Darwin’s Favorite Ball Game,—

The Baseball Hypothesis of Man’s Evolution (1)

Preface

“If it be an advantage for man to stand firmly on his feet and to have his hands and arms free, of which, from his pre-eminent success in the battle of life, here can be no doubt, then I can see no reason why it should not have been advantageous to the progenitors of man to have become more and more erect or bipedal. They would thus have been better able to defend themselves with stones or clubs, to attack their prey, or otherwise to obtain food. The best built individuals would in the long run have succeeded best, and have survived in larger numbers.”
Darwin, The Descent of Man.

I vividly remember the day in 1962 when my father drove us from Evansville, Indiana, to Saint Louis where his boss and son met us to see the San Francisco Giants play against the Saint Louis Cardinals. Before the game started my dad got a baseball autographed by Juan Marichal (18-11, 3.53 Earned Run Average (ERA)), Willie Mays (.304), Willie McCovey (.293), Felipe Alou (.316) and Orlando Cepeda (.306). (2) It was fairly easy, we were seated next to the Giant dugout and since we had emigrated from the Dominican Republic my dad simply called out to one of the Alou brothers he knew and asked him for a favor. I got to shake hands with several of the players, including Willie Mays. I was impressed with Mays’s barrel chest and with Marichal’s high pitching kick.

It was with great anticipation that I watched the players signing a baseball I so looked forward to owning; but instead, my dismay was great and I was completely crestfallen, when with great relish, my dad gave the baseball to his boss’s son. On top of that disappointment, Saint Louis dominated the game. Of that June day game the most I clearly remember is rooting for the losing Giants in the Cardinal’s home stadium; and, sitting uncomfortably for hours next to a kid I wanted to punch while having to be nice to him. It was a very quiet drive home.

But, in 1962 the Giants won the National League pennant; and, with so many Dominicans aboard, they were my team. Besides, the fact that I shook hands with Willie Mays and Juan Marichal conferred some sandlot prestige (although not getting that signed baseball didn’t marshal much respect when swapping baseball cards.)

In 1963 Juan Marichal pitched 24 wins to 8 losses with a 2.41 earned run average and Willie Mays hit 38 home runs and batted a .380 average. Marichal continued with several 20 win seasons and ERA’s in the 2’s; however, in 1965 Juan Marichal, during a home game for the pennant, after repeated taunting and intimidation between the Dodgers and Giants (3) got into an argument with John Roseboro, who was catching for the Dodgers, (4) and when Roseboro suddenly took his mask off and stood up, Marichal hit Roseboro’s head with his bat, drawing blood. An ugly fight ensued. When my father, a gentleman, heard about this incident, he was appalled. His love of baseball waned; and, as for me, I now instinctively knew what the real purpose of the bat was for.

We had moved to New York State in 1964, and in 1966 I took up lacrosse instead of baseball in the spring. Crazily enough, I often got violently stick slashed, and the physical contact and tackling was as rough as football and with less protection. But, no troglodyte was going to cave my head in with a club. After college, during the summers, I’d still dust off my old glove to play softball while in the Navy. But, it wasn’t until I read Stephen Jay Gould’s chapter in Full House a few years ago, about the disappearance of .400 batters, that the statistics revived the magic of professional baseball again.

Recently I became interested in the game from the perspective of the human skeletal and muscular structure, and physics (power):

—That from 60.5 feet a pitcher throws a 5 ounce baseball at 100 m.p.h. across a 17 inch wide plate,—a one (1) degree angular target—is a true wonder.

—On the flip side, the fact that at fastball speeds, the batter has only a 0.4 second window to swing at the baseball, and yet good players consistently hit the ball; and, at times with such force as to drive it 450 feet for a home run, is another truly amazing feat.

From this renewed perspective of baseball, it was a quick step to undertake a brief mental survey of our fascination with accurate throwing and swinging: basketball players swishing a 9.4” diameter basketball into an 18” diameter hoop to score three points from 23’9”; golfers using 3 to 5 strokes to club a small ball several hundred yards into a gopher hole; (5) and, that football quarterbacks have completed eight 99 yard passes that all resulted in touchdowns just egged my curiosity more.(6) It was easy to continue on to all the other variations of play with a ball, or ball and club.(7) All these games possessing the fundamental elements of accuracy of ball throw or strike towards a target, with the level of controlled violence being least in individual confrontations, and greatest in team events.

