The Art of Baseball’s Bygone, Boundless Joy

It hasn’t exactly been a great year for Pittsburgh baseball fans. With about a month left in the Major League Baseball season, the Pirates have lost more games than they’ve won. Their rookie phenom shortstop Konnor Griffin is hurt and their brilliant pitcher Paul Skenes is struggling.Still, PNC Park is one of the most gorgeous settings in all of sports. And should you be in the area and be a baseball fan, you’d be wise to take a short road trip to see “Play Ball! The Art of George Sosnak” at the Westmoreland Museum of American Art, in nearby Greensburg.It’s a wonderful exhibit for the dog days of summer, even — especially — if your favorite ball team is having a lousy year.A Pittsburgh native, Sosnak served in World War II before settling in Florida, where he became a baseball umpire, mainly for minor league and spring training games. When he wasn’t calling balls and strikes or working as a baker and corrections officer, Sosnak was teaching himself to be a serious, talented and utterly unique artist.His canvas? The spherical red-stitched baseball itself. The Westmoreland Museum — about 30 miles southeast of Pittsburgh — has collected more than 60 of these dazzling, intricately detailed works, depicting Hall of Famers like Ernie Banks and Carl Yastrzemski, alongside local heroes like Roberto Clemente, Bill Mazeroski and Manny Sanguillen.The results are somewhere between pop art and 1960s Rankin/Bass TV-cartoon animation, bursting with primary colors and unalloyed joy. Many of these eye-popping artworks are so ornate in detail and imagery — including career statistics and full paragraphs — that museum organizers wisely offer visitors magnifying glasses, to fully appreciate the extraordinary detail and enormity of Sosnak’s handheld masterpieces.“Yogi Berra rose from ugly duckling status to full-fledged stardom,” reads one Sosnak ball, dedicated to the great Yankees catcher, who is further described as a “chunky little guy (who) overcame early awkwardness to develop championship class as catcher and hitter.”Another celebrates Hank Aaron, the slugger who broke Babe Ruth’s longtime career home run record. George Sosnak. Photo courtesy The Chrysler Museum of ArtGeorge Sosnak found space for a portrait of the Babe’s cherubic face, atop “Hammerin’” Hank swinging away, all next to a full array of Aaron’s impressive statistics, in a layout familiar to anyone who’s ever seen the back of a baseball card.Perhaps what is most impressive about “Play Ball,” other than Sosnak’s immense detail in small spaces, are its generation-spanning subjects. (Just don’t expect any ball players from this century; Sosnak died at the age of 70 in 1992.)There are greats like Aaron and Berra, who rose to stardom after World War II. Then came the likes of Chicago’s Ernie Banks and Detroit’s Al Kaline in the 1960s, which is also when Sosnak memorialized another slugger who eclipsed Babe Ruth — Roger Maris, with his 61 homers in 1961.Boston icon Carl Yastrzemski’s Triple Crown year of 1968 is celebrated on a ball so dense with words and images you might miss that it depicts the Hall of Famer hitting as well as playing the field.Then it’s onto the dynasties of the swinging 1970s — the long-haired Oakland A’s of Joe Rudi, Gene Tenace and “Catfish” Hunter, and Cincinnati’s “Big Red Machine” of Pete Rose and Tony Perez.As a display about his “artistic process” notes, Sosnak “used India ink pens, a magnifying glass and patience” to sketch “each baseball in black and white before spending hours layering colorful ink to complete the design.”George Sosnak started thousands of artworks, and completed about 800, according to the exhibit. The Westmoreland also displays several unfinished works, which not only provides insight into his process, but also some visual respite from the swirls of layered colors on the completed balls.Not all of Sosnak’s subjects are famous. There’s one ball inspired by the minor-league Cedar Rapids Braves, as well as the Kilgore College Rangerettes cheer squad, who seem to have paid a visit to the ballpark on the day inspiration struck Sosnak.Even fellow umpires get some love from Sosnak, who depicts a colleague alongside the famously argumentative manager Casey Stengel.Just don’t come to the Sosnak exhibit expecting the irony and narrative of, say, Norman Rockwell’s great baseball art, or the more recent stunning realism of Graig Kaidler.George Sosnak’s work is perfectly imperfect, imbued above all else with the boundless enthusiasm of a lifelong fan, and nostalgia of a grown-up kid. This is most evident in two large posters — of Clemente and Berra — magnified from separate balls.‘Elroy Face ties Walter Johnson’s 41 year old record,’ by George Sosnak, 1968- 70. India ink on manufactured baseball. Photo by Ed Pollard, Chrysler Museum of ArtThe portraits may hover somewhere between abstract and inexpert, yet they ultimately overwhelm viewers with a joy and verve matching each of the players’. Sosnak’s “methods reflect the spirit of American folk art creative expression,” an exhibit display reads, “driven by devotion rather than convention.”One of the more poignant works here is not on a ball, but a 1991 envelope marking the 50th anniversary of the epic race between the Joe DiMaggio and Ted Williams to hit .400.Williams, in ‘41, hit .406. No one has done it since 1941 was the final summer before the U.S. entered World War II. DiMaggio and Williams — like Sosnak himself — not only went off to serve, but did so for three years. Can you imagine today’s premier athletes doing the same?Ultimately, “Play Ball! The Art of George Sosnak” taps into decades of bygone summer memories that generations of baseball fans may not even know they had.“Play Ball! The Art of George Sosnak” runs through April 4, 2027 at the Westmoreland Museum of American Art, Greensburg, PA.

The Art of Baseball’s Bygone, Boundless Joy

The Art of Baseball’s Bygone, Boundless Joy

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