An interview with Charles M Schulz Museum curator and author Benjamin Clark

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Beyond being the creator of what is essentially the most successful comic strip of all time, Peanuts cartoonist Charles Schulz was also a serious baseball fan, growing up playing in a vacant lot in St. Paul and becoming a fan of the San Francisco Giants in adulthood.

To celebrate the 75th anniversary of Peanuts, I reached out to Benjamin L. Clark, the author of Charles M. Schulz: The Art and Life of the Peanuts Creator in 100 Objects and the curator of the Charles M. Schulz museum, to chat Charles Schulz’s love of sports, Charlie Brown’s favorite baseball player, and the connection between Willie Mays and the Peanuts animated films.

What was Charles Schulz’s connection to baseball?

Charles Schulz grew up playing vacant lot baseball in St. Paul, Minnesota. “In those days, we didn’t have Little League,” he’d say. Born in late 1922, he was a child of the Great Depression. In a 1971 interview, he described it, "We played on vacant lots, with baseballs that had the covers knocked off and had been taped up with black electrical tape. We used old cracked bats. We played from the early cold days of spring until football season in the fall. I remember I was always disappointed when the kids brought the footballs out, because I liked baseball much better than football."

One summer, an older teen was hired by the city parks department to run a tournament of sorts, organizing the city’s various neighborhood teams, and that was a huge highlight for young Schulz. He said Charlie Brown’s team losing 40-0 was a real story from his childhood. He loved baseball, and would attend minor league Minneapolis Millers and St. Paul Saints games when he could. In the Schulz Museum archives are snapshots of him playing baseball with friends at Fort Campbell, while he was stationed there with the 20th Armored Division during World War II.

When Schulz moved to Sonoma County in 1958, just over an hour north from the Giants' new home in San Francisco that same year, he started following the Giants, attending many games, meeting Willie Mays, and many more greats from those years. The Giants even hosted a Charlie Brown Day in 1964 as part of a fundraiser for the United Way. Schulz coached his sons’ Little League teams for a couple of years and even drew delightful covers for a few programs for the Sebastopol Little League. And, as a cartoonist, he liked baseball. He also loved hockey, but baseball was more given to characters being able to stand around and talk to each other in the middle of a game, which is probably why there are more baseball strips than any other sport in Peanuts.

How has the Schulz Museum engaged with the history of baseball and Schulz?

The Schulz Museum has held a couple of different exhibitions about baseball over the years, as well as a traveling exhibition that went all over the U.S., including Cooperstown, NY, to the Baseball Hall of Fame. But, there is no baseball-centered exhibition on the museum’s schedule at this time, but we’ll definitely come back to it in the future. Many of our regular exhibitions feature baseball strips, including the exhibition that just opened and runs to November, “Memorable Moments,” which features a case of original Peanuts baseball strips.

Charles Schulz used the strip to speak about Title IX. Can you tell me a little about that?

As a father of three girls and two boys, all active in sports growing up through the 1950s and 1960s, he would have seen how boys sports and girls sports were treated and funded differently. Schulz took his support for women athletes off the funny pages and into his personal life, especially after Schulz met tennis great Billie Jean King in the 1970s, he became involved with the Women’s Sports Foundation by serving on their board of directors. He also personally funded a women’s tennis tournament. And, yes, in 1979, he brought public attention specifically to the issue of equality in women’s sports with a 12-day Peanuts storyline starring Peppermint Patty and Marcie about Title IX, the 1972 legislation banning gender discrimination in schools, in academics and athletics.

Seven years after Title IX, there was very little progress to improve matters, and he talked about it very plainly to his readers in those strips.

Obviously, Peanuts famously has Lucy pulling the football away from Charlie Brown before he’s able to kick it. Charlie Brown’s team similarly never wins, except they did…once? What do you feel about that twist?

