The Natural 729The film version has Hobbs coming through
with a prodigious home run to win, but the novel
has a beaten Hobbs walking away, his reputation
ruined by the rumors of his throwing the game, even
though he tried his best in the end.
Ronald C. Thomas, Jr.
ethicS in The Natural
Ethical behavior can be described as a balancing
act performed on a sliding scale between two fixed
values, the ethics of aspiration and the ethics of
obligation. Aspiration is the higher point, the striv-
ing to be the best a person can be, to do the right
thing, regardless of cost. Obligation is the lower, the
meeting of the minimum requirement for proper
behavior. Anything falling short of obligation lies in
the area of unethical behavior.
In Bernard Malamud’s The Natural, baseball
player Roy Hobbs inhabits a world where many
of the characters fall short of ethical behavior, and
Hobbs learns what that can cost him as a player and
as a man. Hobbs is one of the most gifted baseball
players of all time, coming up as a young man in the
pre–World War II Golden Era of American sports,
crossing paths with a character who is a clear hom-
age to Babe Ruth. Hobbs is himself a combination
of Ted Williams and Bob Feller, a pure hitter who
can also throw a blazing fastball. Just as he is about
to get a shot at the Major Leagues, Hobbs is shot
by a deranged female fan. The bulk of the novel tells
the story of his attempt to return to the game he
loves as a middle-aged, unknown rookie.
The first ethical problem presented is the very
idea of whether an older player should even get a
shot at playing pro ball. When 34-year-old Hobbs
arrives at the fictional New York Knights practice,
the manager, Pop Fisher, says Hobbs belongs in
an old folks’ home, not a big league ball park.
However, Hobbs has a contract signed by the team
owner and chief scout so he has to get a chance to
play. This addresses the issue of age in pro sports,
where older players with proven track records
are sent away to make more salary cap room for
younger and less expensive players. When eco-
nomics and demographics outweigh on-the-field
ability, the system is no longer based on merit and
becomes unethical.
A second ethical problem surrounds the profit
motive in pro sports when compared to the will
to win. The year before Hobbs joined the Knights,
Pop Fisher was forced to sell part of his shares in
the team to the new majority shareholder, Judge
Banner. In an effort to bring down the value of
the team and force Pop to give up the rest of his
shares, the Judge has forced a variety of profitable
but uncompetitive transactions on the Knights. A
34-year-old left fielder may have been one more
way to turn the Knights into a cellar-dweller in the
standings, but Banner has not reckoned on Hobbs’s
undiminished skills as a player. Again, this parallels
modern pro baseball, where the Florida Marlins
twice dismantled their roster after winning World
Series in 1997 and 2003; and a generation before,
the Oakland Athletics did the same thing in 1975,
after winning three straight World Series. Those
were both decisions of making money rather than
fielding a contending team. The New York Yankees
under George Steinbrenner look like an aberration
because they’ll pay what it costs to put the best pos-
sible team on the field.
The third and largest ethical problem in the
novel is players on the take, accepting payoffs
to throw games—hearkening to real-life and the
infamous Chicago “Black Sox” scandal of 1919,
when several White Sox players conspired to lose
the World Series to the Cincinnati Reds. To keep
the Knights down, Banner has made deals with
several key players such as outfielder Bump Bailey
and pitcher Al Fowler to make errors or strike out
at key moments to assure the team will not win a
championship. Prior to a deciding game against the
Pirates, the judge offers Hobbs $25,000 to throw
the game. Hobbs negotiates a deal for guaranteed
future money, too, as he needs wealth to keep one
of his love interests in the style to which she has
become accustomed. However, in the course of the
game, Hobbs realizes he must do the right thing and
comes up at a key point late in the game. Unfortu-
nately, like Mighty Casey, he strikes out. The next
day, the newspapers print the rumor that Hobbs was
throwing the game, never knowing that he did try to
redeem himself but failed.
In real life, a child is said to have come up to
Shoeless Joe Jackson, the greatest player on the