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Miscellaneous Media: The Washington Senators Official MLB Yearbook (1968)

June 5, 2010 in Misc., Sports | Permalink

The field at D.C. Stadium looked really crappy.

I briefly got my grimy, grubby hands on a baseball yearbook for the 1968 Washington Senators. It cost a buck back in the day. The 1961-1971 Senators (who moved to Texas and became the Rangers after the 1971 season), were a consistently. Although the yearbook claimed that the Senators had “the confidence that comes from knowing that you have the talent and skill to win ballgames,” the team ultimately finished in tenth place that year with a 65-96 record. I suppose the efforts of pitcher Bill “GoGo” Gogolewski and his ilk were not enough to make a dent in the standings.

Whoever originally owned this yearbook got one Senator to autograph his photo: the slick-fielding, weak-hitting shortstop Ed “Wimpy” Brinkman. What the yearbook couldn’t have anticipated was the historical event that occurred right before opening day and caused Brinkman to miss more than half of the 1968 campaign. An excerpt about Brinkman and his abbreviated season from his 2008 obituary in USA Today:

“Eddie Brinkman, a record-setting shortstop during a 15-year career in the majors and a former high school teammate of Pete Rose, has died.

Ed Brinkman missed a good chunk of the 1968 baseball season for a sad and unusual reason.

The former Washington Senators and Detroit Tigers infielder, who was 66, had heart problems, according to The Washington Post. He died Tuesday in his hometown of Cincinnati.

The Ohio native spent his final 17 years in baseball as a coach and then scout for the Chicago White Sox before retiring in 2000.

Brinkman made his big-league debut at 19 in 1961 with Washington and played in an era when shortstops were known for their gloves, rather than their bats. He had career-best seasons came under Senators manager and Hall of Famer Ted Williams, who helped him bat .266 in 1969 and .262 in 1970.

Brinkman missed much of the 1968 season while serving in the National Guard. A week after the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., Brinkman was stationed in the left-field seats on opening day in Washington.”

More Miscellaneous Media:

  • Ugandan currency with Idi Amin’s picture. (1973)
  • Tom Van Arsdale basketball card. (1970)
  • “Okie from Muskogee” sheet music. (1969)
  • California Golden Seals hockey magazine. (1972)
  • Beatles Film Festival Magazine (1978)
  • ABA Pictorial (1968-69)
  • Tom Seaver’s Baseball Is My Life. (1973)
  • Hockey Digest (1973)
  • World’s Fair Guide (1964)
  • World’s Fair Guide (1939)
  • Buffalo Braves Yearbook (1972-73)
  • New York Nets Yearbook (1976-77)
  • “Tom Dooley” sheet music.

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    Miscellaneous Media: California Golden Seals Hockey Magazine (1972)

    May 28, 2010 in Misc., Sports, Urban Studies | Permalink

    Let's play quickly--the sun is melting the ice.

    I don’t really care for hockey, but I’ll always have a look when I come across some publication from 40 years ago for a sports franchise that no longer exists. Leagues were a lot less organized in those days and TV money hadn’t become the raison d’être. You never know what interesting factoids you might find. So I recently took advantage of an opportunity to gaze upon California ’72, a periodical that was published by Maple Leaf Gardens Sports magazines.  

    The Managing Editor, Ross Brewitt, wrote a bunch of hockey books, including one about Eddie Shack, a journeyman player who battled illiteracy. There are advertisements for Belvedere cigarettes, Corby Gin and Grissol Breads. And there’s lots of great color and b&w images of the Seals in action. 

    The California Golden Seals were an embattled NHL franchise in the Bay area from 1967-1976, part of the first wave of the league trying to spread its market beyond cold-weather environs in Canada and the Northeast and Midwest of the America. The NHL also wanted to head off progress by a competeing outfit called the Western Hockey League.  

    A demonstration of superior netminding skills.

    The Seals never drew and went though a succession of owners, including Charlie Finley, who changed team colors to match those of his baseball franchise, the Oakland A’s. The Seals eventually moved to Cleveland and then merged with another franchise. An excerpt about the beleaguered franchise from the magazine:

    “From the start of expanision, unrest has been the word most commonly associated with the California Golden Seals, a team which has been afflicted with trouble in the front office for four turbulent years. General managers have been changed. Coaches have been changed. There have been changes in ownership, and the results of these changes have been completely predictable. The Seals have finished out of the playoffs for two of the four years they have been in operation and when all-time standings of the National Hockey League are considered, the Seals stand alone at the bottom of the heap.”

    More Miscellaneous Media: 

  • Ugandan currency with Idi Amin’s picture. (1973)
  • Tom Van Arsdale basketball card. (1970)
  • “Okie from Muskogee” Sheet Music. (1969)
  • Beatles Film Festival Magazine (1978)
  • ABA Pictorial (1968-69)
  • Tom Seaver’s Baseball Is My Life. (1973)
  • Hockey Digest (1973)
  • World’s Fair Guide (1964)
  • World’s Fair Guide (1939)
  • Buffalo Braves Yearbook (1972-73)
  • New York Nets Yearbook (1976-77)
  • “Tom Dooley” sheet music.

