Since January 2000, I've been writing what I consider a low-tech Internet column for people who aren't terribly computer literate. I try to present a breezy, conversational column that is also informative. Below is a recent column which somehow found itself in the newspapers . . .

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"Shoeless Joe" and the Internet
By MICHAEL FRALEY

This past Tuesday I saw something on the Internet that I thought at first was a joke. I thought, "They can't be serious. This is amazing. What are they thinking of?"

Ebay, the leading auction site on the Web, is taking bids on "Shoeless Joe" Jackson's bat, "Black Betsy."

Joe and his story are part of Americana, and he was featured as one of the ghost players in the fantasy baseball film, "Field of Dreams." He made his mark in history by being on the White Sox team that threw the game in the World Series of 1919, giving the championship to Cincinnati. The image of the kid chasing after "Shoeless Joe" Jackson, plaintively repeating, "Say it ain't so, Joe," is as much a part of American folklore as Abraham Lincoln doing his homework on the back of a shovel with a piece of coal.

It's easy to forget that these people are real, are more than their legends. Like Casey Jones or John Henry, "Shoeless Joe" (so called because he ditched a pair of uncomfortable shoes early in his ball playing career) was a real person, living on the darker side of the American dream.

The bat, a crooked, dark, pockmarked piece of wood with a crack running through it, has been in the possession of one of Joe's nephews since 1959.Now this simple hand-whittled bat, wielded by an illiterate baseball player in the 1920's, is on the electronic auction block with a minimum bid of $500,000. It is expected to easily bring more than $1,000,000 when it's all said and done.

A valid question would be, "So what? This is an Internet column, not a sports column. Why does this matter?"

It matters because the Internet is more than software and hardware. It's more than binary code speeding through fiber optics. The Internet is more than HTML or the latest multimedia hijinks. It's a place where the past, present and future, the technology of the 21st century, and the dreams and nostalgia of the whole wired world come together. In other words, the Internet is not only a technological phenomenon, it is a social one as well.

In my own world, which is the world of print and publishing, the Internet is simply a new piece of paper to write on or draw on. It's the great electronic slate that can be read across the globe, and as such it is used to capture (or even recapture) a wide variety of human experiences. Even the nostalgia of a piece of wood named "Black Betsy." From time to time, George Haynes (the patient editor who reads this column before you do) and I wax nostalgic about this or that from our childhoods. He asked me a week or so ago if I remembered a cartoon when we were kids called "Motormouse and Autocat." No, I didn't, but I figured that someone out there on the Internet probably would. Sure enough, someone in Brazil had a Web page dedicated to this forgotten little gem of American pop culture. Is this important? Not really. It won't end any wars or stop any famines, but if you were sitting in front of the television on a Saturday morning in 1969, it might have been a small part of your life.

Think about how often you have poured your heart out to a friend in an e-mail, or how you visit one particular Web site because it reminds you of a more peaceful, more pleasant time in your life. Or perhaps you hunt and gather your way across the Internet, looking up recipes or ways to improve your home or your health. It's a way of viewing the Internet as something that can enhance your life, rather than crippling it and cutting you off from everyone. It's the Internet as a "warm" technology.

One last thought on "Shoeless Joe's" bat . . . I just hope that whoever is rich enough to buy it will take at least one good swing with it, just to feel it slicing through the air. That's all. That's all I ask.

 

(ORIGINALLY PRINTED IN THE SUNDAY EDITION OF THE NEWS-SUN AND THE EVENING STAR, 29 JULY 2001.)