Baseball - or what baseball represents - has been a key component of our American identity. For all intents and purposes, baseball is American mythology. However, much of that mythology has faded or changed over time. With lockouts, strikes, and various drug related scandals, our view of these athletes that are supposed to represent what it means to be American drastically changed from heroic to horrifically flawed. This shift can also be traced in baseball films.
Prior to the 1990s, a renaissance of the baseball film occurred with films such as The Natural, Major League, Bull Durham,and several others because during this period baseball was a celebration of everything revered about the sport. After the 1990s, the overall tone and setting showed how as a society, the approach to baseball in pop culture changed.
The purpose of this paper is to provide history, cultural tie ins, and perspective on how the 1990 Major League Baseball Lockout and 1994-95 Major League Baseball Strike, as well as a series of other scandals within the league, affected the monomyth of baseball. Through films such as *Field of Dreams, The Natural, and Moneyball *among others, it is evident that a cultural shift occurred once athletes who were revered as heroes became flawed throughout these events and changed how fans looked at the sport.
The goal of this study is to understand baseball’s past, present, and future through the examination of the historical contexts of these films and what they mean moving forward ultimately raising the question: what is the future of baseball and will baseball ever be what it once was?
About the presenterApril Cheyenne Marble
April Marble is a communications student at Lamar University with a passion for sports and popular culture. She currently writes for Dallas Sports Nation and covers sports for LU’s University. In her free time, you can find her attending any sporting event or rewatching Field of Dreams.