Did America Get Crazier, Then Less Crazy?

Were the 1970s the peak of American Craziness?

People naturally have opinions about how the past was better or worse than the present. For example, are people today rowdier or more well-mannered than in the days of yore?

One promising methodology is to look at similar moments across time. We now have a fair amount of video online of historic events allowing comparisons.

For example, do baseball fans rush onto the field when their home team wins a big game? Or do they stay in the stands like they are supposed to?

Baseball is a fairly slow-changing sport. It became America’s first big team spectator sport soon after the Civil War and tends to be passed on from father to son. Baseball fans today are often the sons, grandsons, and great grandsons of baseball fans. Hence, baseball is interesting because changes are less due to embarrassing racial diversity, and more due to the subtle evolutions in culture that Americans prefer to argue about.

If you go back a long time, jumping on to the diamond to celebrate was as common in baseball as it is now after the home college football team wins.

For example, in the Merkle’s Boner game at the Polo Grounds in September 1908, the New York Giants fans rushed onto the field when the winning run was driven in against the visiting Chicago Cubs of Tinkers to Evers to Chance fame. So, Giants rookie Fred Merkle on first base didn’t bother running to second. Instead, he turned and left the field to get away from the enthusiastic fans. The clever Cubs saw this and appealed to the umpire, who declared the game a tie. When the Giants and Cubs finished the regular season tied for first, the game had to be replayed after the regular season, with the Cubs winning the pennant.

Here’s a colorized version of the walk-off winning hit in the 7th game of the 1924 World Series in Washington D.C.:

But, the crowd on the field in 1924 was apparently orderly and just wanted to shake their heroes’ hands. (Early 20th Century Americans were really into shaking hands, such as in the long-lived tradition that the President would shake hands with anybody and everybody on New Year’s Day. On January 1, 1907, Teddy Roosevelt shook hands with 8,513 people. This Presidential tradition died out during FDR’s first term, perhaps due to his being in a wheelchair, or perhaps due to an assassin trying to shoot him just before his inauguration and killing Chicago mayor Anton Cermak instead.)

Here’s the famous footage of Bobby Thomson’s 1951 Shot Heard Around the World to win the National League pennant for the New York Giants at their Polo Grounds:

In 1951 Thomson circled the bases unimpeded by fans. (Written accounts say fans did run onto the field, but they clearly weren’t very numerous at first.)

I wouldn’t be surprised if the peak of American orderliness was in this postwar era.

The next really famous home run after Bobby Thomson in 1951 was Bill Mazeroski’s to win the 1960 World Series for the Pittsburgh Pirates at Forbes Field:

Mazeroski sprinted around the bases. The first fan got to him as he rounded third and then another slapped him on the back as he came home.

Both fans who congratulated Maz are wearing casual working class clothes, as is reasonable in Pittsburgh. In earlier videos, baseball fans tend to be dressed in suit and tie, which may have discouraged exuberance.

Here are the 1969 Miracle Mets winning at New York’s Shea Stadium. The crowd of young Baby Boomer men that rushes the field is aggressive, but joyous:

But fans got crazier in the 1970s. Here’s Chris Chambliss hitting the pennant winning homer at New York’s Yankee Stadium in 1976 and pretty much having to fight his way around the bases as a mob tries to steal his batting helmet for a souvenir:

This is like a scene from a movie about how dystopian New York was in the 1970s. The vibe is scarier than in earlier examples.

The next year, 1977, Reggie Jackson famously hit three homers in the final game of the World Series, then put on a memorable display of open field running, flattening at least two fans while escaping with his hat:

And then there was radio DJ Steve Dahl’s 1979 “Disco Demolition Night” at Comiskey Park on the blue collar South Side of Chicago:

Disco Demolition Night might have been the turning point.

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