Through Mon 9/7
Baseball has been America’s pastime for well over a century; however, the sport’s impact is felt way beyond what takes place between the foul lines. Specifically, baseball has made just as much an impact regarding social issues involving the red, white and blue.
This notion is examined in detail with the traveling exhibition Chasing Dreams: Baseball & Becoming American, which is currently making its national debut in northeast Ohio at the Maltz Museum of Jewish Heritage.
The National Museum of American-Jewish History in Philadelphia’s exhibit explores how issues around culture, race and community have played out on the diamond as well as life around the big leagues.
Through stories of athletes, scouts, vendors, team owners, broadcasters, journalists, novelists and fans, the multimedia exhibition — which has been bolstered with Cleveland memorabilia unique to the local exhibit — examines Jackie Robinson and Larry Doby breaking the color line, Sandy Koufax refusing to pitch the first game of the 1965 World Series because it fell on Yom Kippur and more.
Cool Cleveland talked to Maltz Museum director of education Jeffery Allen about the importance of Chasing Dreams: Baseball & Becoming American.
First of all, why does this exhibit make sense for the Maltz Museum of Jewish Heritage?
This really gets to the core of our full mission, which is about exploring identity, exploring issues of culture and building bridges between communities from people of different backgrounds. Baseball serves as excellent metaphor in America for how communities can come together and work together to form the American society. It was an amazing coup to get the touring exhibition. We’re really pleased to be the first stop.
Naturally, when we hear about the Maltz Museum of Jewish Heritage presenting a baseball exhibit, Hank Greenberg and Sandy Koufax come to mind. However, it appears this exhibition delves into struggles common to all minorities.
Since Hank Greenburg’s career is ending in ‘47 as Jackie Robinson’s is beginning, one of the stories is how the two of them collided during a game where they are shaking hands. That’s an amazing visual for a country that is divided by law along race lines. And yet we see through artifacts in 1953 from a Chattanooga farm team’s letters that were questioning the racial purity of a prospect. So it was still very difficult and challenging. We’ll meet other players from other cultures who were barrier breakers like Roberto Clemente, who is the first player to speak Spanish on national television. Imagine what it would be like to hear your native language spoken on national television.
Culturally speaking, what kind of struggles exist today in Major League Baseball?
It was a long journey and one might say the journey continues. There are no openly gay players in Major League Baseball. There is one who has come out after his career was done. There’s a whole Broadway play dedicated to what it means to be gay in sport. That’s one of our special conversations coming up at the Maltz Museum on June 24, about what it means to be LGBT in sports in America. We also have another conversation on June 27 about integrating Cleveland baseball. So we’re looking at both the historic perspective and also the current perspective of where we are now, and where we still have to go.
Finally, what do you hope people take away from the Chasing Dreams: Baseball & Becoming American experience?
My greatest hope for anyone who comes to any of our exhibitions at the museum is you walk away saying ‘I want to know more.’ That could be I want to know more about people who played baseball. I want to know more about the relationship of the communities of baseball. If people walk away saying I want to know more civil rights, I want to know more about assimilation and immigration, I want to know more about the history of my neighborhood, I think that’s a huge success.
Chasing Dreams: Baseball & Becoming American runs now through Sept. 7 at the Maltz Museum of Jewish Heritage. Admission is $12 adults; $10 (seniors 60+ and students 12+) and $5 youth (ages 5-11).
Catch CoolCleveland’s VIDEO interview with co-curator Ivy Weingram of the National Museum of American Jewish History here.