Visiting Morristown for a Neshanock game back in April reminded me of long ago Saturdays, when my parents took my sister and me to the Old Book Shop, which is still very much in business today. I usually emerged with a goodly amount of juvenile fiction, not of my generation, but books my father read in the early 20th century. While not well remembered today series like the Boy Allies, Tom Swift and the Rover Boys were standard reading material for boys of my father's generation. Reading those books so many years ago may explain why I collect them now with an emphasis on baseball stories.
As popular as those books were then, critics today, with good reason, don’t think much of what could be described as juvenile fairy tales. The story typically follows a formula with a perfect hero, bullies on and off the field, in spite of whom, the hero and his friends always emerge triumphant. Such books may not have seem to have anything to say to today’s youth, but on that point, I respectfully disagree.
Just one example is "Making the Nine" by A. T. Dudley published in 1904. It’s one of a series of books, Dudley wrote about a school he called Seaton, but which was in fact Phillips Exeter Academy in New Hampshire. Like almost all of these stories, there is no shortage of off the field issues, in this case gambling, theft and eligibility, with a bully or two thrown in for good measure. Beyond these challenges, all of which are, of course, resolved satisfactorily is what seems to be a side issue – Philip Poole's dream of making the school baseball team. Hence the title.
Poole has very little going for him – he’s not a natural athlete and the team captain doesn’t think much of him. Fortunately, Poole has a mentor, his roommate Dick Melvin, a successful athlete in other sports. When Poole tells Melvin of his dream and the apparent impossibility of realizing it, Melvin tells him to “devote your whole thought and attention out of [academic] study to baseball and nothing else” and then offers the following specific advice:
"Do more than you’re told
Study yourself
Get outside help
If you get cut from the team, form your own team and keep practicing."
Poole takes Melvin's advice in various ways including remaining on campus during spring break so he can hire a former professional pitcher to help him become a better hitter. Naturally, as in all these stories, Poole follows Melvin’s guidance, and, in spite of what the captain thinks, not only makes the team, but saves the day in a win over the school’s archrival.
The predictable end result may be the fairy tale ending lamented by critics. But what’s important, at least to me, is the advice Melvin gives Poole about a process to help him realize his dream. Even so many years later, it resonates with me because I can identify with Poole. It was my dream in high school to earn a varsity letter on the baseball team, a goal I never achieved. It all worked out in the end because I found other ways to be involved, but reading Making the Nine made me wish I had read Poole's story when I could have followed Melvin's advice.
However, I started thinking about a more important question – had I read the book back then would I have followed Poole’s example? If I’m being honest, I think it’s doubtful. I would have been far more interested in the story itself than taking on so much work. The good news though is that such timeless and valuable advice was not only available to young readers then, but also "still is ours today!"
