Beisbol Mural
15th July 2008
To make your own, go to http://www.wordle.net.
My 4th of July Can Beat Up Yours
4th July 2008
Happy Birthday, America!I know you have been waiting to hear my thoughts about freedom, the pursuit of happiness, laws and lawgivers, and baseball. So here goes my July 4th homily. I’ve got to get this done in hurry so we can get our Christmas in July tree decorated so those boys down the road can blow it up with their unsafe and illegal fireworks. (That’s freedom, and The Man is not going to tell them what to do!)
Baseball or Freedom? There is no choice.
- Dad
Let’s start with baseball–and if I end up running out of time before I get to those other Very Important Topics, I apologize. But what would you rather hear about? My love of baseball, or my deep, moving reflections on “the American experiment”? I thought as much.
All you need to know is that baseball exemplifies all the best traits of American life, American dreams, American hospitality. Everyone is welcome to the Baseball Table–color, nationality, ethnicity, height, width, accent, language–and everywhere baseball is played professionally, there is prosperity and a solid middle-class. Look at any major league team: all sorts of folks, speaking all sorts of tongues, and all for one cause: to thrill me. That’s America.
Take last night’s D-backs game. Ninth inning, down 5 runs to the Brewers. Ladies and Gentlemen–-Chad Tracy. Game over, and. . . well, it’s the American dream–underdog, nowhere, hero, you get the plot.
Why is America great? Because it fought off the British in 1776 and 1812? Because it survived a civil war in 1865? Because it gave women the vote in 1920? Because we landed several men on the moon over several years with great technology, and had some really good programming about it on HBO produced by Tom Hanks, of Big fame, and Steven Spielberg, who is doing the new Indy movie? No, no, and no. And no. Because of Baseball. Beisbol, man, Baseball. And DirecTV. Baseball helped create the civil rights movement and introduced us to Jackie Robinson. Tell me the last time the NFL liberated a whole country!
So as you reflect on the relative merits of freedom, civilization, and eating more hot dogs than anyone should, think not about abstract concepts like “democracy” or “habeas corpus,” but about the concrete, unassailable reality of Baseball, how it warms the heart, how it cures the soul and the soil, how it saves the day.
Happy 4th o’ July, Family, Friends, and Total Strangers. Go Astros! and Go Indians. Spread baseball to the other continents and galaxies. They need hope too!
–Your Friendly Neighborhood Interpreter of Culture and Eternity
Earl Weaver-isms
25th June 2008
Weaver managed the Baltimore Orioles in their glory days with Brooks and Frank Robinson. Here are some of his choice quotations, which suggest why he probably couldn’t manage today.
“A manager should stay as far away as possible from his players. I don’t know if I said ten words to Frank Robinson while he played for me.”
“Bad ballplayers make good managers, not the other way around. All I can do is help them be as good as they are.”
“Coaches are an integral part of any manager’s team, especially if they are good pinochle players.”
“I don’t think, in all the years I managed them, I ever spoke more than thirty words to Frank (Robinson) and Brooks Robinson.”
”It’s what you learn after you know it all that counts.”
“Nobody likes to hear it, because it’s dull, but the reason you win or lose is darn near always the same.”
“No one’s gonna give a damn in July if you lost a game in March.”
“On my tombstone just write, ‘The sorest loser that ever lived.’”
“The job of arguing with the umpire belongs to the manager, because it won’t hurt the team if he gets thrown out of the game.”
“The key step for an infielder is the first one, to the left or right, but before the ball is hit.”
“The key to winning baseball games is pitching, fundamentals, and three run homers.”
“The only thing that matters is what happens on the little hump out in the middle of the field.”
“This ain’t a football game, we do this every day.”
“We’re so bad right now that for us back-to-back home runs means one today and another one tomorrow.”
“You can’t sit on a lead and run a few plays into the line and just kill the clock. You’ve got to throw the ball over the damn plate and give the other man his chance. That’s why baseball is the greatest game of them all.”These are courtesy of Richard Justice’s June 25 Astros blog.
