions among recent immigrants. However, it is all the more fitting that American exceptionalism is a myth, because I would argue that the importance of baseball is as a mythic sport. It is the game of the exceptionalism we like to believe we have enjoyed. The confirmation of this I find by thinking about the sport that Andrei Markovits's essay inexplicably does not cover: cricket. Cricket is the English pre-modern equivalent of baseball. Indeed cricket is even more archaic in its gentlemanly aspects. Consider the test matches that go on for days without heed of time, one team's voluntary but strategic decision to renounce batting, the provision of an indefinite turn at the bat for the individual, the primitive homogeneity of playing space with batter and pitcher in the middle of an elliptical field (think of the progression from cricket oval to asymmetric baseball diamond to football gridiron in this sense), in its white flannel uniforms. In contrast to soccer, which became big-time in the industrial north, cricket could unite village communities and serve as game of an elite and laborers simultaneously. Of laborers, mind you, not of Labour in its collective sense. It could persist at Oxbridge and in the country, but it, too, presupposes a pre-industrial community. Indeed its community can embrace the spectrum from colonial masters to dependent people: recall C. L. R. James's great cricket memoir, Beyond a Boundary, which shows 4 how cricket as a game might overcome the gap between masters and colonized. Thus if this essay included cricket, I think, it would find the pre industrial/industrial axis more relevant. Of course it has implications about class: for in a sense baseball and cricket must represent a somewhat utopian denial of the class divisions of industrial capitalism. But that is precisely their power. Might one of the reasons that we had no socialism be because we had baseball instead? In this regard I find the paper could profitably have taken up another issue, which is precisely that of what any game or play represents. In a sense game playing is the activity that the society uses to counterpose against the workplace, just like the Carnival turns society upside down. It is, in Victor Turner's sense, a liminal or anti-structural experience: an anthropological program that might be thought of as the logical playing out, so to speak, of James' polyvalent title, Beyond a Boundary. Hence a serious game should not be simply a reflection of the dominant class structure, but a utopian counter-structure. It incorporates an idealized vision (or alternative construction) of society's principles of hierarchization, which still remains in some sort of dialectical relationship to the dominant structure. But how then, it will be asked, do the pre-industrial aspects of baseball retain their vitality even when the forces of production and class formations have moved way beyond baseball's archaic arrangements? They do so precisely because they serve as the liminal rite that invokes the community of an earlier era. In effect, we can envisage ~ sports forms of anti structure: the one, football, is contemporary and merely reworks current social-structural divisions. This will yield a sport that i ~ quite as ruthless as the social structure it counterposes: indeed the game must take on 5 the function of giving full expression to the agonistic relationships of the contemporary social order. In this sense Vince Lombardi served as the Carl Schmitt of the game world. But the other game, baseball, must evoke a now archaic pre-industrial social formation to play its anti-structural role. Competition can be less ruthless since the game embodies an idealized image of now vanished artisanal or village relationships that were less stratified than industrial capitalism. Indeed, the effect of temporal displacement is even greater, because baseball and cricket were codified precisely as the pre-industrial community was already being displaced. Baseball's heroes are the game equivalent of Hegel's owl of minerva, rounding the bases of the village green as dusk falls. It is redolent with nostalgia and probably was from the days of its birth. We preserve that nostalgia with the mania for statistics and trivia, which now can be enhanced by the almost infinite storage capacity of the computer that creates new statistical categories as each man comes to bat. We enhance the nostalgia further by surrounding the game's origins, as this essay shows, in myth. So too baseball's current literature will be suffused with an elegiac quality that purely contemporaneous anti-structure cannot take on: I have not read The Boys of Summer or Christopher Lehmann-Haupt's recent Me and Dimaggio, but from all descriptions this is the literature of Heimkehr. Let me conclude by pOSing a question. If baseball was the anti structural game that evoked the pre-industrial order, and football is the sport that has served as anti-structure for the postwar industrial age the carnival of managerial capitalism, as Jack Kemp has recognized -- what will be the sport for what Sabel and Piore have called "the second industrial divide?" Tennis remains the aristocratic game, the jeu de paume born in the medieval courts of France, preserved like some scarab of sport. Basketball is an 6 indoor alternative. Ice hockey will continue to preserve some regional winter outlet. But football already finds the class structure it inverts fading into some future we only dimly discern. Can it survive as baseball thrived, as the game image of a mythic past? Can each prior social formation preserve its respective game inversion as new productive forces come into being? Or does society have room for only one atavistic game and must the other be crowded out? It seems to me that the new sports which offer the anti-structural alternative for the computer era are the individualized, participatory ones: namely running, aerobics, and fitness. They allow the collectivized, but non- team, individualized testing that is characteristic of a society built upon networks and circuit boards. With these thoughts and queries we turn from Sombart -- who asked Markovitz's original question -- to Sombart's contemporary, Simmel, who asked an even more basic question: "How is Society Possible?" He answered by explaining that it is possible only because its constitutent members are inside it and outside it simultaneously: their social roles are possible only insofar as they are granted by individuals who are not totally socialized. That refusal to be gleichgeschaltet, which ultimately is the foundation of our sociability, is also expressed in play, as Simmel himself explicitly recognized. So when we run our 10k races, and when, nurtured by hope and illusion, we focus on Fenway Park once again, let us recall that we both affirm sociability and insist on our individuality. Charles S. Maier Senior Associate, Center for European Studies I The Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies The Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies is an interdisciplinary program organized within the Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences and designed to promote the study of Europe. The Center's governing committees represent the major social science departments at Harvard and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Since its establishment in 1969, the Center has tried to orient students towards questions that have been neglected both about past developments in eighteenth- and nineteenth century European societies and about the present. The Center's approach is comparative and interdisciplinary, with a strong emphasis on the historical and cultural sources which shape a country's political and economic policies and social structures. Major interests of Center members include elements common to industrial societies: the role of the state in the political economy of each country, political behavior, social movements, parties and elections, trade unions, intellectuals, labor markets and the crisis of industrialization, science policy, and the interconnections between a country's culture and politics. For a complete list of the Center for European Studies Working Papers and information about its other publications (German Politics and Society, a journal appearing three times annually; French Politics and Society, a quarterly journal; and the East European Working Paper Series) please contact the Publications Department, 27 Kirkland St, Cambridge MA 02138. Additional copies can be purchased for $4.00. A monthly calendar of events at the Center is also available at no cost.
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