While I am not as outraged as Zenster, I also think this is appalling.
“History” is different for different people, I guess. But there’s something special, I think, about clothing, especially baseball jerseys. Hell, I don’t give a damn about baseball, but I wouldn’t mind seeing them in a museum. It is Babe Ruth we’re talking about here.
If it means so much to these 2100 fans to have a small scrap of his jersey, it would mean even more to all of us to see the damned thing intact and in a museum, where we all could see it and enjoy it. 'Cause it is Babe Ruth we’re talking about here.
Now, everyone who’s shouting that this belongs in a museum, I direct you back to the linked article in the OP:
This ain’t the last of its kind. If it were, I’d be there with torch and pitchfork right next to you, condemning them to hell along with nun beaters and pope abusers. If the jersey were auctioned under the conditions “It must be kept in its current condition, no wiping your ass with it, no setting it on fire and lighting $100 bills with it and lighting cigars with those, and oh right, no slicing it up and selling it in packs of baseball cards”, then I’d be there saying that these people are worse than Hitler.
But as far as the article can tell me, the Donruss company bought the shirt in an auction without any conditions. Hell, if the Donruss president shoved the shirt in his pants and stumbled around shouting “Lookit me! I’m the Babe!” I’d think he was crass, but I wouldn’t think he’s got a date with the International Criminal Court. If it mattered that much to me that a third jersey belonged in a third museum, I’d have tried to organize a group of collectors and/or institutions to outbid anyone else for it.
This smacks of sour grapes.
Mmm, Smuckers.
(Did you know there’s a class action lawsuit against Smuckers, as their “simply 100% fruit” product isn’t really 100%?)
“2100 Rich bastards”? They’re giving it away with baseball cards at (I’m guessing) <$1.00 a pack. 2100 slices of a $264,000 shirt means each slice is worth over a $100.00. I guess I’m not seeing the greedy profit mongering here.
Look, this shirt is not history. It’s * memorabilia *. If it lets people feel more connected to a sports legend, that’s great – it’ll work even better sliced up and distributed.
I won’t go deep into it here (I’m at work and the story is told in the “Cricket and the Law” section of Wisden 2001, which I’ve got at home), but this is the gist of it. A street in (was it Adelaide? Now I’m confused about that part) was re-named in honor of Don Bradman. Nothing unusual about that, though The Don was a bit concerned that people might use the street name as a way of using his name for commercial benefit, something with Bradman had always been very touchy about. Sure enough, a few months later an, ahem, bookseller started business on the street under the name “Erotica on Bradman.” Of course, National Outcry ensued, and eventually the national legislature passed a law to the effect that a business couldn’t name itself after a person without their consent (or the consent of their estate), even if, as in the case of the bookseller, the name was merely descriptive of the business.
Like I say, I don’t have the Wisden with me, and I may be wrong on some of the details. I’ll write back with any changes later this afternoon.
This isn’t the first time that something like this has happened. A few years ago some card company, I don’t think it was Donruss, cut up some pads that belonged to GeorgesVezina. That pissed off a bunch of people as well, and I don’t think that there were three sets of his pads floating around.
Sorry, Guin, but i really can’t get too worked up about this. And it’s not like i’m a philistine with no respect for historical understanding; i’m a Ph.D. candidate in American history who has a great respect for the amount of knowledge we can gain from the past.
But it’s for this very reason that i can’t get too torn up (pun intended) over the fate of this shirt. Constantly worrying about the fate of minor objects that don’t actually teach us anything about the past is, in my opinion, a rather unproductive form of antiquarianism. This is particularly the case in the twentieth century, where so much stuff has been produced and our knowledge of what it was and what it signified are so great.
Exactly what is lost by the cutting up of this shirt? Do we lose any understanding of Ruth’s contribution to baseball, or of baseball’s contribution to American culture? Does the destruction of the shirt leave us with insufficient knowledge of early twentieth century Yankee uniforms? As far as i can tell, by cutting up the shirt, we lose exactly that–a shirt. Big deal.
Sure, they people who are actually doing this are money-grubbing slimeballs, and i’d be quite happy if their little trick backfired on them. But i really don’t see that this is going to lead to the end of civilization as we know it.
Baseball, at the time Ruth played, dominated news coverage - and not just the sports pages. It was, and continues to be, a major national obsession - a unifying element of US national culture. Yes, it is a game, just as spectator sports have been for thousands of years. If a helmet worn by a Roman gladiator was unearthed, then chopped up for souvenirs, would that be very different?
