Baseball Fever... CATCH IT!

[Sancho]

^yepper!

Baseball is back! Opening day! I love the game. I don't know why. So last year I moved from Atlanta to Seattle, a city with a fine team to a city with a ... well ... not-so-good team. I think I can get behind M's. They suck. I couldn't care less about about the Sea Hawks. They're pretty good. But the Mariners - Hoorah!

Also their AAA club, The Tacoma Rainiers, have a really nice park, and it's close to my house, so El Sancho is now a bona fide Rainiers booster.

[bounty]

wait----you mean the seattle baseball team isn't the pilots?!? when did that happen!!?

[Sancho]

Ha! Ain't that the troof. And so last month I was down in Flat Bush and saw absolutely no sign of the Dodgers, or Ebbets Field, for that matter.

Also despite my characterization of the Bravos as a fine team, I see that they are 0 and 8.

[bounty]

the next thing you know you'll be telling me the polo fields are gone and the giants are no longer in ny either!

I just read a cy young biography a little while ago that I enjoyed.

[Ecurb]

According to a new biography, Ty Cobb wasn't as bad as Al Stump and Ken Burns made him out to be. Stump (who wrote a famous article about the several days he spent working with Cobb on his autobiography) in particular is blasted for making stories up. I haven't read the book yet, but here's a link to an article by the author.

http://imprimis.hillsdale.edu/who-wa...w-thats-wrong/

I do remember that in "The Glory of their Times" several of the old-timers interviews blasted Cobb. However, acc. Leershen, Cobb was less racist than many of his contemporaries (although racist by modern standards), and Stump made up a bunch of stuff about him in this article for "True".

[Sancho]

^ I read it. Ty Cobb, A Terrible Beauty. By Charles Leerhsen.

Good book. Impeccably researched. Very readable, for lifelong fans of the game as well as people who only have an awareness of baseball as that annoying sport that preempts their favorite sitcom sometimes during the fall.

Anyway Leershen does a nice job of undoing the hatchet job done to Cobb by Al Stump. That said, all those things we think we know about Ty Cobb, assumptions we've made, are hard to throw away. But not that hard. Not for me anyway. I'm biased. My first Little-League bat was a Louisville Slugger embossed with Ty Cobb's name. I lived in South Carolina at the time and I'll bet most of our bats were Ty Cobb bats. (Cobb being a southerner, you see)

Besides, Ty Cobb was the first player inducted in to the baseball hall of fame. He got more votes than the Babe. He was the master of inside baseball. Hell, the man invented the Hit-and-Run play. Well, even if he didn't invent it - he perfected it.

As for the Polo Grounds, Bounty, I hear you, man:

Baseball is dead... So, Long Live Baseball!

[tailor STATELY]

Baseball rocks !

Yankees, Giants, A's, & River Cats (AAA) are my teams. Yankees because of my early heroes, Mantle and Maris, when growing up in N.W. Seattle (long before the Pilots and Mariners were conceived - both of which I never warmed up to). Family moved to the Bay Area the year of the Seattle World's Fair... so Giants and A's due to my Bay Area roots: East, West, and South S.F. Bay Area. My father worked with some of the Giants in the off season when player's salaries weren't much to speak of; he played golf with some also - so I got to meet some of them when I caddied. The River Cats are a decent farm club down the hill an hour+ away near Sacramento, and they play some pretty good ball. Ball Four... excellent book - read in my teens when it first came out: Kind of jaded my impressions of some my heroes due to their extracurriculars, but that's life. I wrote a barely passable baseball poem directly after the heated Game 7... 2003 ALCS Yankees/Sox game: "The Curse, revisited... 2003", but hey, it's baseball !

Ta ! (short for tarradiddle),
tailor STATELY

[Ecurb]

Al Stump's "Ty Cobb" was published in 1994. The autobiography he ghost wrote was published in 1961, and his "True" magazine story came out in that same year. "Glory of Their Times" was published in 1966, so Stump's hatchet job on Cobb may have influenced the memories of some of his former teammates and opponents. Nonetheless, here's Davy Jones, Cobb's teammate:

(Sam Crawford) is still one of my best friends. Cobb, though -- he was a complex person -- never did have many friends. Trouble was, he had such a rotten disposition that it was damn hard to be his friend. I was probably the best friend he had on the club..... He antagonized so many people that hardly anyone would speak to him, even among his own teammates.....

Sam Crawford agrees. He claims Cobb was bitter about minor hazing, and never had a sense of humor. In addition, it appears that he was so competitive he'd sulk and fight if he had a bad day. He was even competitive with his teammates: Crawford says that Cobb couldn't stand it when Crawford had a better day at the plate than Cobb did.

Jimmy Austin was the third baseman in the famous picture of Cobb sliding into third base. He has no complaints (but he wasn't a teammate).