    • Listeria: Shea Stadium Concession Stand Prices During The 1969 Baseball Season

    May 22, 2010 in Sports, Urban Studies | Permalink

    Manager Gil Hodges: Those 15¢ cigars helped us upset the heavily favored Baltimore Orioles in the World Series.

    According to a 1969 New York Mets scorecard, here are the prices for items on sale that season at Shea Stadium concession stands. For the love of god, remember to floss!

    • Frankfurter…40¢
    • Hamburger…55¢
    • Knishes…35¢
    • Pizza…35¢
    • Ham sandwich…55¢
    • Cheese sandwich…50¢
    • Corned Beef sandwich…60¢
    • Egg Salad sandwich…50¢
    • Meat Ball Hero…85¢
    • Hard Roll Hero…85¢
    • Shrimp Basket…95¢
    • Chicken Basket…95¢
    • French Fries…30¢
    • Milk Shake…35¢
    • Ice Cream…25¢
    • Cake…25¢
    • Pie…25¢
    • Floss…25¢
    • Peanuts…25¢
    • Popcorn…25¢
    • Potato Chips…25¢
    • Candy…15¢
    • Gum…10¢
    • Crackerjacks…25¢
    • Cigarettes…55¢
    • Cigars…15¢
    • Soup…20¢
    • Milk…25¢
    • Ice Tea…25¢
    • Soft Drinks…15¢ (small), 25¢ (large)
    • Beer…55¢
    • Ale & Premium Beer…60¢
    • Coffee…20¢ (small), 25¢ (large)
    • Hot Chocolate…20¢ (small), 25¢ (large)
    • Scorecard…25¢
    • Pencil…10¢

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    Miscellaneous Media: Tom Van Arsdale Basketball Card (1970)

    May 18, 2010 in Misc., Sports | Permalink

    Also from "SI": "When the brothers were juniors at Indiana, Warner Brothers saw their pictures in 'Life' and offered them seven-year contracts."

    I briefly got my greasy, grimy hands on a 1970 basketball card of Tom Van Arsdale, a talented cager out of Indiana who was then playing for the Cincinnati Royals. The back of the card notes that “Tom is interested in the stock brokerage business.” It also provides his impressive offensive stats.

    It doesn’t mention that Tom had an identical twin named Dick, who also played hoops, and that the two were especially close. An excerpt about the brothers  from a 1972 Sports Illustrated article titled “A Slight Case Of Unmistakable Identity“:

    “From the time of their premature births on Feb. 22, 1943 (Tom is the older by 15 minutes) until they graduated from Indiana, they spent only two nights apart. Their toys were identical, and only after they left high school did they wear unlike clothes. ‘If we had orange juice for breakfast, Mom would measure the glasses precisely to make sure they contained the same amount,’ says Tom. ‘That way neither one of us would get mad at her.’

    The Van Arsdales’ closeness almost knocked Tom out of the pros before he stepped on a court. Drafted in succession in 1965 at the beginning of the second round by New York and Detroit, the twins were separated for the first time when they left for their rookie camps. Tom quit the Pistons soon after and returned home with the excuse that he wanted to go to law school. He bought his law books but never went to class. ‘The sole reason for leaving Detroit was because Dick wasn’t around,’ he recalled last week. ‘It was a case of acute loneliness. It was like when you have a girl friend in high school and for some reason you can’t be with her. All you want is to be with her, and nothing else and no one else can make you happy. I called Dick in New York and he convinced me that things weren’t going to be any better if I didn’t play, so I went back to the Pistons.'”

    The Sporting Life: Dorothy Jane Mills Steps Up To The Plate

    May 12, 2010 in Excerpts, Sports, Urban Studies | Permalink

    Not Rosie O'Donnell.

    Despite being a big baseball fan, I had never until recently heard the name Dorothy Jane Mills. Mills, along with her late husband, Dr. Harold Seymour, are two of the key figures in the study of the game’s history. The pair wrote a trio of the most important baseball books ever published, which helped nurture generations of researchers and statisticians.

    For decades, Mills got the short shrift and her husband got all the credit because he was too sexist to let her have a co-writer’s byline and Mills, the ever-dutiful wife who was raised in an era when women didn’t make waves, only recently asserted her place in the writing and research process.

    In a March article in the New York Times, Alan Schwarz profiled the woman that history almost forgot. An excerpt:

    “Dorothy Zander grew up in Cleveland during the 1930s and ’40s wanting to become a writer, and while an English major at Fenn College–now Cleveland State University–worked for The Cleveland News as a copy boy. (‘Not a copy girl, a copy boy,’ she repeated curtly.) She volunteered to help her American history professor, Harold Seymour, type his lectures; she found they needed more than typing, and told him so.

    They fell in love and married, and she became his primary research assistant for his Cornell doctoral dissertation on baseball history — reading through old newspapers at The Sporting News offices in St. Louis and scrolling through microfilm at the New York Public Library.

    She cared nothing for baseball, only the scholarship–and the growing stature of her husband, 17 years her senior.

    ‘He loved baseball,’ Mills recalled in a telephone interview. ‘He was a bat boy for the Brooklyn Dodgers in the late 1920s and he was the star of the neighborhood.

