Page 57 - Introduction to Electronic Commerce and Social Commerce

46 • Sport, Media and Society

American game representing democracy, competition, skill, honesty and courage.
The myths surrounding baseball may in part be sustained through the use of familiar,
repeated elements, suggesting ongoing, ‘natural’, even inevitable social meanings.
This case study explores the ways that reoccurring narrative conventions are used to
tell and arguably reinscribe the story of baseball.

Time

Baseball movies are situated in different historical periods, from Eight Men Out
(1988), based on the White Sox scandal of 1919, to Fever Pitch (2005; also known
as A Perfect Catch), which depicts the Red Sox winning the 2004 World Series and

breaking the curse of Babe Ruth. Many baseball films, however, are located in the
past such as The Natural, A League of Their Own, The Babe (1992), Eight Men Out
and The Rookie (2002). Others that were made a long time ago, such as The Jackie

Robinson Story (1950), Angels in the Outfield (1951) and The Pride of the Yankees
(1942), were contemporary at the time but now look dated and are evocative of base-
ball’s history. Others are set in the recent past or present such as Bull Durham, Bad
News Bears (2005) and Major League (1989). There are also films that combine

past and present, such as Field of Dreams, which is situated in the 1980s (when it
was released) but contains characters and scenes from the early part of the twentieth
century, and The Winning Season (2004), which includes a return to the 1909 World

Series. So, while baseball films do vary in relation to the specific era in which they

are set, there is a continuing intertextual association with baseball’s history, roots and
traditions. This nostalgic turn can be understood as an attempt to reaffi rm America’s
inherent character and core values through the representation of its national pastime.
For example, in Field of Dreams and The Winning Season, individuals from contem-
porary times are transported back to the past to learn lessons about the importance of
family, self-belief and honesty.

Place

The key events in baseball films occur in and around the ballpark. The ballpark, with

its expansive, green fields, evokes the countryside. In addition, movies are also situ-
ated in small towns with ballparks located in open spaces and rural environments. For
example, the opening scenes of The Natural, Field of Dreams and A League of Their
Own occur on farms. The father and son playing catch in the fi eld in The Natural are
visually associated with the growing plants in the field, locating the game as a ‘natu-

ral’, pastoral part of life. Hunter (2005: 72) critiqued this image, arguing that it is
‘of course, anything but [natural], giving white middle class masculinity a privileged
sense of national belonging and entitlement by making it the primary occupant of the
building and reiteration of a baseball mythology’. This predominately suburban or