CrashingTheGoalie

by Ron Spence

As noted in the Dwyer article, sports were becoming mainstream by the 1910s, as large stadiums were being built, and working class people had both the time and money to attend games.

As this was happening, newspaper coverage of sporting events was expanding. In 1880, only .04% of a newspaper’s editorial was dedicated sports. This increased tenfold by 1900 to 4%, and by the 1920s had reached 12 to 20% of the publication.

There were sports magazines as well. Francis Richter founded the Sporting Life in 1883, which specialized in baseball, with some shooting and cycling. He hired writers from around the U.S. and the publication gained a strong voice in baseball.

Their circulation grew to 20,000 in one year, and three years later had doubled to 20,000.

This was a specialized publication for dedicated baseball fans, who paid 10 cents for their 16 page paper.

By 1910, the sports market was expanding into the general population, and additional magazines and books were being published.

Below are a few of them.

1908

The Ideal Publication for American Youth shows Dick dressed in a formal suit and tie. He’s obviously an upper class dude.

And the cover features the fans in the stands - dressed up, but still excited, waving scarves, hats, etc.

1910

The Boy’s Best Weekly - featuring Jack Standfast - published two years later, also focuses on the spectators. “The applause of the admiring crowd” is noted on the cover.

By the time that that wildman Jack was catching flies with one hand, there were large, steel-reinforced concrete stadiums in both Pittsburgh and Philadelphia.

1911

The cover of the Sporting Section reflects the attitude towards baseball in particular, and sports in general, then versus now.

There isn’t a player on the cover. At that time, writers didn’t focus on the stars. They were concerned with the scores.

Film historian Richard Schickel notes when things started to change.

“The public ceased to insist that there be an obvious correlation between achievement and fame,” he wrote about the ’20s. “It was no longer absolutely necessary for its favourites to perform a real-life heroic act, to invent a boon for mankind, to create a business enterprise.”

This new attitude had started just after World War 1. It was possible to become a celebrity, just by being well-known. Social historian Daniel Boorstin called this being “known for your Well-knownness.”

Thus, an athlete could become a sports hero, if an editor, or a writer, decided to make him one. And, it was the exploits of the man-made heroes that helped to sell newspapers.

This change of attitude was evident in Sporting Life.

“A vast majority of readers are interested in stories of PEOPLE rather than in stories or events,” their new editor, Jim Nasium, wrote in 1922. ” They would rather hear something about the MAN who wins a race than to read about the RACE itself; the INDIVIDUAL hero of a World Series is discussed long after the final score is forgotten; persons who are NOT interested in baseball ARE interested in discussing Babe Ruth and Ty Cobb … It is the HUMAN INTEREST appeals that gets and holds readers. It is the same thing which creates hero worship, the principle commercializing factor of any game.”

1911

Zane Grey had been a baseball hero, and received a scholarship from the University of Pennsylvania. He was a pitcher and would later play some games in the minors. His brother, Romer Carl “Reddy” Grey, actually played one game for the Pittsburgh Pirates in 1903.

The Young Pitcher was published in 1911, a year after Grey’s best-selling western, The Heritage of the Desert was released.

Grey - who would eventually sell 40 million books - couldn’t get his westerns published, and thus wrote about the thing that he knew best, baseball.

1913

Allen Chapman sold a number of Fred Fenton sports books from 1913-15, by which time war adventures were better sellers.

In 1916, there were nine concrete and steel stadiums built throughout the U.S.

One such stadium was Navin Field in Detroit, where the Tigers played their first game on April 20th, 1912. This monolith could seat 23,000 spectators, and featured a covered grandstand down the first and third base lines, with bleachers in right field. The first major addition took place before the 1923 season, when another seven thousand seats were added.

1914

It’s interesting that while people were coping with urbanized society, by going to athletic events, they were also seeking escape through Zane Grey’s novels, which romantized the wild west - the rural life “from whence they came.”

They were featuring players by this time. Next, it would be fancy covers and pictures of the stars.