    ‘I’m still not a fan of baseball. People can’t understand that. I think it’s a good idea to remain above that. You write a lot more objectively about a subject you’re not in love with.’”

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    Miscellaneous Media: ABA Pictorial 1968-69

    May 9, 2010 in Misc., Sports | Permalink

    Rick Barry goes to the hoop for the Oakland Oaks. The Oaks lasted from 1967-1969.

    Recently got my broken, bony fingers on a rare copy of ABA Pictorial 1968-69, from the old American Basketball Association. The upper-right-hand corner is a little crooked, but who isn’t in this day and age? The league’s most famous player of that year, Rick Barry of the Oakland Oaks, graces the cover. The periodical cost one buck at the time.

    The booklet has some ads for sneakers that provided almost no support for ankles and arches. But it’s mostly filled with propaganda for the dirt-poor league, written by the ABA PR directors, who were trying to spread the gospel of high hopes for the Minnesota Pipers, New Orleans Buccaneers, Kentucky Colonels, etc. And the “ABA Outlook Extremely Bright” article leaves little room for argument against the league that would be defunct by 1976, with some of its teams folding into the NBA.

    "Pro-Keds--the only basketball shoes ever endorsed by the ABA."

    One interesting article written by announcer Terry Stembridge, titled “63 Feet To Spare,” recounts how Jerry Harkness of the Indiana Pacers sunk a buzzer beater from way downtown to defeat the Dallas Chaparrals. An excerpt:

    “I had already called it a Chaparral victory that night in Dallas, a heartbeat before Jerry Harkness scored the longest shot in the history of basketball to give Indiana a 119-118 victory. It turned out to be the most premature journalistic announcement since that Chicago headline in 1948 proclaimed, “Dewey Defeats Truman.”

    Since history never hands you the script for its most dramatic moments, no one in Memorial Auditorium thought there could be anything beyond what had just taken place for 47 minutes and 59 seconds between the Dallas Chaparrals and the Indiana Pacers. No one dreamed there could be another stroke of fortune beyond John Beasley’s field goal in the final two seconds to give Dallas a 118-116 lead and apparent victory.

    When I saw Beasley’s shot bury itself in the cords, I shouted over the deafening roar that Dallas had won. Even as I spoke, I saw the clock and Jerry Harkness. I was surprised to see that a second remained but I knew it would make no difference. I watched Harkness, barely in bounds, drawing back to throw the ball. And then, suddenly, the red, white and blue ball was gone on its 88-foot journey into history.”

    More Miscellaneous Media:

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    Twitter’s Best Use Yet, Apart From Helping Iranian Citizens Trying To Overthrow Ahmadinejad

    May 7, 2010 in Misc., Sports | Permalink

    "Old Hoss" Radbourn: "Like J. Santana, I once 'lost' my change up. Left it in a whore's rucksack. That was embarrassing."

    You don’t have to love baseball and post-Civil War American history to appreciate the greatness of the “Old Hoss” Radbourn Twitter account, but it helps.

    The real Charles Gardner “Old Hoss” Radbourn was a Rochester native and tough-as-nails professional baseball pitcher from 1881-1891, during the Deadball Era. He became famous for winning 59 games (or 60, depending on what stats you believe) in the 1884 season for the Boston Beaneaters. After his playing days were over, Radbourn became the proprietor of an Illinois pool hall and saloon. A book about his life–Fifty-Nine in ’84–has recently been published.

    Some unknown wit has set up a Twitter account as “Old Hoss” Radbourn and dispenses commentary on modern sports and culture through the purview of a 19th-century hardass. The results are pretty special. It’s been rumored that one of the guys responsible for the now-defunct Fire Joe Morgan site is behind the Old Hoss Twitter. I’m not sure who it is, but I’m glad it’s there. A few of the account’s tweets:

    • One of the advantages of playing armed: hooligans who ran on the field earned a lead bullet and a shallow grave.
    • I was never really the same after 1887, the year laudanum was declared a “performance enhancer.”
    Julia Ward Howe: “Thighs like spun cream.”
    • I liked “The Battle Hymn of the Republic” for my at-bat music. I was of course bedding its author, Julia Ward Howe. Thighs like spun cream.
    • This C. Crist reminds me of “Peaches” Delahunt, who was a white, landed slave-owner who claimed to be a Lincoln Republican. He was most tan.
    • The real reason people throw back home run balls: in my day a sniper would plug you if you didn’t. Balls were expensive; lives weren’t.
    • I once traveled to Rome to see Michelangelo’s Pietà. It was so lifelike and moving. It would make a better out fielder than C. Quentin.
    • Just watched “Bull Durham.” Of all the gifts Annie gave “Nuke,” Hoss suspects gonorrhea was the lad’s least favorite.
    • 1888. A crushingly disappointing year. Had to go on the DL with a case of the gout. I curse you, sweetbreads and other rich delicacies.
    • Tonight Hoss noticed greeting cards labeled “Easter, romantic.” Not sure that is what J. Christ had in mind when he vanquished death itself.

