A Norman Rockwell July 4th
July 4, 2008 | July 4th, america, american ideals, baseball, democracy
I spent last Sunday night in a Normal Rockwell painting and, for me, it was the perfect July 4th event. It could not have been more American, could not have represented more precisely what the men and women who gave their lives, and are remembered on this day, fought for. This evening was my homage to America.
Of course it had to do with baseball. Baseball IS America, inseparable from the American identity. The old Chevrolet Commercial, “baseball, hot dogs, apple pie and Chevrolet” says it all.
It was the seventh inning of a baseball game between the Minnesota Twin class A farm team, the St. Paul Saints, and the Fort Worth Cats. The Cats were managed by Wayne Terwilliger, a genuine American hero (see here and here). A Marine, who fought on Iwo Jima, during WWII, he played, coached and managed baseball for 52 years. Part of that career was coaching and managing the Saints, so this night was dedicated to him.
It was the seventh inning of the game, when I had my realization that this night was special. The Saints were being trounced, 11-2 (later to lose 13-2) by the Cats. The team management was handing out “rally flags,” which were blue, polyethylene blow-ups that sported a flag that said “St. Paul Saints.” Of course, it took a few milliseconds for people to realize that they could use the blow-up flagpoles to bonk each other, and you could see sudden commotions where friends would attack each other with these things. I was surrounded by freckle-faced young boys, with baseball gloves, baseball caps, and that look of awe on a kid’s face when they are imagining themselves on that field, shagging flies and whacking the ball out of the park.
It was those freckle-faced kids that got me thinking of Norman Rockwell. America is about traditions, and it is in these small-town events where American traditions are most evident. You do not find them in the cities; there are too many people for common traditions to develop. In this small ball park, which seated no more than a little bit over 6000 people, we were all bound by the traditions of baseball, specific to this ball park, but repeated, in an endless variety, in small-town ball parks all over the country.
There were so many little traditions spread throughout the game; the team mascot was a pig, and this baby pig was brought out on a leash at the beginning of each inning, dressed in a different outfit — a tutu, one inning, pink ears and a dress on another. To understand what this means, one has to go back to the early history of St. Paul, where it was called “Pig Eye,” named after Pierre “Pig’s Eye” Parrant, a French Canadian who sold whiskey upstream from Fort Snelling, at a trading post which later became St. Paul. I don’t know how many people in the stands knew this, but the pig was a fixture at Saints games. It gets bigger and bigger as the season goes by. I do not know what happens to it at the end of the season (they start each season with a baby pig), and do not know if it has any connection to the pig roast that occurs at the end of the season.
Then there are the trains. Just behind the Left Field fence is a train track. All during the game, trains go by; and each time one does, the announcer says, “train.” The crowd says “train.” If there are two trains, on both tracks, the announcer says, “double train” and everyone repeats it.
All of this bound people at the park together, and made them part of a greater fabric which is America. I could have seen the same theme 50 years ago, with minor variations; and Norman Rockwell could have been in the stands, painting the kids on the field, before the game, playing catch with the Saints ball players 50 years ago as he could have today. It was as American as one could possibly get, and I was in awe, at that point, at the thought that I was IN this painting.
So, God bless Wayne Terwilliger, the war hero who came home to baseball, and devoted his life to making our enjoyment. God bless all those eager young men who never made it to adulthood, buried in some unknown land, or in the fields of snow-like tombstones that are so ever present in our towns and cities. Your death did have meaning. I weep for every one of you, and am grateful that your sacrifice enabled these freckle-faced kids to sit in the stands and be part of a great American experience.


