Baseball, Vaudeville, and Mike Donlin

Abstract

In 1949 MGM musical Take Me Out to Ball Game, Gene Kelly and Frank Sinatra play Eddie O'Brien and Dennis Ryan, two of Three Musketeers of bat and ball: a turn-of-the-20th-century Tinker-to-Evers-to-Chance-inspired double-play combination. O'Brien and Ryan star for Wolves, baseball's world champions, but they also are headliners in another venue. They are hoofers who pass each winter touring in vaudeville-a genre that enjoyed considerable popularity in North America from 1880s through early 1930s.Vaudeville shows were live, family-oriented entertainments consisting of separate, disparate acts: comedians and dancers; monologists and singers; acrobats and animal acts; musicians and magicians; and actors appearing in short plays or scenes from plays. In its heyday, was a prime leisure-time outlet for America's working and middle class. In 1940, historian Douglas Gilbert described it as the national relaxation. To Palace, Colonial, Alhambra, Orpheum, Keith circuit and chain variety houses, N.Y. to L.A., we flocked, vicariously to don false face, let down our back hair, and forget. He added that vaudeville is an important chapter, not only of stage, but of Americana.Within context of Take Me Out to Ball Game, exploits of O'Brien and Ryan may seem like outlandish fantasy, conjured up by a Hollywood screenwriter to allow Kelly and Sinatra an opening to entertain moviegoers. Nonetheless, their offseason careers are founded in fact. Particularly during first two decades of 20th century, countless major leaguers passed their falls and winters touring in vaudeville.Such appearances were understandable, given economics of era. One hundred years ago, major leaguers did not have high-powered agents and multimillion-dollar contracts. It was a my way or highway age, during which ballplayers had to settle for wages offered by their employers.Even though they might grab newspaper headlines for their on-field exploits and were famous within realm of baseball fandom, most professional ballplayers were uneducated blue-collar types who earned as much as (or barely more than) average American workingman. We played for practically nothing, Chief Meyers, who caught in major leagues between 1909 and 1917, told Lawrence Ritter in 1960s. My top was about six thousand dollars. Matty [Christy Mathewson, Meyers' legendary battery mate] never made more than about eight. Well-that was way it was then.To augment their income, ballplayers spent their offseasons toiling in factories, driving trucks, sorting mail in post o[double dagger]ces, or running small businesses. Some-primarily headline-makers-could market their fame by appearing in vaudeville. Your average hurler or flyhawk might not have been endowed with voice of Enrico Caruso or Al Jolson, comic timing of Smith & Dale, or ability to spin a rope and a yarn as deftly as Will Rogers. Let us say he did possess an agreeable singing voice or ability to recount funny stories, and did not succumb to stage fright. Then, instead of earning dollars by laboring on an assembly line or behind a counter, he might become a headliner.A star ballplayer easily could surpass his baseball earnings in vaudeville. A top-line big leaguer might take home several thousand dollars per week by trodding boards. In 1910, Mathewson reportedly was paid a weekly sum of $1,000 for a four-month-long run of a skit titled Curves, in which he appeared with Meyers and actress-writer May Tully. Curves, which lasted a half-hour and was penned by sportswriter Bozeman Bulger, was set at Polo Grounds and consisted of players demonstrating their baseball skills and Tully (cast as a passionate fan) teaching them how to comport themselves onstage. In 1912, John McGraw earned $2,500 per week (according to some reports, it was $3,000) for performing a monologue titled Inside Baseball. …