Backstage at the Softball Game


Sasha Lenow

    Our daily interactions with others require us to present our own sense of identity to the world.  However, Erving Goffman suggests that we are always shifting the manner in which we identify our “self” depending upon the social situation that requires our participation (Class Notes, April, 2005). As George Herbert Mead argues, “What we have here is a situation in which there can be different selves, and it is dependant upon the set of social reactions that is involved as to which self we are going to be” (Mead, 247: 1999).  Goffman urges a more detailed examination of these interactions by observing more carefully, on a micro level, how each person presents in different social situations.  As such, I have applied Goffman’s techniques to the social drama of the Skidmore Softball Team during the spring season, 2005, with a focus on the travel to and during games.  Goffman’s dramaturgical theory becomes relevant for the actions of individuals and the team, as well as for the front and back stages, pertaining to the sociological interactions that occur in the two spaces.
    A fundamental principle in Goffman theory is the differentiation between the front and back stages of social interaction (Class Notes, April 2005).  Goffman argues that people react in very different ways depending upon the social interaction that is required and that individuals alter their own presentation of “self” in these different situations. In my observation, the softball game was the front stage, while the bus ride to and from each game the back stage.  By observing social interactions at practices, games, and bus rides, I was able to see how people’s roles shifted from setting to setting, and how Goffman’s concepts of the front and back stages are illustrated.
     “What time is it?” Our captain shouts from the dugout, and we anxiously respond, “game time.”  It is a Thursday afternoon and we have just traveled through the meandering roads of Vermont getting ready to play a double-header. It had been a long trip to the game, and the hours on the bus allowed for a casual conversation about the stress of balancing academics with sports.  These conversations revealed no hierarchy of captain to player but simple expressions of concern among young women struggling to meet the high expectations of professors.  However, as soon as we stepped of the bus and onto the field, our individual insecurities were subverted to an unspoken but collective recognition that we were The Skidmore Softball Team, and we were ready to face any challenge as a team. Gathering our equipment and moving toward or positions, our matching green and gold uniforms aided in our transformation from individuals to team player.  While still accepted individual roles on this team defined by position and batting order, we were no longer individuals pursuing our own goals, but a team pursuing a common goal.
    The requirement of team unity also obligates each of us to put aside individual insecurity and adopt an air of confidence and control.  The social drama also requires disassociation from individual personal conflicts.  On the bus, individuals move away from the players they care less for and put up social barriers through their posture, eye contact and attention.  During the game, these postures disappear and each player seems stripped of these self-protective behaviors and their words of support and encouragement control their presentation of self. The same supportive presentation can be observed while the team is at bat, listening to each player chanting for teammates saying, “go Stephanie” or “here we go 11.”  Even when a player did poorly, I heard the constant refrain of “nice try,” or “not your pitch” instead of the more common criticism or correction in off field conversation.
    This wonderful and supportive front stage during games instantly dissipates when we step back on to the bus.  We immediately rebuild our personal boundaries and return to our smaller social groups on the bus, where many begin to make phone calls to talk about the game, do work, sleep, or gather in groups to discuss the game.  While we are still a team, our social interactions off field revert quickly to our more individual personas and the attractions of personalities once again becomes the dominant organizing principle of our interactions. Like Spencer Cahill’s analysis of public bathrooms as a backstage region, the bus becomes a backstage region where we “rest” from outside performances (Cahill et al., 132: 1999).  On the bus, we each take our own seats, reclaiming our individuality, group together near our best friends on the team, and, as the setting changes, our selves change.  This transformation is symbolically completed as we take off our game uniforms and return to our individual choices of daily uniforms and individual expression. Now, with our team masks off, away from the public eye and coach’s gaze, the high backed seats of the bus allow us to hide from selected teammates and protect us from the forced social drama of team spirit.
    Composed of 15 college students, the softball team is full of diversity, whether it be age, background or personality.  While we are clearly individuals in the back stage, and to a certain extent in our respective positions, the team as a whole on the field makes many of these individual differences disappear.  Observing the team dynamic on and off the field, one sees clear examples of how people choose their roles based on a given setting and Goffman’s social-dramatic concepts in action.
    
References

Cahill, Spencer E. 1999. “Meanwhile Backstage: Behavior in Public Bathrooms.”  Pages132-141 in Adler and Adler, Patricia A. and Peter, editors, Sociological Odyssey.  
Belmont, MA: Wadsworth/Thomson Learning

Mead, George Herbert. 1993. “The Self, the I, and the Me.” Pages 243-248 in Charles Lemert, editor, Social Theory. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.



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