My guess: Cobb was so competitive and serious that he couldn't take a joke. Michael Jordan was a little like that, too. He was abusive to his teammates. Apparently Kobe Bryant's teammates didn't like him, either. Still, I wonder how these legends got going (although evidently Al Stump just made some of them up). Sam Crawford, by the way, was the only player to lead both leagues in home runs and triples, and still holds the record for most triples in his career.

[Sancho]

^Oh, he was prickly, no doubt.

Baseball rocks !

T.S.! Welcome. So you've been badly bitten by the baseball bug too, eh? (To much alliteration?) I think I'm starting to enjoy minor league baseball more than the majors.

Now I don't understand all the ins and outs of the farm system. Nobody does. But when you get down into the weeds there is still some really good baseball out there in small town America (I should say in small-town Americas...oh yes, and in Japan too)

Here's a good baseball show (not the big show, but a side show): The Battered Bastards of Baseball. It's on Netflix.

So back in the 70s The Portland Beavers, a AAA club in the Pacific Coast League, wasn't getting the love they needed in Stump Town, so they up and left for Spokane, WA. Seeing an opportunity, and being a huge baseball fan, Bing Russell (former Hollywood actor and father of Kurt Russell) buys into the Northwest League, Class A, Shortened Season, and founds The Portland Mavericks. Now guys playing at this level are probably never going to the majors, and are very likely coming to the end of their playing careers, and are quite possibly playing ball out of pure love of the game. Hoorah! But the benefit of this for a single-A club is that they can build team cohesion, unlike a AAA club that sees players bounce back and forth from the big leagues to the minors for seasoning.

So anyway, for the few years of their existence the Mavericks build a tremendous following in Portland, largely out of the sheer force of personality of Bing.

Great fun. ^I think I got most of that right. And it's free...with a Netflix subscription.

[Sancho]

... I wrote a barely passable baseball poem directly after the heated Game 7... 2003 ALCS Yankees/Sox game: "The Curse, revisited... 2003", but hey, it's baseball !

So, let's hear it.

I seem to remember an assignment in grammar school to write a poem, so I immediately scribbled out a baseball poem. It wasn't even barley passable, and I'm pretty sure I lifted some of it from "Casey at the Bat."

[tailor STATELY]

ok. This was the first year I began writing poetry; my early poetry was pretty rough (now it's just incomprehensible, lol): https://sites.google.com/site/apoetingardenvalley/

The Curse, revisited... 2003

The Rocket against Pedro... Game 7... ALCS!
The New York Yankees at home against Boston's Bosox...
Another classic... what else would you guess ?

But The Rocket was chased, and by the 4th he was gone
Hindered by home runs, one by Millar and two by Trot Nixon
Clemens head down, through the tunnel... a walk too long

Though Jason Giambi was demoted, rightly so, to 7th in order at bat
With two mighty launches of the ball in the 5th and 7th inning
the comeback was alive ! In their seats Bosox fans just sat

Score 5 to 2, bottom of the 8th... Boston leading the Yanks
Jeter doubles to start the rally, then Williams and Matsui get hits
Jorge Posada doubles to clean up, score now 5 to 5, and Torre gives thanks

While the Bronx Bombers chip away, their bullpen, in the past, a disgrace
send a parade of pitchers their way to the mound... biding time
... setting up for Mariano Rivera... their prolific reliever ace

The Bosox boys are now baffled, their swings most untoward
Mariano goes three long masterful innings of relief blanking Boston
His series heroics to soon win him the coveted ALCS MVP award

It's now the 11th, Wakefield's pitching mastery of the Yanks has been most hot
but New York's Aaron Boone swings at Wakefield's first offering...
Jim Bouton might have said: A knuckle-ball's fickle... a walk-off home run is not !!!

There's no joy tonight in Beantown... yes, that's a given
"The ghosts will show up eventually" Jeter confided to Boone
Again... the Mighty Bambino, curse invoked, has arisen

10/16/2003

Ta ! (short for tarradiddle),
tailor STATELY

[bounty]

tailor, that's pretty neat.

you mentioned being a yankee and mantle fan---have you read "the last boy: mickey mantle and the end of America's childhood?" by leavy?

speaking of ty cobb and babe ruth everyone---I read a book a few years ago that talked about their rivalry, and more importantly, their relationship/friendship after their playing days were over. if you can believe it, the main focus of the latter part of the book was their golf playing and a competition they set up between themselves as a charity benefit. it was a pretty good read. "ty and the babe" by Stanton.

and you all mentioning minor league baseball---if you wanna watch a fun movie, try "summer catch." its a romance with Jessica biel (sigh) and Freddie prinze, jr, but baseball is the backdrop and its got a lot of baseball "story" to it. its not as good as the sandlot (one of my all time favorites!) but if you like baseball, and Jessica biel (does anyone not?), its worth watching.

something else about minor league baseball too---just this past year i saw a little documentary about a team who had used (and still do i believe) a couple generations worth of golden retrievers as bat boys. i love animals and found the story very moving.

http://www.nbcphiladelphia.com/news/...214895291.html

[Ecurb]

Isn't Richard Linklater's new movie (Everybody Wants Some) about some college baseball players? I haven't seen it, because it hasn't made it to Eugene yet, but I will go, because I'm a Linklater fan.

