Street Roots • Feb. 9-15, 2018
Page 5
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C O L IN K A E P E R N IC K P H O T O B Y B R O O K W A R D /F L IC K R , C C B Y -N C 2 .0 ; S A M A N T H A BEE P H O T O B Y N E IL G R A B O W S K Y /M O N T C L A IR F IL M "/F L IC K R , C C B Y 2 .0
From left: C la y D alrym ple was catcher fo r the P hiladelphia P h illies d u rin g their 1964 season. C o lin Kaepernick instigated social-justice protests d u rin g the national anthem at N F L
games. Com edian Sam antha Bee is am ong late-night talk show hosts who have been vocal against President D o n a ld Trump.
Where sports, comedy and politics intersect
wt D evon pouncey
everybody laugh.
It was a hard thing for the city of
Philadelphia to go through. The World
Series tickets had already been printed. We
expected to win easily, and then when the
slide happened, it affected the city of
Philadelphia for decades and decades after. I
found that if the Phillies weren’t going to
win the pennant, I at least found some
comedy in the members in my family and
the Phillies announcers, which kind of got
me through it all. In life, comedy is one of
the things that gets you through hard times,
and I’d discovered it.
S T A F F W R IT E R
he Philadelphia Eagles’ victory in the
Super Bowl was a euphoric milestone
in the lives of Philly sports fans. But
no matter how sweet that smell of victory is
for the sports-loving city, it doesn’t wash
away that terrible September more than 50
years ago when their beloved Phillies -
seemingly destined for the World Series -
took an epic nosedive.
That catastrophic failure sets the stage
for Carl Wolfson’s memoir, “Slide!: The
Baseball Tragicomedy that Defined Me, My
Family and the City of Philadelphia - And
How It All Could’ve Been Avoided Had
Someone Just Listened to My Lesbian Great
Aunt.”
Comedian, radio host, author and activist
Wolfson has never been shy about
expressing his views, and the charged
atmosphere of fandom seems the perfect
backdrop - as much then as now.
Sports have always provided a common
place for people of different backgrounds to
express their political views. It’s a place
where athletes, franchise executives and
fans have a platform.
Jackie Robinson, Muhammad Ali and
Jackie Joyner-Kersee are a few who used
their platforms to promote social progress.
Kennedy and all of the big issues of the day.
Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban once
In those three areas, the baseball story -
tweeted, “What has Donald Trump done to
which is pretty amazing and included the
help struggling people pay their bills?
first perfect game pitched (in the National
Serious question. I would appreciate your
League) since the 1880s, by Phillies pitcher
thoughts.” And with protests during the
Jim Bunning, and there is a lot of drama in
national anthem recently reaching
mainstream-media heights in the NFL, many there - my coming of age with my crazy
family members, and the period of the
executives have been outspoken about their
1960s, I think readers will relate to those
political views.
Wolfson spoke with Street Roots about his three things or at least find them
interesting.
new book, activism in sports and comedy’s
role in politics.
D.P.: You mentioned some o f the
T
D .P .: With so much political turm oil in
Am erican society today, what role does comedy
play in comparison to the 1960s?
C. W.: It’s huge right now. It’s comedians
Carl Wolfson explores American society
and his own coming of age through
the lens of the Phillies’ 1964 collapse
D e V o n P o u n c e y : What do you want
readers to take away from yo u r book?
C arl W o lfso n : It’s threefold, really.
Sports fans, especially baseball fans, ought
to love it because it covers the Phillies’
collapse in 1964, which is still the greatest
collapse in Major League history. The real
organic part of the book is the story of my
coming of age and discovering comedy
during that time. The third part of the book,
which I think readers will relate to, is the
1960s, living through the Cuban missile
crisis, the assassination of President
mainstream political happenings d uring the
1960s. How did those affect yo u r love fo r the
game o f baseball?
C.W.: One of the ways that it formed me
was that the 1964 Phillies were the first
fully integrated team in franchise history,
and not just African-American players but
Hispanic players, too. I’m a kid at 11 years
old, and to me they were my heroes because
they were the Phillies, and me and my
family didn’t think in terms of black, white
and Hispanic. During this time, there were
urban riots, including in Philadelphia, but
when I would read the sports page, I didn’t
think about the differences between people
that others were exploiting; I was thinking
of them as my heroes, as players, and that’s
what was important to me.
One of the characters in the book - which
was my grandma, who was very conservative
- made the comment that if God had wanted
black and white people to interact, he
would’ve made them the same color. That
was a shocking statement to me, and it
didn’t compute with me because I just loved
my Phillies.
D.P.: You called this book a tragicomedy.
Why was comedy so important during a tragic
time in your life?
C.W.: That season for the Phillies in 1964
after my family and I just moved to
Philadelphia was the first year I followed
baseball. That year was so magnificent for
the Phillies because they were unexpected
leaders in the National League, and then
when they hit this 10-game losing streak, I
was trying to help my family and deal with
it, and I discovered comedy to make
like Trevor Noah, -Stephen Colbert,
Samantha Bee and Jimmy Kimmel who are
leading the opposition to Trump. I did stand
up comedy from 1980 until I moved to
Portland in the 2000s to do radio, and I’m
very proud that the comedians are leading
the resistance against Trump. It’s not just
jokes that they’re telling. All jokes have an
underlying truth to them, and when you
unmask Trump or any object of the joke,
you’re getting to the truth of something.
When you do that in joke form, people
remember it more than if somebody just
tells you something.
D . P.: D o you think there is an issue with
comedy desensitizing our reality when it comes
to who is in office?
C. W.: That’s a great question. There are a
lot of ways that Trump gets normalized, and
to some extent, if you normalize him, that’s
a very dangerous path to go down because
then his behavior in office becomes
accepted, and that could be possible with
comedy.
I see no other alternative to pushing back
and being able to unmask him as a fraud,
joke or someone unfit for office. I
understand that there is the danger of
normalization, but you can’t stifle the
resistance, whether it’s in organization,
speech or in comedy. In the end, you have
to hope that enough people see the truth
behind the joke.
D . P.: You wrote the book from the
perspective o f an llye a r-o ld baseball fa n . With
See WOLFSON, page 7