Summary:
From reading his poetry, one can assert that the British Romantic poet William Wordsworth would have loved the American sport of baseball and been a fan of the Boston Red Sox. Wordsworth's love of nature and verse and his sympathy toward the common man would draw him to baseball, while the history and mysticism of the Boston Red Sox would intrigue him.
Long Paper:
William Wordsworth; A Red Sox Fan Indeed
One would not usually associate baseball, America's favorite pastime, with English romantic poets of the 18th and 19th century. Certainly, the thought of modern American baseball does not initially trigger notions of the sublime, natural scenes, and individual spirituality. Yet, what could be more poetic than the end of a curse, the greatest comeback in sports history, and the end of an 86 year drought without a championship? What is more poetic than all three of these occurrences happening in the same year to the same team? Less specifically, it is not hard to believe that a romantic poet would embrace the coming together of average Americans to cheer on their home team on a warm summer day. What is the seventh inning stretch but the mass-harmonizing of a short, heartwarming poem? It is true that baseball and romantics have more in common than one would at first suspect. Particularly, William Wordsworth and the Boston Red Sox are a terrific example of a romantic poet and a Major League Baseball team that seem to fit. Wordsworth's love of nature and verse and his sympathy toward the common man would draw him to the sport itself, while the history and mysticism of the Boston Red Sox would intrigue him. Indeed, William Wordsworth would have loved baseball and been a fan of the Boston Red Sox.
Before one can assert that William Wordsworth would be a Red Sox fan, one must first establish that he would even be interested in baseball. This is not difficult given Wordsworth's personality. From the beginning, young William showed a love for and an interest in nature. As a child Wordsworth would "roam the countryside at will [...] 'drinking in' [...] the natural sights and sounds" (Norton, 1424). Baseball, especially when it was first being played, is largely an outdoor sport. During a baseball game, one is exposed to the sun, the clouds, open air, birds, and to a limited extent, rain and or snow. Moreover, this love of nature would influence Wordsworth's choosing the Red Sox over another Major League team. Fenway Park, their home field, is called Fenway because it is in the Fenway section of Boston, "an area known for its many fens or marshes." Obviously, Wordsworth would be inclined toward a field located in and named after a natural landscape. Also, the elements postponed the first two games at Fenway as they were rained out. However, later that year the Sox would win their first World Series title at their home field (ballparks.com).
Wordsworth is drawn not only to nature, but wind particularly, as is evidenced in his poem "The Prelude." In the poem he likens a light breeze to, "the sweet breath of heaven" (line 33). Fenway is actually known quite well for its breezes, the result of a pressbox built behind home plate in the 1980s and an electronic scoreboard erected in 1976. Both structures interfere with natural wind patterns, ultimately producing swirling winds that can be felt by both fans and players and have a tendency to blow foul balls fair (ballparks.com).
In his poem "Lines Composed a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey, on Revisiting the Banks of the Wye during a Tour, July 13, 1798," Wordsworth acknowledges his dislike for, "the din / Of towns and cities" (lines 25-26). While the Red Sox play in one of the most bustling cities in America, Fenway park is a quiet spot located on Yawkey Way within the big city. Nature both surrounds and is encompassed by the oldest baseball stadium in the United States. Many trees and bushes are featured along its exterior, and fresh-cut grass is encompassed by its walls. There is no doubt that Wordsworth would find both peace and poetic inspiration in Fenway Park.
Nature also played a rather peculiar roll in Red Sox history. Ed Jurak, "a utility infielder who spent four years with the Red Sox from 1982 to 1985 [...] caught, in his glove, a rat which was running around on the field during a game at Fenway" (Handbook, 131). This harmless and comical interaction with nature would most certainly have intrigued Wordsworth.
Wordsworth would also be drawn to baseball because it is America's favorite pastime. The sport can be enjoyed and played by anyone; young and old, rich and poor. A baseball game is the gathering of tens of thousands Americans with at least one thing in common, a love for the home team. This is significant to Wordsworth because, "he maintained that the scenes and events of everyday life and the speech of ordinary people were the raw material of which poetry could and she be made" (Encarta). When it is in-season, baseball is one such event in everyday life with which Wordsworth could connect.