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    Miscellaneous Media: “Baseball Is My Life.” (1973)

    May 1, 2010 in Excerpts, Misc., Sports | Permalink

    "From a scared minor leaguer to winner of the Cy Young Award--baseball's highest honor for a pitcher--almost overnight!"

    Got my bent, bony fingers on a copy of Tom Seaver’s 1973 softcover book, “Baseball is my life.” Co-authored by sportswriter Steve Jacobson, this 127-page Scholastic Books publication is graced with a few cool photos and was aimed at kids.

    “Tom Terrific” looks back on his childhood and how he went from Little League to the pinnacle of the big leagues. He definitely plays the humble hero for kids in the book, though I haven’t heard a whole lot of flattering things over the years about Seaver’s personality. At any rate, he was treated like a Beatle after he led the Miracle Mets to the 1969 World Series and could have published all the books he wanted. In the following excerpt, Seaver recalls the culture shock he experienced after joining the Marine Corps Reserve when he was a 17-year-old American Legion pitcher:

    “I hated being in the Marine Corps. But I don’t think anything was worse than the first day at the Marine Corps Recruit Depot in San Diego. I’ve compared memories with other fellows in the service. It just wasn’t my outfit or me; it was everybody and every outfit. It was the first day: anger, frustration, tears, fear–all wrapped together in the unknown.

    Seaver on the mound during the 1969 World Series. If baseball hadn't panned out, he planned to become a dentist.

    It began with Russ Scheidt, an old, friend, and myself getting on a bus that went to San Diego. When we were five or six years old, Russ and I used to play catch. He’d stand on one side of the street and toss the ball to me on the other side. Neither of us was allowed to cross the street then. He was the kid who told me, when I showed up for my first Little League game, that I had my socks on backwards.

    They picked us up at the bus station, got us onto a truck, and they told us to sit down and not talk. It wasn’t bad. Then when we drove through the gates it was like going into a new world.

    The door opened and the screaming began. You always know that sticks and stones will break your bones and names will never harm you, but this was something else. When they screamed, we had to jump and move, and we never jumped high enough or moved fast enough. Get out of the bus, stand in line, and hurry up–screaming, screaming with all the foul language that goes with it. I heard words I could never write on a printed page.”

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    Miscellaneous Media: Hockey Digest (1973)

    April 20, 2010 in Misc., Sports | Permalink

    On the cover: "Can Derek Sanderson Find Happiness On Ice?"

    I’m not a big fan of ice hockey but getting to leaf through a 1973 issue of Hockey Digest is a fun retro thing to do. The April issue I got my bony fingers on features a slew of narrative-driven stories, most of which oddly concerned players trying to attain happiness in life and career. But, then, aren’t we all?

    One of the interesting articles, written by Toronto sportswriter Dick Beddoes, a colorful character who enjoyed dressing sorta pimpy, focused on the imprisonment of Maple Leafs owner Harold Ballard, a jackass who’d been sentenced to a nine years in the federal penalty box for an assortment of financial chicanery. Incarceration in a supermax penitentiary didn’t prevent him from continuing to be an operator. An excerpt from “The Unhappy Saga of Harold Ballard”:

    “Millhaven has rarely had a more celebrated inmate, apart from the odd big-time stock thief or kidnapper. The other cons naturally want to know what’s wrong with the Maple Leafs, a dilapidated team on a headlong plunge down an open elevator shaft.

    Ballard is an expansive host as he shows his friends his tidy Millhaven quarters, somewhat more Spartan than to palatial suite in the Gardens. which resembles an ostentatious remnant from Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves.

    ‘This,’ he’ll say, ‘is the library. And next door, here, is the television room. We get the hockey games on color TV.’

    He points out the swimming pool and says, a little wistfully, ‘And out there just outside the window we’re going to get busy building a hockey rink.'”

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    Urban Studies: The Hockey Jerseys Of Liberia

    April 15, 2010 in Sports, Urban Studies | Permalink

    All of Liberia cried when the Rangers missed the playoffs after losing a shootout on the final day of the season.

    Those delightful dismal scientists over at the always intriguing Marginal Revolution pointed me in the direction of an intriguing article entitled “Hockey Night in Liberia: NHL Jerseys Everywhere in War-Torn Nation.” It’s an article by Bonnie Allen in the National Post about the puzzling preponderance of ice hockey uniform shirts in the impoverished African nation.

    The brightly colored hockey jerseys make their way to Africa via used-clothing donations from North America. They never reach Liberian citizens free as intended, but they are still a hot item. The tough material allows for long use and is a better long-tern buy for Liberians than cheaper T-shirts which can quickly become tattered. An excerpt:

    “In the remote city of Ganta, located about 240 kilometres north of Liberia’s coastline, near the Guinea border, there is a daily parade of Canada’s favorite pastime as peddlers rove the potholed streets.

    A ‘Chelios’ sells plastic flip-flops out of a rusty wheelbarrow while wearing his red Blackhawks jersey. A ‘Gretzky’ hawks Chinese knock-off cellphones under the sweltering sun.

    Seven years out of war, many former combatants hustle money by giving taxi rides on beat-up motorcycles with broken mufflers. On their chests: a Penguin, Maple Leaf, Red Wing or Lightning Bolt.”

