Damn Yankees and Faust

Pursue those dreams, kid

The story of Faust and the story of Joe Boyd, are two stories about the same event that so many men experience when they turn 50ish: the middle age crazies. These two guys illustrate a problem that I think is more, or less, a modern problem, even though the two events, their stories, take place four hundred years apart.

I hear your question. Who is Faust and who is Joe Boyd?

If you’ve never read the story of Faust, I’ll give you the short version. Faust is a German story, about a professor, who is quite successful. However, once he enters middle age, he has that feeling that he has accomplished nothing. We refer to that feeling as Middle Age Crazy. You know what I’m talking about, when a man buys a red sports car and hooks up with a younger woman.

Women don’t get into the crazies like guys do. Though the wives that get dumped may max out the credit cards on Botox injections, and a tummy tuck. Not for revenge, but to assuage the sorrow of abandonment.

Faust wanted the young woman, but there were no red sports cars back in his day. Gold was his expression of youth. A better choice, if you ask me. Faust, to get what he wanted, made a pact with the Devil. The price he paid was his soul, aka, eternal damnation for a few months of pleasure.

The first story on Faust originated in Germany in the late 16th century. Once Christopher Marlowe got a hold of it, he wrote a play, which was a big hit. Other writers, and composers, rendered their versions. Writers like Goethe and composers like Gounod. They too had big hits. Which means the story resonates with human beings.

In America, Jerry Ross, Richard Adler and George Abbott were a part of the team that wrote the musical version, Damn Yankees. The Faustian character in this American tale is an insurance salesman by the name of Joe Boyd. Joe is frustrated that his favorite team, the Washington Senators, are losing, badly, to the Yankees. Joe is sitting in his “chair,” every bit the guy who is passed his younger self, but is comfy in a nice middle class home. He has a wife to worry about his emotional outbursts against the Yankees. At one point, disappointed to the point of desperation, he utters those forbidden words, “I’d sell my soul…” and then leaves the room, to cool off on his front porch.

Out on his porch, the Devil, Mr. Applegate, waits for him. This devil is not your scary looking being with red eyes, and all that. No, Ray Walston’s devil is a rather fast talking salesmen type. He reminds Joe that at one time, he, Joe, was a fine ball player. But of course, that was decades back. And then the bargaining begins, together with the temptation of having the chance to be young again, and save the Senators from defeat by the Yankees.

It is too much, this temptation. The bargain is sealed with a promise that the Senators will win the pennant if Joe agrees to sell his soul. However, Joe, being a salesman himself, negotiates the “escape clause,” meaning Joe has an out, if he cares to exercise the clause, but must do so before midnight on September 24.

Joe is turned back into his 20 year-old self. He plays extremely well, so he is signed by the Senators. The glitch is, Joe misses home and his wife. The devil cannot have that. He introduces Joe to the femme fetale, the “Helen of Troy” of 20th Century America: Lola. The character is famous for the song, “Whatever Lola wants, Lola gets,” except she doesn’t get what she wants. Joe was a new kind of customer for Lola. She fails. The Devil fails. The Senators win the pennant. And Joe, returned to his middle aged self, asks his wife to forgive him for abandoning her.

The big difference between Faust and Joe is corruption. Joe is not corrupt. He didn’t dream of riches, or women. He dreamed that his favorite team would win. That’s where the Devil failed. That is how he gets played for a chump.

The archetype, of the man who has a comfortable life, but is dissatisfied with the results of his choices, is the symbol of the desperate man who feels his life is slipping away. He gets caught up in the , “..if only.” They are anxious to find a way back and do it over again. To make different choices. To not play it safe. The hot, young female is a token of youth, an effort to turn himself back. Finally, the man in him tells the youth in him, to go for it, finally he has the self-confidence to pursue the Big Dream.

The best a guy can do without the Devil to perform the magic trick of stripping away all those years, is for a guy to get the younger woman. Except that the younger woman cannot give the older man youth. She can only feed the illusion. Joe Boyd as Joe Hardy, with his old soul inside that young body-another archetype-understands this. He has no need for the cool car because he has a cool baseball career, the one he should have had in his youth.

The archetype, of the old soul inside a young body, is what saves Joe. His foray into sin was for a cause other than his own. He brought joy to others whenever he hit one out of the park. Which makes me label his side trip a hero’s journey. His teacher, his guide, was the Devil himself. And why not? We can learn much from the dark side.

Both stories, Damn Yankees, and Faust, are cautionary tales. They warn us that we get only one shot at this thing called life. We cannot relive parts of it. We cannot go back to have the things we wanted. The young woman, the fast car, are out of context to our lives in maturity. Just like youth itself, they are fleeting.

That archetype of the young person with the old soul is an ideal. The old soul will understand that it is better to follow the trajectory of our bliss when young. And, as Joseph Campbell advised, to not worry about the money, because walking a steady path is what counts. Recall, it took Amazon and Jeff Bezos a good ten years to be profitable.

The old souls are patient. And incorruptible. And they have wiles, thus is Joe able to extract himself from the contract with the devil. So there is a bit of Odysseus in Joe, which gives him a third archetype.

Joe is not corruptible because he is not for sale. He sells insurance, not himself. He’s not looking for what he cannot be. Young. Too much time has passed, life’s events have run through Joe’s inner life. When Joe accomplishes his mission, his hero’s journey, he returns home. His wife, Meg, is waiting for him. Her archetype is that of Penelope, Odysseus wife. Knowing and understanding, that Joe/Odysseus, will come home. She has faith, and generosity. And a husband that returns to her.

The takeaway for parents is to allow our children to grow in experience which enlarges their souls. Each individual needs to figure out their life. As moderns, we live much longer than our ancestors, so finding out who we are and what we are actually capable of accomplishing, is the gold Faust needed. It is better for a kid who dreams of a life in baseball, to find out early on whether or not he has it. It is the dreams that are not pursued that corrupt us, and make us fodder for the devils.