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| 1 | +NARRATOR: There are two sides to every story. The National Broadcasting Company presents the vivid drama of life itself. Broadcasting's original program of mediation, The Court of Human Relations. And now, the man who has familiarized millions of people with the idea of mediation helped to make it a creative force in American life: A. L. Alexander. |
| 2 | +ALEXANDER: The baseball fan is a peculiarly American phenomenon. And while it is generally known that the influence of the national pastime on family life is considerable, here is an issue for mediation suggesting that the raucous call of the umpire's play ball can or may exercise an even greater influence on male habits of life than the mating call. Now, this issue as to what is reasonable in this case is submitted for hearing and settlement to an impartial board with the parties to disagreement agreeing to abide by the decision. In this case we can't guarantee it. Our board consists of three key personalities in American life. Fannie Hurst is one of the few persons I know who is in the very midst of an active and highly successful career and at the same time is in a position to enjoy being one of our very colorful legends. Dr. Ralph Emerson Davis is a veteran mediator. Skilled and self-reliant judgment is his particular forte. And Dr. Robert J. McCracken is the renowned pastor of New York's famed Riverside Church. Now, I think it's only fair to state, Miss Hurst and gentlemen, that the only mediator with a baseball background here is Dr. Davis. Fannie Hurst admittedly knows very little about baseball and Dr. McCracken, native of Scotland, knows a great deal more, I think, about their national spectator sport, soccer. But since the essential issue is not how much baseball this respondent party knows, but the extent to which his interest is reasonable, everything considered, and for such a purpose, this board is, I believe, ideal because it is completely unprejudiced, and that is the principle behind mediation. Now, here is the complainant. |
| 3 | +COMPLAINTANT: Mr. Alexander, do you think that anyone should allow a hobby to influence his whole life, his entire existence and his temperament? And should his disposition be dependent upon a baseball? I'm a girl nineteen years old and three years ago I met this fellow and he seemed to have had everything in looks and personality that a girl would want. He came to my home, my folks liked him very much and later on we became engaged. Recently, our engagement was broken and the reason I've come here is to have the board mediate whether I'm wrong and if I am wrong I'd like them to tell me so. Just because a person is a fan, does that mean that his entire life should be ruined by it and should a person's entire life be influenced by baseball? |
| 4 | +ALEXANDER: Well, now we'd like to ask you, just so we understand exactly what we're mediating, do we understand that there's a possibility of an adjustment as made by this young man of resuming the engagement? |
| 5 | +COMPLAINTANT: Yes, there is. |
| 6 | +ALEXANDER: But only in case there is an adjustment. |
| 7 | +COMPLAINTANT: Definitely. |
| 8 | +ALEXANDER: And we'd like to ask this question, didn't you know when you met him and during the course of the beginning of the association that he was an enthusiastic baseball fan? |
| 9 | +COMPLAINTANT: Yes, I knew he had a normal interest in the sport but I didn't know to what extent. |
| 10 | +ALEXANDER: And what extent was he interested in it? |
| 11 | +COMPLAINTANT: Well, it wasn't any longer a normal like of the sport, it was an obsession with him. |
| 12 | +ALEXANDER: Well, suppose you give us an example. |
| 13 | +COMPLAINTANT: Well, for example, on our dates it would invariably turn into a session of talking about baseball players and whenever he came to my house during the baseball season we would watch the games, and even if the games were called on account of rain he would just sit in front of the television set until the games started again. He'd just sit watching the rain drops fall on the field. |
| 14 | +ALEXANDER: Despite the fact that you wanted him to do other things? |
| 15 | +COMPLAINTANT: Yes. |
| 16 | +ALEXANDER: Well, you say he came to your home for dates and I assume you had various programs arranged of various people. Give us an example of what went on during one of these dates, even when he was alone with you. |
| 17 | +COMPLAINTANT: Well, we would begin, you know, start a conversation and we'd start talking about baseball. It seemed it always got around to baseball. And we had a sort of a game of his giving me the name, the nickname of a famous player and I'd have to fill in the last name and I'd have to spell the names of the players and when we went to the movies he would be very nervous and fidgety and he'd always walk out giving me an excuse he had to leave for a few minutes and I knew that he had gone to find out the results of a game. |
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