The first time Bart Vautour attended a Major League Baseball (MLB) game, it was a big deal.
He was a small-town Canadian kid who鈥檇 grown up in the heart of the Toronto Blue Jays鈥� golden years, which culminated in the team bringing the World Series championship north of the border in back-to-back seasons. Baseball had been a bonding experience with his mother 鈥� a fandom they could share together. Now in his early 20s, he finally had the chance to take his outfield seat in the Skydome and experience the spectacle of the sport in person.
鈥淎nd I was made immediately uncomfortable by people around me talking about the outfielder鈥檚 mother in explicitly misogynist ways,鈥� he explains.
Flash forward a couple decades to 2023 and Dr. Vautour 鈥斕齨ow a faculty member in Dal鈥檚 Department of English 鈥� is back at the 鈥榙ome, now known as the Rogers Centre, for an otherwise ordinary early-season contest. Except in the one way it is not: Blue Jays player Anthony Bass enters the game as a relief pitcher for the first time since coming under fire for an Instagram post featuring an anti-2SLGBTQIA+ message. And he鈥檚 met with a thunderous chorus of boos 鈥斕齪erhaps not from everyone in the stadium, but certainly most of it. (Bass was gone from the team a few days later.)
鈥淵ou couldn鈥檛 help but feel that, palpably, baseball had changed,鈥� says Dr. Vautour.
Baseball as text
Baseball is always changing. And it鈥檚 also constant.
As the MLB postseason gets underway this October 鈥斕齮he Blue Jays competing against the Minnesota Twins in a wild card series [Author's addendum, Oct 5: Well, that didn't go great] 鈥斕齜oth sides of that equation are on full display. This is the first year that MLB has incorporated a pitch clock, bringing time into (as it鈥檚 infamously dubbed) America鈥檚 pastime like never before. (Games were, on average, 30 minutes shorter this year than they were last season.) This particular round of the playoffs the Jays find themselves in didn鈥檛 even exist until 2022. And the players on the field are more international than ever before, bringing new attitudes and approaches into both the personality and play of the game.
Toronto Blue Jays shortshop Bo Bichette makes a tag play.
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But the elements that have made baseball the focus of so many wordy novels, heartfelt films and haughty documentaries 鈥斕齮hey鈥檙e all still there. It remains a game that doesn鈥檛 just embrace its history but often venerates it (for good or ill), and where the consistency of action and play allows for records and statistics to be compared across generations.
鈥淏aseball is very textual, both in its complicated rules and in being highly structured,鈥� says Dr. Vautour. 鈥淚t鈥檚 not so different, to me, than a sonnet 鈥� which is poetry working as a form and within constraints. The form and the rules can change over time, but it remains a consistent thing into which stories can be placed.鈥�
Connecting culture
Those stories are at the core of the Sports Literature course Dr. Vautour is teaching this semester. It鈥檚 all about baseball 鈥斕齢ow it鈥檚 represented in literature and in culture, in narratives we read or watch and in narratives that flow around it in our broader society.
鈥淪ome of my students have played baseball all of their lives and are deeply steeped in the game, while others just took the course because it was the English class that fit their schedule 鈥斕齛nd I鈥檓 really excited about both perspectives,鈥� he explains.
鈥淚 hope those who are already into baseball get to better appreciate the things that happen around it that can鈥檛 be ignored, that we need to talk about, while others will get to see how baseball 鈥斕齦ike other activities in society 鈥斕齝an be a space around which other things circulate, how it can be a mirror at moments to talk about political, cultural and social representations.鈥�
The course鈥檚 reading material includes American author Chad Harbach鈥檚 2011 novel The Art of Fielding 鈥斕齛 story, appropriately for a university course, about college baseball 鈥斕齜ut otherwise Dr. Vautour has tried to bring a particularly Canadian perspective to the syllabus, taking advantage of the game鈥檚 less-mythologized role in Canadian consciousness. For example, there鈥檚 Stacey May Fowles鈥檚 Baseball Life Advice 鈥斕齛n essay collection that explores, among other topics, the intersection between baseball and identity.
鈥淪he writes how everything about the sport makes her fandom uncanny 鈥斕齜ecause as a woman who鈥檚 an engaged baseball fan, you鈥檙e constantly reminded that you only belong in some aspects of the game. It shows how fandom has evolved to incorporate different levels of critical thought 鈥斕齢ow we can cheer but also be critical of structures and biases. How do we negotiate fandom in our own time?鈥�
Better baseball
For Dr. Vautour, personally, that fandom has changed a lot over the years. He finds himself listening to games more on the radio now rather than watching them on TV;听it鈥檚 easier to fit into his family life that way. He appreciates the companionship elements of baseball 鈥斕齢ow it鈥檚 always there during the season but doesn鈥檛 demand you pay attention to all of it. Like many fans, there are elements of the big-budget corporate game he struggles with.听But he also tries to remember that baseball isn鈥檛 just MLB.
鈥淏aseball is bigger than one league, and we 鈥� as fans of baseball 鈥� can demand something of that league, because we can demand it of baseball in general. And we can start by making baseball as inclusive as possible on our own playgrounds and ball fields, so that we expect it as we turn on our TVs as well.鈥�
And while he鈥檚 cheering for the Blue Jays this October, he鈥檚 also just generally looking forward to some quality baseball.
鈥淚f the Blue Jays lose, and it was a good game, I鈥檓 honestly just as happy as if they鈥檇 won. I鈥檓 a fan of both baseball and the Blue Jays.鈥