Bobblecity, USA
24th June 2008
A disturbing look at new trends in suburban living, reflected in these two flattering self-portraits.
The Final Season: A Late Review
21st June 2008
When I posted my Top Ten Baseball Movies, I had not yet seen The Final Season. Let’s say, in view of that list, this one should be batting ninth.
This is a quiet, little prize of a small-town baseball movie “like they used to make.” It has no tricks up its sleeve, tells its story straightforwardly with almost no suspense, and yet succeeds because it has no pretensions about being anything except a celebration of what baseball “means” (or used to) in nonsuburban America. It is set in the non-mythical town of Norway, Iowa, which had won 12 straight baseball championships in the smallest division (19 in all).
Like Hoosiers, a superior film to this one, it focuses on all the reasons we want to believe a small town and a small school is better for raising a family. Sean Astin (who executive produces) plays the second-hand coach who steps in when the legendary coach steps aside because of a school board dispute that will merge little Norway with the larger Madison school district, effectively ending Norway High’s identity as a baseball team. The compromise is one, last season; the movie implies Astin’s character is hired because it is presumed his team will lose—and that will make the merger easier to swallow. His team will have a say about that.
Not surprisingly, it had almost no theatrical release and I knew of it primarily because last summer it showed up featured as a click-per-view ad on ESPN’s MLB site. It finally showed up as a download for my AppleTV and I had an enjoyable evening absorbing its anti-ironic narrative unfold, with its angry town meetings, its skeptical barber shop conversations, its dad-who-is-too-sick-to-be-at-the-big-game-but-comes-anyway, and its gentle way of reminding that baseball is not a sport for giants, and even a diminutive kid can get the big hit. It’s from the director of another nice baseball movie, The Sandlot. And both could be rented in one evening for quite a double bill. You don’t have to love baseball to enjoy these films, but it helps.
This review was originally posted at The Pseudobook Review.
Re-Forecasting 2008
16th June 2008
Ok, I get it. The Indians aren’t going to win the AL Central this year. But they could steal a wild card from Tampa Bay There’s a lot of season left. Who thought the Rockies would be in the World Series last year? So, it’s a real toss-up about final positions but I think I got the finalists right after watching about 200 baseball games already this year, though the only ones in person were in Cincinnati and our Astros took both games. Ok, I promise this is my next-to-last forecast of the year. I will try again August 15, 2008, just before we head to Kenya.
AL EAST
- Boston
- Tampa Bay
- New York
- Toronto
- Baltimore
AL CENTRAL
- Chicago
- Cleveland
- Detroit
- Minnesota
- Kansas City
AL WEST
- Oakland
- Anaheim
- Texas
- Seattle
NL EAST
- Philadelphia
- Florida
- Atlanta
- NY Mets
- Washington
NL CENTRAL
- Chicago
- Milwaukee
- St Louis
- Houston
- Pittsburgh
- Cincinnati
NL WEST
- Arizona
- LA Dodgers
- San Diego
- Colorado
- San Francisco
And the Cubs suffer for another millenium.
To Take Your Mind off of June Swoon
7th June 2008
Here’s a fun article on baseball park foods. On the other hand, the Indians and Astros both won on the same night yesterday and we had a thunderstorm that knocked out our electricity for a few minutes. What is God saying?
The June Swoon
30th May 2008
Every team you care about has a lull, a swoon, a demented portion of the season when offense doesn’t match with defense, vice-versa, or both at once.
The Indians took their June swoon in May. The Astros at the start, but have rallied. Cleveland needs to recover fast and the only good news is that they are in a weak division.
The Astros have to find more pitching. Wandy can only pitch at home and Roy gives up too many runs in the first inning. But Jack Cassell is back, Dave Borkowski is designated for assignment, and Brian Moehler has recovered lost youth. Still time to win, with Miguel, Lance, Lee, and Hunter around.
Meanwhile, it’s a time to pick up just activated rookies for your fantasy team. And so I have Evan Longoria, Jay Bruce, and Clayton Kershaw.