Just because one doesn’t attach significance to an artifact doesn’t mean it’s “just a piece of cloth.” History is more than battles and governments. It’s popular culture. We learn much about the past when we investigate items important to cultures as a unit. The jersey is a symbol of a social activity of great importance to its time.
For too long, history was focused on white guys making money and causing war. In the study of history, as well as preservation of its artifacts, we must always err on the side of inclusion.
The same can be said of almost any artifiact from history. You can go online, and to any library, and read the Declaration of Independence. We have analyzed the ink, the paper, we know who wrote it, what it says, the influences that led to its creation, etc. So, I guess we’re done with it. Anyway, we have multiple copies. We can afford to divide one up.
I’m not equating its historical importance with that of Ruth’s jersey, but there is no logical difference.
Darwin’s Finch and mhendo, I’m surprised and ashamed for both of you. History is not mere archaeology; artifacts are preserved in museums not just to provide new knowledge for a handful of experts, but to preserve everyone’s connection with the past. Babe Ruth was a cultural phenomenon, not just a guy getting paid for playing a game, and his jersey is a reminder and a symbol of his times, not just a shirt. Culture is the most fleeting and the least tangible product of our society, and it’s scraps of culture like Fonzie’s jacket, Archie Bunker’s chair, and, yes, Babe Ruth’s jersey, that help us to remember how we became who we are. That’s why those first two items are at the Smithsonian, and it’s why the jersey belongs there. Thanks to Donruss, it’ll never make it.
No, it wouldn’t be any different. There are many roman artifacts in private hands. What their owners do with them is their business. There are plenty of helmets in museums allready we don’t need to save all of them.
World Eater, you’re a self-satisfied shithead. World Eater is so smart! So enlightened! So much better than everyone else! You really must enjoy masturbating to this inflated image of yourself. Clean the jizz off the screen and get over it.
Anyway, I don’t see the big deal about the jersey. Two other jerseys are in existence, Ruth’s daughter okayed it…eh. Babe Ruth’s legacy was what he brought to the game, not the stuff he wore. I like memorabilia as much as the next person – I think it’s neato – but it’s still just stuff. It only has as much meaning as people give it. If Cooperstown burned down today I wouldn’t be as upset about the lost bats and jerseys as I would be about the photographs and footage of the actual game being played.
You’d be surprised just what IS valuable to historians. When I was doing my internship, one part of the collections was a bunch of broken glass-old jars and bottles and dishes-a bunch of garbage found in abandoned cisterns and privies on the site of the new bus station.
We had one of Mister Roger’s sweaters and a pair of his sneakers. Probably not the only ones in the world. But think of the little kids who come in the museum and see those-that alone is worth it!
Bottles are very handy. In the age before mass produced bottles, the style and size of the lip of the bottle could tell you where and when the bottle was made. That is very handy for establishing provience.
While as owner he was legally within his rights, I still think it’s pretty fucked up to destroy the item. The whole shirt has some value. 2100 pieces of inch square cloth aren’t worth a damn thing.
The Babe didn’t wear that inch square piece of cloth to the plate… he wore the shirt. Now it’s gone.
What if it was one of three remaining first-editions of a famous novel? And a book company tore out the pages of each and hid them in other books (but you’d have to buy a bunch of them to find the hidden page, a la Willie Wonka’s Golden Ticket)?
Or one of three original prints of a classic move cut into frames?
Would the people who don’t care about the shirt care more about the book? I’m just curious because it seems like there are a lot of people not caring because it’s sports-related.
Personally, I don’t care about sports at all, but I think chopping up the shirt is a bad idea. If I really wanted to see one of Babe Ruth’s shirts, I could make a trip to see it, but now that there are only two left, I probably have to travel a lot further to see it. As far as what the shirt tells us historically, it shows us that there was a time when baseball jerseys weren’t numbered (something I never knew and find interesting), it gives the viewer a good idea of Babe’s stature and size, it shows what the uniforms used to look like (fabric, print, style), and for a person of Babe Ruth’s fame I would imagine people would just like to see something that belonged to him. Have you ever been to Graceland and seen some of Elvis’ costumes? You can just picture the lovable, lumbering old oaf dancing around in it. I just don’t think a single sequin would compare.
But the sports card company will clean up because people love to collect things and attach meaning to objects which may or may not have any value. I guess it’s a rags to riches kind of think (haw haw).
On another note, how do you keep track of a 1 inch piece of fabric after you’ve found it in the pack of cards? Seems like the kind of thing the cat would eat or that would end up in the back of a drawer.