the baseball as a link to the world

In Ernest Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea, baseball is far more than a pastime for the aging fisherman Santiago; it is a lifeline to the world beyond his skiff, a repository of heroic ideals, and a subtle measure of cultural and economic connection between his Cuban village and the United States. From the opening pages to the final moments of his ordeal, the game provides a shared language with the boy Manolin, a standard of excellence embodied by the great DiMaggio, and a thread of normalcy that Santiago clings to even as he is towed far out to sea. The sport functions as a symbolic system through which Santiago interprets his own struggle, measuring his pain and endurance against the legendary bone spur of his hero, and it ultimately underscores the chasm between his epic, private battle and the indifferent, tourist-driven world that encounters only its skeletal remains.

Baseball as a Shared Language and Ritual

Baseball is the primary medium of conversation between Santiago and Manolin, a ritual that sustains their bond even when the old man cannot fish. On the evening before his great voyage, Santiago reads yesterday's newspaper—a gift from Perico at the bodega—to follow the baseball scores, and he confidently declares, "The Yankees cannot lose." Manolin, in turn, engages him in a playful debate about the teams, expressing fear of the Cleveland Indians and the Detroit Tigers, while Santiago insists on faith in the Yankees and the great DiMaggio. This exchange is not mere chatter; it is a ceremony of hope and continuity. When the boy brings supper from Martin, the Terrace owner, the first thing he asks Santiago to do is "tell me about the baseball." Santiago happily reports on the American League, and the two discuss the relative merits of managers like John J. McGraw and Durocher, as well as the hitting of Dick Sisler. The game provides a safe, familiar ground for their affection, a world of order and known outcomes that contrasts with the uncertainty of the sea. Even the old man's memory of his youth—"When I was your age I was before the mast on a square rigged ship that ran to Africa and I have seen lions on the beaches in the evening"—is set against the boy's request to talk about baseball, showing how the sport anchors their present relationship.

The Great DiMaggio as a Personal Myth

For Santiago, the great DiMaggio is not merely a baseball star but a personal symbol of grace under pressure, a model for how a man should endure pain and perform his duty. Santiago repeatedly invokes DiMaggio during his struggle with the marlin, using the player's legendary bone spur as a benchmark for his own suffering. "I must be worthy of the great DiMaggio who does all things perfectly even with the pain of the bone spur in his heel," he tells himself, and later wonders, "Do you believe the great DiMaggio would stay with a fish as long as I will stay with this one? I am sure he would and more since he is young and strong." This internal dialogue transforms DiMaggio into a secular saint, a figure whose excellence is defined by overcoming physical limitation. Santiago even imagines taking DiMaggio fishing, noting that "they say his father was a fisherman. Maybe he was as poor as we are and would understand." This fantasy collapses the distance between the fisherman and the hero, suggesting that Santiago sees in DiMaggio a kindred spirit—a man who, like himself, has risen from humble origins through skill and will. After killing the marlin, Santiago thinks, "I think the great DiMaggio would be proud of me today. I had no bone spurs. But the hands and the back hurt truly." The comparison is not boastful but aspirational; DiMaggio's imagined approval validates Santiago's own heroism.

A Link to the World Beyond the Skiff

Baseball also serves as Santiago's primary connection to the broader society and its news, a thread that ties his solitary existence to the rhythms of the village and the nation. On the Terrace, the fishermen discuss the current and the weather, but Santiago's mind is on the game. He reads the newspaper, and when Manolin asks about the baseball, he is eager to share his knowledge. Even at sea, alone and exhausted, he thinks of the radio on rich men's boats that "bring them the baseball," and he wishes he had one to know "how the baseball came out in the grand leagues today." The sport is a comfort and a distraction, a way to keep his mind clear during the long, painful hours. After the sharks have destroyed the marlin, Santiago's thoughts return to baseball as one of the few things he has left: "I must think, he thought. Because it is all I have left. That and baseball." The game represents a world of order, competition, and shared meaning that stands in stark contrast to the chaotic, elemental struggle of the sea. It is a cultural currency that Santiago can still spend, even when his physical resources are exhausted.

The Contrast with the Tourists' Misunderstanding

The final, ironic deployment of baseball's symbolic power comes in the story's closing scene, where the sport's absence underscores the failure of the outside world to comprehend Santiago's achievement. A party of tourists at the Terrace looks down at the water and sees the marlin's skeleton—"a great long white spine with a huge tail at the end that lifted and swung with the tide." A woman asks a waiter what it is, and he replies, "Tiburon... Shark." The woman then remarks, "I didn't know sharks had such handsome, beautifully formed tails," and her male companion agrees. These tourists, who have no connection to the village's fishing culture or to the baseball talk that binds Santiago and Manolin, see only a curiosity, a piece of garbage. They are utterly incapable of reading the skeleton as the monument to an epic struggle that it is. The waiter's simple, inaccurate explanation—"Shark"—reduces the marlin to a generic predator, erasing the specific identity and the story of the old man who fought it. This moment of misrecognition is the final, bitter proof that the world Santiago has left behind, the world of the Terrace and the baseball talk, is not equipped to honor what he has done. The link that baseball provided—a shared language of heroes and games—is broken when confronted with the raw, unmediated reality of the marlin's bones. The tourists see a shark; Manolin, who knows the truth, weeps. The baseball that once connected Santiago to his community now only highlights the gulf between his private, heroic ordeal and the public's inability to perceive it.