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    Miscellaneous Media: Buffalo Braves 1972-73 Yearbook

    April 12, 2010 in Misc., Sports, Urban Studies | Permalink

    Buffalo Braves center Elmore Smith skies above Wilt Chamberlain.

    When I wrapped my greasy, grimy, greedy paws around a 1976-77 New York Nets yearbook not too long ago, I also managed to get a grip on a 1972-73 yearbook for the then-NBA franchise Buffalo Braves. One dollar could buy you a copy in those days. The most famous basketball icons associated with the team (which went 21-61 in the ’72-’73 season) were future Hall of Famers Bob McAdoo and Coach Jack Ramsey, he of the adventurous taste in slacks.

    The 1970-71 season was the Braves inaugural campaign in the NBA (that was the year the Cleveland Cavaliers and Portland Trailblazers also entered the league.) The team showed off their colors (black, white, orange and Colombia blue) at the Buffalo Memorial Auditorium, which closed in 1996. They made three playoff appearances (1974-’75-’76) and Bob McAdoo won an MVP Award (1975) while playing for Buffalo. The Braves spent eight seasons in the now-struggling city before moving to the warmer climes of San Diego, where they were rechristened the Clippers. (They moved again to Los Angeles for the 1985-86 season).

    The most interesting part of the yearbook is the player page notes about the team captain. During the offseason, Walt Hazard had converted to Islam and changed his name to Abdul Rahman. The notes announce his conversion in a straightforward, respectful manner. An excerpt:

    “Known throughout most of his NBA career as Walt Hazzard, he has in the past year taken the Islamic name Abdul Rahman (pronounced ‘Rock-maan’), which means merciful. Abdul and his wife, Jalees, reside in Williamsville in the off-season with their two sons, Yakub, 7, and Abdul Jalal, 2.”

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    Miscellaneous Media: New York Nets 1976-77 Official Yearbook

    April 7, 2010 in Misc., Sports | Permalink

    Despite Coach Kevin Loughery's awesome leisure suit, the Nets had the NBA's worst record that season.

    I got my chapped, cracked, crusty hands on a copy of the Nets 1976-77 yearbook, which cost a cool two bucks back in the day. The Nets were then a New York franchise that played on Long Island. The ’76-’77 season was their first in the NBA, after winning the final ABA championship. Unfortunately, finances forced them to sell off their best player, Julius “Dr. J” Erving, instantly turning them into the worst team in the NBA.

    I can’t tell you that the level of pro basketball play was better back in those days, but clothes and hairstyles were certainly superior. From Coach Kevin Loughery rocking the leisure suits to “Super” John Williamson’s ‘fro to Jan van Breda Kollf’s long locks and short mustache, it was a disco-fabulous scene.

    The Nets are playing out the string of a terrible season, but they’ve actually come a long way from the team’s astoundingly modest beginnings. The yearbook recalls the early days of the franchise. An excerpt:

    “Maybe you could appreciate how far the franchise of the New York Nets has come in 10 years if you had seen them play–as the New Jersey Americans–at Teaneck Armory. Or, going back even further, when they played their first NBA exhibition game against the Pittsburgh Pipers in Paterson, N.J.

    Jan van Breda Kollf summons the mighty power of his shaggy hair and mustache as he takes a jumper.

    Walt Simon was there. Simon, one of the most popular players in those early days, recalls that some players helped to put a strip of black tape on the court to indicate the three-point zone. Then, the Pipers used white chalk to draw numbers on the back of their uniforms.

    Maybe you had to see them play when they shifted their home base to Long Island and changed their name to the New York Nets and played their games at Commack Arena. Freddie Lewis remembers.

    ‘The basketball floor was put down directly over the ice, without any insulation,’ recalls Lewis, one of the few pros still active who can remember that scene, or better yet, who survived that scene. ‘It was so cold in there that you could actually see your breath. I swear that it was colder inside the building than it was outside. We used to wear our coats when we sat on the bench.'”

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    The Sporting Life: Nicholas Davidoff’s The Catcher Was A Spy

    April 5, 2010 in Books, Excerpts, Sports, Urban Studies | Permalink

    Moe Berg: Rocking the unibrow.

    Morris “Moe” Berg wasn’t a particularly distinguished major league catcher, but he was one thing that Yogi Berra, Elston Howard and Josh Gibson never were–a spy for the U.S. government. A graduate of Princeton and Columbia Law School who spoke numerous languages and had a profound intellectual curiosity, Berg was a spy for the Offices of Strategic Services during WWII. He was also the player that the king of the oddballs Casey Stengel once labeled as “the strangest man in baseball.”

    Nicholas Davidoff wrote a really good book about the brainy athlete’s shadowy work called The Catcher Was A Spy: The Mysterious Life of Moe Berg in 1994. Davidoff notes on the back cover of the book that Berg is the only former major leaguer to have his baseball card on display at CIA headquarters. An excerpt from the chapter entitled “You Never Knew He Was Around”:

    “Moe Berg had always been a loner, and as he receded to the fringes of professional baseball, his eccentricities became more pronounced. Nobody had really ever known much about him. Now he became obviously unusual, and it began to occur to some people to wonder….