Fine? There’s a few good things that happen to Charlie Brown along the way, but they’re always snatched away by the end of the storyline when he discovers the pitcher was going easy on him in a misguided attempt to stir his affections, or the time his team was caught up in a gambling scandal. You’ll find that Charlie Brown’s teams, and especially Charlie Brown himself never *really* wins. There are times when it seems like it for a moment, but it’s snatched away eventually.

There’s a story about how a Willie Mays documentary led to the Peanuts television specials. Can you tell me a little about that?

Lee Mendelson was the producer of the Willie Mays documentary from 1963, “A Man Named Mays.” He pitched a follow-up to Schulz called, “A Boy Named Charlie Brown.” That was how Mendelson and Schulz met. Schulz had seen the Mays show and was impressed, so he figured it was worth a try. Mendelson came to Sonoma County and shot lots of film of Schulz’s daily life. They brought on Bill Melendez to do a couple very short animated bits with the Peanuts characters, and that was about it. Mendelson could not find a sponsor or distributor for the show, so it was shelved. (A DVD of this show is available through the Schulz Museum gift shop).

Mendelson showed the Schulz documentary in at least one private screening for TV/media/advertising people. One person who saw it was John Allen of McCann-Erickson, and one of his clients was Coca-Cola. A little while later, Peanuts are on the cover of LIFE magazine and Allen called Mendelson to pitch the idea of a Peanuts Christmas TV special sponsored by Coca-Cola. Mendelson agreed to it without consulting Schulz or Melendez, but they quickly got it outlined and approved by Coke, and got to scripting, recording, and drawing. They delivered it in less than five months, and when they were finished with “A Charlie Brown Christmas,” Mendelson and Melendez thought they’d ruined Charlie Brown. CBS agreed, but it was too late to change the programming schedule and out it went – to a 49 share in the Neilson ratings, which means nearly half of all TVs in the US had tuned in, launching Peanuts animation better than anyone could have hoped for.

Are there any quotes of baseball players reacting to appearing in a Peanuts strip?

I *do* have a list of all the baseball players mentioned in Peanuts (there’s *a lot*), but I’ve not gone looking for their reactions, or happen to know off-hand. I do know that Ollie Bejma, a favorite of Schulz’s childhood watching the St. Paul Saints (who also played in the majors a time or two), is mentioned in the Peanuts strip from 2/21/1974 as Snoopy tries to stump Woodstock with some trivia, quizzing his feathered friend about who played shortstop for St. Paul when they won the American Association pennant in 1938 – Woodstock’s answer: Ollie Bejma, which Snoopy admits is correct.

The long-retired Bejma’s local newspaper reached out to him for comment, and about all that was pointed out was that he’d actually played second base that season. Bejma’s daughter said in the article that she was going to write to Mr. Schulz about it, but sadly, it appears there is no letter from her in the Schulz Museum’s archives. However, we do have a couple snapshots from Ollie and Mrs. Bejma’s (sadly unnamed), 45th wedding anniversary celebration from around 1974, which was perhaps included in some related correspondence.

What’s the deal with Joe Shlabotnik? (Also, have y'all considered making Shlabotnik cards?)

I don’t think Schulz ever said where he got the name. I think it was Lee Mendelson, producer of 50 Peanuts network specials and 4 feature films, who had a small obsession with Joe Shlabotnik. He said in every city he visited, he’d always check the phone book for “Shlabotnik” and never found one.

I’d love to have a framed Joe Shlabotnik card on my desk, but he’s traded so often (and sent down and called back up), I don’t think anyone can get a photo of the guy – he’s always on a bus somewhere.

Do you have a favorite Peanuts strip?

They’re all my favorites. It’s a running gag in our museum newsletter that I always have a new favorite strip. For baseball strips, I love when Charlie Brown gets knocked off the mound, I love when Lucy yells, “Hey Manager!”, I love that for a long time Peppermint Patty thinks Snoopy is a funny-looking kid but an amazing shortstop, and I love especially when it rains.

The Charles M. Schulz Museum is located in Santa Rosa, California and is open 11-5 on weekdays (excluding Tuesdays).

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