I read "The Last Boy" (In the literature forum I started a thread about baseball literature a week or so back). One question: why is it that football has replaced baseball as the American game? I have a couple of theories:

1) Football is a better TV sport; baseball is better in person and in the newspapers. It produces better literature, in terms of journalism, box scores, and books. Since TV has become the dominant media, football rules.

2) Baseball is more international. Americans (see "The Donald") continue to be parochial and xenophobic. I haven't looked up the numbers, but probably 25% or more of major leaguers are Latins, or Japanese, or Korean. Football is all-American. Basketball is becoming international, but not to the extent baseball is. (Hockey, of course, is international even if we count Canada as part of our continent).

3) Baseball is rural, basketball urban, football in between. America is far more urban than it was 100 years ago, and 50 years ago.

By the way, soccer is the best TV sport (I think) mainly because you get 45 minutes without a single commercial.

[bounty]

I have another theory as regards your question ecurb, and while it might seem cynical, I suspect its really not.

if indeed baseball has been replaced by football as "America's pastime"---it speaks to the possibility that we are becoming more like ancient rome in our desire for "bread and circus"---in that regard, football is more gladiatorial.

on a lighter note--have you listened to George carlin's humorous contrast between baseball and football?

[Sancho]

Nice, Tailor. I remember that game now. It all came back to me after reading the first verse. Clemons was off his game that night, out in the 4th.

Donno, guys. I think a lot of those theories have some truth.

Gotta say, though, I've always thought of baseball as an urban rather than a rural sport. And despite the fact that it's expanded across North America and, as you-all said, across the world, I think it's center of gravity is still in NYC: The Bronx, Queens, and (ah-hem) Brooklyn*; and then Boston, Philly, Baltimore, and Detroit, and then everywhere else.

*Try, The Boys of Summer, by Roger Kahn (A little sentimental, but pretty good)

I love that scene in Good Will Hunting where the Robin Williams character uses a baseball reference to connect with the Matt Damon character. The older man is trying to explain to the younger man about lost opportunities and what it means to love a woman. So to drive it home the older man goes to an event he knows they will both connect with: game 6 of the 1975 World Series, Reds vs Bosox, at Fenway, 12th inning Carlton Fisk smacks one down the left-field line, looks like it's going foul, but Fisk waives it, no wills it fair. The ball HITS the foul pole. They're still talking about it Boston.

http://youtu.be/jg_9FQk6UnA

I and a couple of friends got to drinking in an Irish pub in Manhattan a few years back and struck up a conversation with a couple of blue-collar New York-types. Well the conversation eventually worked its way around to baseball. One of the guys said to me, "Aye, you ain't from 'round heyah. Where yous from?" I said, "Atlanta." He said, "Oh yeah. Yous got a baseball team too, eh?" Just drunken bar talk. We had to choose sides on important topics such as the designated hitter rule, stuff like that. Those boys being Yankees fans and us being Braves fans, it wasn't hard to figure what side we took in that argument. Anyway, it was all in good fun. Although it might have gotten ugly if they'd've been Mets instead of Yankees fans, the Mets being natural enemies of the Braves.

Anyhow, baseball and football both involve tactics and strategy, but I've always thought baseball is a more strategic game while football is a more tactical game. Similarly both sports are physical and mental, but where football favors physical prowess, baseball favors mental agility. So does that make football a more visceral sport? A game more given to immediate gratification? I think so. And does that say something about our ever-changing national personality (if there is such a thing)? Again, I think so.

I like the tie-in between football and and the gladiators of Ancient Rome. I also like the Donald Trump reference. The two don't outwardly seem to have a connection. But I think maybe they do. For this I think we've gotta leave Roger Kahn and go to Edward Gibbon. So when we're talking about Ancient Rome, we're talking about Caesar's Rome not Cato's Rome: the Roman Empire not the Roman Republic. When the Romans made Julius Caesar Emperor for life, The Republic became an Empire. They traded citizen control for a strongman. Day-to-day life in Rome was great, and keeping up with the business of the Republic was just too much work, so why not cede control to Caesar, that way they could get back to more important things, like toga parties, orgies, and gladiatorial contests over at the colosseum. Yeah baby! Honestly I see a little of that laziness in Trump supporters ~ let The Donald handle all those barbarians at the gate. He'll kick their asses; build a wall and make them pay for it; just do it, Donald; I've got a six-pack, a king-size bag of Doritos, and a sofa waiting for my keister. Kick-off is in two minutes. See ya.

So anyway, El Sancho prefers baseball.