    An eager conversationalist, even garrulous at times, Berg could be very funny. Yet for the flow of talk, he kept himself to himself. He was as gray as the front page, and he behaved like a newspaper, too; all the latest facts, but no reflections. ‘We knew a lot about [ballplayers’] private lives,’ says Shirley Povich, ‘but he was mysterious. You never saw him hanging around the hotel lobby like other ballplayers. They just accepted Moe for what he was–a man apart.’ The game ended and Berg showered, dressed and disappeared. ”

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    Gleaned: Major League Baseball All-Star Masks

    March 28, 2010 in Books, Sports | Permalink

    There's finally a way to resemble Gregg Jefferies, circa 1990.

    I gleaned these spectacular, completely ridiculous items last spring a block from where I live. How could my neighbors tire of such gems? It’s hard to fathom.

    In 1990, Gallery Books put out four volumes of paper masks that looked like famous baseball players. Each of the quartet of books represents a different theme: Big Hitters, Gold Glovers, Power Pitchers and Hot Rookies. I gleaned the latter two editions.

    The paper masks in Power Pitchers are of Nolan Ryan, Doc Gooden, Roger Clemens and Orel Hersheiser. Hot Rookies include: Gregg Jefferies, Ken Griffey Jr., Jim Abbott and Jerome Walton. Griffey is the only one still playing.

    Sure, you're handsome, but now you can be Jerome Walton handsome.

    The masks are very odd; you have to punch out the eyes and nose to put them on. It doesn’t seem that they were aimed at Halloween costume shoppers but rather just at strange nine-year-olds who wanted to resemble Chicago Cub Jerome Walton. You know Gallery Books doubted the intelligence of their customers since they included the helpful warning: “Do not wear masks while playing baseball.”

    See other Gleanings.

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    The Sporting Life: NFL Comes Up With A Lousy Overtime Fix

    March 25, 2010 in Sports | Permalink

    You'll be throwing picks for the Browns this year, Jake.

    I’m glad NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell wanted to try to fix the inequity of the league’s overtime rules, but I don’t like what he did. The NFL has modified overtime (just for the postseason) so that if a team wins a coin toss and kicks a field goal, the other team will now get a possession. I still prefer the Afflictor solution, which altered OT for the regular season as well as postseason. It was posted on December 29, 2009. An excerpt:

    The problem. In the current system, which started 35 years ago, a coin flip determines which team gets the ball first in OT. Since it’’s sudden death, that first possession is key and the team that gets the ball first wins more games by a few percentage points. Chance shouldn’t determine the first and potentially only possession.

    The changes I’d make. In order to favor merit over luck, there’d be no more coin toss. If there is a tie at the end of regulation, a 10-minute overtime period would begin from exactly where the action stands at the end of regulation. Even if one team scores, the ten minutes will be played to completion. If the game is tied at the end of this period, a horn will sound and a five-minute sudden-death period will commence from where the action stands. The first team that scores in this period wins. If neither team scores, the game is a tie. In playoffs, the five-minute sudden-death portion continues until there is a winner.

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    The Sporting Life: Chess Champion Magnus Carlsen Is A Highly Self-Aware Kid

    March 23, 2010 in Sports, Urban Studies | Permalink

    Carlsen prepares to move that horsie thingy.

    The tremendous kottke.org pointed me in the direction of a great Der Spiegel interview with chess champ Magnus Carlsen. While I’m not very interested in chess as a game, I find great chess players to be fascinating psychologically. You would assume their monomania for the game might make them similar personality types, but that doesn’t seem to be the case.

    The Norwegian teen Carlsen, currently ranked number one in the world, is as interesting and aware of himself as he is talented. A few quick excerpts from the interview.

    *****

    Spiegel: Mr Carlsen, what is your IQ?

    Carlsen: I have no idea. I wouldn’t want to know it anyway. It might turn out to be a nasty surprise.

    Spiegel: Why? You are 19 years old and ranked the number one chess player in the world. You must be incredibly clever.

    Carlsen: And that’s precisely what would be terrible. Of course it is important for a chess player to be able to concentrate well, but being too intelligent can also be a burden. It can get in your way. I am convinced that the reason the Englishman John Nunn never became world champion is that he is too clever for that.

    *****

    Spiegel: You are a sloppy genius?

    Magnus Carlsen: I’m not a genius. Sloppy? Perhaps. It’s like this: When I am feeling good, I train a lot. When I feel bad, I don’t bother. I don’t enjoy working to a timetable. Systematic learning would kill me.

    *****

    Spiegel: Do you win [at online poker]?

    Magnum Carlsen: If I take a game seriously, I do. If not, I sometimes lose. But that doesn’t matter. What is important is that I have a life beyond chess.

    Spiegel: Why?

    Magnum Carlsen: Chess should not become an obsession. Otherwise there’s a danger that you will slide off into a parallel world, that you lose your sense of reality, get lost in the infinite cosmos of the game. You become crazy. I make sure that I have enough time between tournaments to go home in order to do other things. I like hiking and skiing, and I play football in a club.

