Ah, Sport, Georgie-Boy!

Ah, sport. And American Sport, on top of that. What could be more wholesome? More life-affirming? More Republican? Well, not watching sports, if you ask George Babbitt – a Sinclair Lewis character we’ve neglected here at the Cokesbury Party Blog for quite some time, and I do apologize for it.

Here’s ol’ Georgie’s interest in sports (read the whole thing here):

Baseball, he determined, would be an excellent hobby. “No sense a man’s working his fool head off. I’m going out to the Game three times a week. Besides, fellow ought to support the home team.”

He did go and support the team, and enhance the glory of Zenith, by yelling “Attaboy!” and “Rotten!” He performed the rite scrupulously. He wore a cotton handkerchief about his collar; he became sweaty; he opened his mouth in a wide loose grin; and drank lemon soda out of a bottle. He went to the Game three times a week, for one week. Then he compromised on watching the Advocate-Times bulletin-board. He stood in the thickest and steamiest of the crowd, and as the boy up on the lofty platform recorded the achievements of Big Bill Bostwick, the pitcher, Babbitt remarked to complete strangers, “Pretty nice! Good work!” and hastened back to the office.

He honestly believed that he loved baseball. It is true that he hadn’t, in twenty-five years, himself played any baseball except back-lot catch with Ted—very gentle, and strictly limited to ten minutes. But the game was a custom of his clan, and it gave outlet for the homicidal and sides-taking instincts which Babbitt called “patriotism” and “love of sport.”

Lewis, of course, uses sport and Babbitt’s lukewarm fascination with it as a way to show Babbitt attempting to forget his disaffection with life. What better way to show such disaffection than by throwing a party? That’s what the Cokesbury Party Blog is for, folks. Disaffection in an Affectionate Manner!