Furthermore, Wordsworth felt that poetic truth was found in sensations experienced by the human body. Few sensations rival that of witnessing a game-winning grand slam, or a game-sealing double play. Experiences, Wordsworth believed, were to be "recollected in tranquility" and then put into poetic verse on paper. Such is the case for the poet in "Lines Composed a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey [...]" At one point in the poem, Wordsworth tells his younger sister, Dorothy, that, ."..in after years,/When these wild ecstasies shall be matured/Into a sober pleasure [...] Thy memory be as a dwelling-place/For all sweet sounds and harmonies" (Norton 1435, lines 137-142). The "sweet sounds" of the roar of the crowd, the sight of larger than life stars, and the smell of popcorn and Fenway Franks would provide Wordsworth's senses with more than enough material to recollect in tranquility.
One of the most recurring themes in romantic works is that of the inevitability of change (Encarta). Again, "Tintern Abbey" provides evidence of Wordsworth's adherence to this belief in change. In the poem, Wordsworth is grappling with the change he has experienced in his life over a five-year time span. He has visited this spot near the Abbey twice and during the second visit he realizes how much his views on life and humanity have changed since his last visit. The poet tells that during his first visit, the beautiful scenery he observed was nothing more to him than a breathtaking landscape. Moreover, he used these images between visits to, "in hours of weariness," provide him with, "sensations sweet, / Felt in the blood, and felt along the heart" (lines 27-28). It is such "hours of weariness" that cause Wordsworth, upon his second visit, to view "nature, not as in the hour/Of thoughtless youth; but hearing oftentimes/The still, sad music of humanity" (lines 89-91). The changes Wordsworth experienced over time caused his perceptions to change. Change is intrinsic to baseball and Wordsworth could both understand and appreciate this fact. Season to season, there are changes made in Major League Baseball. Often a player is traded because of money or personal issues. Sometimes, over the course of a mere offseason, an entire team does not even resemble itself, like the 1997-98 Florida Marlins who were specifically bought and organized to win a championship. Upon completing this objective, a large portion of the team was traded and they did not even make the playoffs the next year. The '98 team was hardly even recognizable as the same team that had won a world championship one year before (Rader). Many are disillusioned by this aspect of the sport, but Wordsworth would see it as inevitable change and while he might not even like it, he could at least appreciate it.
Wordsworth would also be drawn to the Red Sox simply because of the root of their team name. Wordsworth lived in France for a period between 1791 and 1792, "where he became an enthusiastic convert to the ideals of the French Revolution" (Wordsworth). The French Revolution, in some respects, was modeled after the American Revolution in that common people rose against a monarchy with which they had become discontented. Similarly, the Red Sox derive their name from the red socks worn by American revolutionaries in the 18th century. It seems only natural that Wordsworth would be inclined to root for a team whose name was inspired by revolutionaries. Additionally, it would not matter much that the American Revolution was fought against Wordsworth's native England, because, despite the bad blood between France and England in 1793, Wordsworth "remained sympathetic to the French cause" (Wordsworth). Thus, it is likely that Wordsworth would not be deterred by his origins when picking a professional baseball team for which to cheer.
In his preface to Lyrical Ballads, Wordsworth stresses that the composition of poetry is the "spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings" (Norton, 1447). The sport of baseball is filled with momentous of spontaneous emotional overflow. In the matter of few seconds, a score can change by four runs, records can be broken, and legends can be made. The Red Sox lay claim to perhaps the two most incredibly emotional moments in World Series history. The first of which occurred on October 12, 1975, during game six when Carlton Fisk hit the game winning homerun in the 12th inning against the Cincinnati Reds. The drama behind this event does not come from the fact that it happened in the 12th inning or in the World Series; the drama comes from the fact that it happened at Fenway and that the ball was launched over the legendary Green Monster. The Green Monster is a 37 foot wall in left field at Fenway Park. However, in 1975, the Monster was extended an extra 23 feet by a screen that was not removed until 2003. Thus, Fisk hit the homerun in the most difficult place to hit a homerun in the entire Major Leagues (ballparks.com). The most memorable moment in baseball history, and arguably in sports history, occurred in during the 2004 American League Championship Series and extended into the 2004 World Series. During this period the Red Sox rebounded from 3-0 game deficit to beat their arch rivals the New York Yankees in a four game run, something that had never happened before. The Sox then went on to the World Series to defeat the heavily favored St. Louis Cardinals in four games. So, the team won a total of seven straight games and earned their first World Series title in 86 years. Such moments, especially the latter, are intensely emotional and utterly unforgettable.
