GATSBY GOES TO A BASEBALL GAME. Anne Margaret Daniel in this article on the Huffington Post blog (link via RealClearBooks) describes a scene which appeared in early drafts of THE GREAT GATSBY, but was replaced in the published version by the scene in the Plaza Hotel where Ton and Gatsby have their heated argument. Daniel says that in the scene in the draft, “Fitzgerald had Nick, Jordan, Daisy, Tom and Gatsby decide to cool off at the Polo Grounds on…[a]… sweltering day.” While there, Tom and Daisy have a “short fierce argument”.
Some comments: Fitzgerald was a great baseball fan. Despite Tom and Daisy’s fierce argument, Nick Carraway says: “I enjoyed that afternoon… the smell of peanuts, and hot butter and cigarettes mingled agreeably in the air.
Daniel identifies the game in the GATSBY draft as one of a series between the Giants and the Cubs in a September heat wave in 1922 and the “pitcher with an exquisitely eccentric delivery” as Carl Mays.
There was no air conditioning at movies. Daisy doesn’t want to go to the movies because “the movies are too hot.”
And, kids, even outside in a stadium, the smell of cigarette smoke was usually present.