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    “Soon, Across America, We Can Expect To Hear The Rhythmic Pad-Pad-Pad Of The Sneaker”

    March 20, 2010 in Excerpts, Sports, Urban Studies | Permalink

    Jimmy Carter, the first jogging U.S. President, out on a run in 1978.

    Jogging as an exercise reached critical mass in the United States during the 1970s, but it was during the 1960s when it first took flight. Bill Bowerman, the University of Oregon Track and Field Coach, wrote (along with heart specialist W.E. Harris) the 1966 book, Jogging, which popularized the sport in America. Bowerman, who would later co-found Nike, learned about jogging as a fitness regimen while visiting New Zealand. The book would ultimately sell more than a million copies.

    Jogging seemed as much a fad as the CB radio during the ’60s and ’70s, but it endured and became a seemingly permanent part of American fitness. The March 22, 1968 issue of Life published a dopey, tongue-in-cheek review of the Bowerman-Harris book by William Zinsser, during the sport’s first burst of popularity. An excerpt:

    “The highest inaugural rite that the government can bestow on its program of outdoor exertion–now that Pierre Salinger has retired from this kind of work–took place recently when four jogging trails were opened near Washington D.C. Secretary of the Interior Stewart L. Udall led 40 people, including several congressmen and 20 members of a Baltimore jogging club, on a two-mile jog over one of the new trails, ending with a speech in which he predicted ‘jogging is going to catch on nationwide.’ Soon, across America, we can expect to hear the rhythmic pad-pad-pad of the sneaker and rustle of the sweat suit. Hearty cries of ‘Well jogged!’ will mingle with the chirping of birds in the virgin air.”

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    The Sporting Life: The Stadium And The Squalor

    March 17, 2010 in Politics, Sports | Permalink

    Unlike many local residents, Mbombela Stadium will have electricity and indoor plumbing. (Image by Goldorak.)

    Really good article by Barry Bearak in the New York Times about the South African provincial capital of Nelspruit spending $137 million dollars on a stadium that will host six hours of World Cup soccer this year, while a good number of its citizens live in dire poverty.

    I get the idea. Build a stadium, show the world how modernized you are on a big stage and attract more investment. But just imagine how much infrastructure that amount of money could build in South Africa. An excerpt from “Cost of Stadium Reveals Tensions in South Africa“:

    “Come June, soccer’s World Cup will be hosted by South Africa. Though only four of the 64 games are to be played here in Nelspruit, a $137 million stadium was built for the occasion. The arena’s 18 supporting pylons reach skyward in the shape of orange giraffes. At nightfall, their eyeballs blink with flashes of bewitching light.

    The people who live nearby, proud as they are to host soccer’s greatest event, also wonder: How could there be money for a 46,000-seat stadium while many of them still fetch water from dirty puddles and live without electricity or toilets?”

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    Excerpted: “Fast Man With A .45,” Sports Illustrated (1962)

    March 14, 2010 in Excerpts, Sports, Urban Studies | Permalink

    Roy Mark Hofheinz kept a wonderfully gaudy apartment in the Dome. The pad had a shooting gallery, a putting green and a puppet theater.

    As the new textbook rules in the Lone Star State remind us, there’s no kind of crazy like Texas crazy. But that’s not always a bad thing.

    One example of the good kind of Texas crazy was Roy Mark Hofheinz, the subject of “Fast Man with a .45,” a 1962 Sports Illustrated article.

    Hofheinz was first owner of the Houston Astros (originally called the Colt .45s) and spearheaded the building of the glitzy Astrodome, the first domed sports stadium in the world, which the wealthy Texan claimed was inspired by the Roman Colosseum. It cost a then-staggering sum of $22 million. When it first opened, the Astrodome was nicknamed the “Eighth Wonder of the World.” Hofheinz was a part owner of Ringling Bros. Circus, so such breathless hoopla was never in short supply.

    Even though it’s now in its dotage, the Dome had a fascinating existence. In addition to baseball and football, it hosted everything from national political conventions to the Super Bowl to the “Battle of the Sexes” tennis match. It also temporarily housed homeless citizens in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. An excerpt from the SI article about the man who got it built:

    “Roy Hofheinz is a large man with an even larger stomach, a theatrical flair and a mind as quick as a cash-register drawer. He smokes a box of cigars a day, sleeps only when there is nothing else to do and would, if charged with the U.S. space program, have had John Glenn in orbit by the astronaut’s third birthday. He is considered unusual even in Texas.

    The grandson of a Lutheran missionary, who spoke 11 languages and came over from Alsace-Lorraine to preach and plant potatoes, Hofheinz has been a dance-band promoter, a radio huckster and a boy-wonder politician (he was Lyndon Johnson’s first campaign manager). He also is a multimillionaire and at one time was the most controversial mayor in the history of Houston.”

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    Listeria: Top 20 Nicknames Of Pitchers In Major League Baseball History

    March 11, 2010 in Sports | Permalink

    Not Rosie O'Donnell.

    Read other Listeria lists.