However, Wordsworth did not always present positive emotional experiences in his lyrics. One such case is "The Solitary Reaper" (Norton 1487). While Wordsworth seems mostly focused on the young woman's beautiful voice which, "No Nightingale did ever chaunt / More welcome notes to weary bands / Of travelers..." (lines 9-11), he does not fail to notice that she is "singing by herself [...] And sings a melancholy strain" (lines 3,6). To be sure, the Red Sox' history is also loaded with melancholy. For instance, game 6 of the 1986 World Series, during which Bill Buckner missed the game-winning out after a slow grounder was hit directly to him and he let it slip, "under his glove and through his legs" (Handbook, 34). The Sox lost that game, the following game, and consequently the World Series to the New York Mets, further extending the number of years without a title to 68. This rollercoaster of emotion that is the Boston Red Sox' existence would provide Wordsworth with both incredibly wonderful and incredibly depressing emotions to recollect upon and write about.
Perhaps the most intriguing reason that William Wordsworth would be a Red Sox fan is the legendary "Curse of the Bambino." This is because, "The trend toward the irrational and supernatural was an important component" (Encarta) to the romantic movement. An open mind and a free spirit were intrinsic to the movement. Such ideals lend themselves to a belief in the "Curse." The curse refers to the greatest hitter of all-time, and one of the sports' best pitchers, George Herman "Babe" Ruth. Ruth played for the Red Sox during their 1915, 1916, and 1918 world championship seasons. Following the 1919 season, The Babe was sold to the New York Yankees, "in order to pay off debts which threatened to end his [Owner Harry Frazee] theater production business" (Handbook, 175). After the sale, Ruth went on to hold "the records for highest career slugging percentage, highest career on-base percentage, most homeruns in a season, most homeruns in a career, and numerous others" (Handbook, 175) by the time he retired, from New York. The curse is viewed in many different aspects. Before the sale of Ruth, the Red Sox had won four World Series titles since the opening of Fenway in 1912. Conversely, the Yankees were considered a mediocre team at best. Yet after the deal, the Yankees went on to become one of the winningest teams in sports history, with 26 World Series titles and numerous American league titles. The next closest teams have nine World Series titles. The Red Sox, on the other hand, managed a mere four trips to the World Series, all of which they lost until their fifth trip in 2004. However, the curse is not just that the Red Sox could not seem to seal the deal, it is that they have lost dramatically (Bill Buckner in 1986) or, on numerous occasions, been defeated by the Yankees in the pennant (wikipedia).
Moreover, there have been very strange coincidences that seemed to point to he existence of a real curse. For instance, it is strange that after their 1986 World Series appearance, the final appearance before the 2004 win, the Red Sox extended their streak without a championship to 68 years, the exact flip of the actual time period of 86 years. Moreover, "the roof over the grandstand in right [field] featured retired Red Sox uniform numbers in the order they were retired: 9, 4, 1, 8, eerily reminding us of Sept. 4, 1918, the day before the start of the last World Series the Red Sox would win for close to a century" (ballparks.com). Although the numbers have since been put in numerical order, and another has been added (27), it is extraordinarily strange that they appeared in that order for a period of time. Certainly, William Wordsworth would be intrigued by the seemingly supernatural essence that surrounds the Red Sox. Furthermore, whether or not the curse is true, 86 years is a long time for Wordsworth to look back in tranquility at the win of 1918.
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