But, why should our fascination with ball and club seem to disproportionately reward players,—after all, they’re only hitting a ball? Why do we so highly value watching someone accurately throw (8) or swing (9)? What is this impulse to throw and club that seems so universally human? Why is it that no matter how “violently” the players behave; no matter if they go on strike; no matter how expensive the tickets get,—we forgive them and keep going back for more. Is it etched in our subconscious? Are we programmed to sit fixated and watch? Is it inevitable that good hitters and pitchers become rich?

But perhaps more importantly: Why did Juan Marichal swing a baseball bat at John Roseboro’s head? Why in the world did my dad give that autographed baseball to another kid? And, lastly, and perhaps most hope giving, how did Juan Marichal get into the Baseball Hall of Fame?

So there you have the outline of this book. To find answers to these question we’ll detour a bit through human evolution. The main references will be

Charles Darwin’s The Descent of Man and The Origin of the Species,

Eduard Kirschmann’s The Age of Throwers: A New View of Humanity, and

E. O. Wilson’s Sociobiology

These books will provide many of the answers to the proposed questions.

Footnotes:

(1) The rules of American baseball were first written down in 1845 and Darwin published his Origins of the Species in 1859. American baseball was Stephen Jay Gould’s favorite game and it seems to me the quintessential showcase of human physical and intellectual evolution: you don’t win or lose the pennant in a game or two, it’s a game of statistics and the long term, just like evolution. And perhaps in a deep sense, baseball is the summary of what it means to be human. That form tends to follow function is the compelling trend of natural selection; baseball seems the clearest atavistic mark of our evolutionary trajectory and living proof of what our bodies are designed to do,—Throw, Club and Run (TCR).

(2) I’m pretty sure about Willie Mays, Juan Marichal, the Alou brothers and Orlando Cepeda, but it’s been a long time. If you have the baseball, don’t tell me.

(3) The batters were tipping the catcher’s glove or top of his head when swinging; and, conversely the catchers were throwing close to the batter when returning the ball to the mound, or the pitchers threw very close to the batter’s bodies. Marichal who was known for his ball control beaned two batters!

(4) Roseboro allegedly was trying to get Sandy Koufax to bean Marichal.

(5) The sum total of all the golf courses in the U.S. cover an area equivalent to the size of the state of Pennsylvania!

(6) A pass completion of 99 yards (90.5 m) has been achieved on eight occasions and has always resulted in a touchdown. The most recent was a pass from Brett Favre to Robert Brooks of the Green Bay Packers, playing against the Chicago Bears on September 11, 1995

(7) Badminton, billiards, bowling, cricket, croquet, curling, field hockey, golf, handball, hockey, hurling, football, lacrosse, marbles, ping pong, polo, racquetball, rounders, rugby, snooker, soccer, squash, tennis, volleyball ….

(8) Bandy, barrage, bombard, bowl, buck, bunt, butt, cant, cast, catapult, chuck, dash, deliver, ding, ding off, discharge, dislodge, drive, fell, fire, flick, fling, fling off, flip, floor, force, heave, hurl, impel, lapidate, launch, let fly, let go, lift, lob, overturn, overwhelm, peg, pellet, pelt, pepper, pitch, precipitate, project, propel, push, put, roll, scatter, send, shove, shower, shy, sling, splatter, spray, sprinkle, start, stone, strew, thrust, throw, toss, tumble, volley, waft

(9) Bang, bat, beat, belt, biff, blow, bonk, bludgeon, bop, buffet, bump, clash, clip, clout, collision, club, crack, glance, hammer, hit, impact, knock, lick, plunk, rap, slam, slug, smack, smash, sock, spank, strike, stroke, swat, swing, swipe, “take vicious cuts at,” tap, thump, thwack, wallop, whack, whammy, whop, or zap