The Celebrant: A Book Review

The Celebrant by Eric Rolfe Greenberg: A Book Review

About a month ago, I realized the inordinate amount of time that I spend reading about sports – and particularly baseball history – and I decided to do something about it. One of the first things I did was look up John Herd Thompson, a professor and historian at Duke University, who teaches "Baseball in Global Perspective" a course that examines the history of baseball as it has affected the development of the countries that play this wonderful game. Professor Thompson is a wonderful and kind man, who graciously met with me to discuss some of our mutual passion for baseball. He has a huge library of books, which makes his office a very comfortable and familiar place. We had an invigorating conversation about baseball and he made quite a few recommendations of resources and books I should read that would pique my interest. Before I left, he told me, "You caught me at a good time in my career – when I am trying to purge part of my massive collection of books." One of the first books he gave me was The Celebrant, by Eric Rolfe Greenberg. He urged me to read this book first. It would get me started.

I must confess that The Celebrant is the first novel I have read in far too long. But there is nothing quite like a really good novel, right? (I hope at least some of you are nodding your heads right now.) This one pulled me in from the Historical Note section, which precedes Chapter 1. The book is about Christy Mathewson, one of the great pitchers of the major leagues. Mathewson won two-thirds of his games and is third on the all-time wins list with 373. His ERA over his career was an astounding 2.13, good for fifth best all time. He won 30 games four times and twenty games thirteen times. He was also considered to be a gentleman of the game – something unique in a time in baseball that is often clouded by scandal and the darker side of human nature. Notably he was part of the "first five" members of Baseball’s Hall of Fame. The other members of the class included Babe Ruth, Ty Cobb, Walter Johnson, and Honus Wagner. Mathewson was a gem. He died of tuberculosis, which he had contracted while serving in World War I, in 1925 at the age of 45.

But The Celebrant is not just about Christy Mathewson. It is also about the impact of gambling and addiction on the national pastime. It is a novel about celebrity, just as much as it is about the celebrities (i.e. Mathewson, Wagner, Tris Speaker, John McGraw). It is a novel about a Jewish immigrant family with a jewelry business that thrives concurrently with the rise of professional baseball as a respectable vocation. It is a novel that reveals the complexities of family and wonders aloud what fame and fortune do to people. Mostly it is a story of relationships.

My two favorite relationships that deepen the book are that between Christy Mathewson and Yakov Kapinski and the relationship between Yakov and his brother Eli. Yakov is an artist and admirer of baseball and Mathewson in particular. In this strangely tender relationship I think we can all relate. Most sports lovers have players that they grew up admiring from afar. And the idea of interacting with them was something we agonized over. Yet equally compelling is the relationship of Yakov and his older brother, Eli Kapinski. What happens between them tests the bonds of family, and can make us all ponder what we would do for those that we love. Their relationship reveals the best, and the worst, of human character.

There are many great moments in this novel, but my favorite interaction between Mathewson and Yakov happens shortly after Mathewson has received a ring from Yakov commemorating a particular occasion of pitching brilliance. Yakov has never met Mathewson but merely admired his work from afar and sent Mathewson a ring he has designed as a gift. They made eye contact at a victory celebration at the Erlanger Theatre:

"Mathewson smiled at me, nodded, and watched as I thought what to do. Certainly I owed him a salute…I took my hands from the railing and began to applaud very quietly; my homage, I hoped, would be a private one. He bowed slightly in acknowledgment, and when he straightened I returned his smile."

Later we learn that Mathewson was actually an admirer of Yakov’s work as an artist and jeweler and keeps his drawings on display in his home; it is a mutual respect between two people at the top of their crafts. In this way, they are the celebrants of each other’s work.

This novel is certainly worth the read. The Celebrant is 272 pages of wonderful prose centered on baseball and relationships: two of my favorite things. This book transcends a book just about sport and pulls you back in history to a much different, yet similar, time. Hasn’t the world always been about relationships? Perhaps it is for another time, but this book has made me ponder what it means to celebrate others that we are in relationship with in our lives. What does it mean to be "the celebrant" of someone else’s work and achievements? It is very counter-cultural, right?