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    Old Print Article: “Pugs At Gothic Hall,” Brooklyn Daily Eagle (1873)

    March 10, 2010 in Misc., Old Print Articles, Sports, Urban Studies | Permalink

    We're sweet-looking young men who enjoy pugilistic displays.

    Why would I even comment on this insane article from the June 4, 1873 issue of the Brooklyn Daily Eagle when I could never, ever do it justice? Unfortunately, it’s not bylined, but here’s an excerpt from “Pugs at Gothic Hall”:

    “The sporting fraternity, at least that portion given to pugilistic displays and wrestling encounters, was out in all its glory at Gothic Hall last night. The entertainment, which called together this distinguished crowd of first citizens, was somewhat facetiously termed by its originators a ‘grand international boxing and wrestling festival.’

    The assemblage was more respectable in its general character than are usually met on such occasions. Among the audience were numerous young men dressed in the height of fashion, and looking quite decent in their new clothes. The Fulton street dry goods clerks were represented by a large delegation of real sweet looking young men, made particularly prominent by their loud red neckties and low necked shirts. It was noticeable that the majority of these promising youths wore their hats on the right sides of their respective heads at an angle of about forty degrees.

    And then they talked in a free and easy sort of way about ‘good’uns’ and  ‘bad’uns,’ of ‘duffers’ and ‘snoozes,’ calculated to convey the impression that they were very reckless and altogether dangerous young men to meddle with.

    Those who chewed tobacco chewed heavy cuds, and when they walked around the room they walked like men determined to push a house over, or bite someone’s ear off, or something equally horrifying and dreadful.”

    The Sporting Life: Judging The Commissioners

    March 2, 2010 in Sports | Permalink

    David Stern: I've been NBA Commissioner for so long that people have stopped questioning if that's a good thing. It is not. (Photo by Cody Mulcahy.)

    David Stern, NBA (1984- ):
    In the last ten years on Stern’s watch, the league has become a gigantic money pit ($400 million this year alone), attendance has plummeted despite the presence of huge stars and there’s been a gambling scandal involving an on-court official (thanks to the lax management of officiating). Stern did an exceptional job marketing the game and its stars during the ’80s and ’90s and fostering the globalization of basketball, but even the Michael Jordan glory years will have to be rethought if it ever surfaces that the Bulls legend stepped away from the game for a couple of years for some sort of unseemly reason.

    Verdict: It is well beyond time for Stern to be replaced.

    Roger Goodell, NFL (2006- ):
    Just go the gig, so there isn’t enough of a body of work to judge him on. Has shown a serious interest in the concussion problem that has plagued the NFL. Has tried to be firm but fair-minded when it comes to off-the-field misbehavior by players. Showed initiative by moving Pro Bowl to the week before the Super Bowl to give it some relevance. One hopes that he will pay more attention to the plight of former players than his predecessor did. He should also try create a better system of financial education for current players, as the majority of them end up broke a few years out of the league.

    Verdict: Has shown promise and deserves an opportunity to live up to it.

    Gary Bettman, NHL (1993- ):
    Thought it was a good idea to move an ice hockey franchise from Canada to Arizona. Allowed the league to expand ridiculously so owners could cash some quick checks at the expense of the level of play and the long-term health of the NHL. Placed far too many teams in Southern U.S. markets and not enough in hockey-crazed Canada. Two labor stoppages have occurred on his watch, including the complete cancellation of the 2004-2005 season. Has done nothing to reduce the number of teams that qualify for the playoffs, which seriously diminishes the meaning of the long regular season. Has postured that he will no longer allow NHL players to participate in the Olympics, which is great publicity for the league. Current TV deals with NBC and Versus aren’t befitting a pro sports league. Revenues have increased during his tenure, but revenues are not the same thing as profits or long-tern viability.

    Verdict: The NHL Commissioner job is not an easy one, but Bettman has been subpar from the beginning. Should be replaced.

    Bud Selig, MLB (1992- ):
    Whether it’s steroids, exorbitant ticket prices or late starting times, Selig is always the last one to know there’s a problem. A former owner, he’s remained popular with current ones by allowing them to greedily pocket short-term cash at the expense of fans and the game’s future. People have been claiming baseball is on the wane since the 1880s, but Selig does actually test the game’s resiliency. To his credit, he’s been behind the push to globalize the sport and has supported RBI (Reviving Baseball in Inner Cities).

    Verdict: Should be ousted and replaced by someone with discipline and vision. Scheduled to retire in 2012, but the owners will simply install a similarly ineffectual mediocrity.

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    New DVD: The Damned United

    February 26, 2010 in Film, Sports | Permalink

    Michael Sheen screams for mercy as an embattled soccer manager Brian Clough.

    In the past few years, Michael Sheen has played Tony Blair (three times!), David Frost and now, in The Damned United, football coach Brian Clough, making a habit of portraying hyper-ambitious Brits who are determined to push their luck until it turns bad.

    Director Tom Hooper’s film investigates the tumultuous 44-day period in 1974 when Clough assumed the position of manager of the fabled Leeds United club, stepping into the shoes of his hated rival, Don Revie. But it also looks at about a dozen years of backstory that saw Clough use his unending hunger for success and big mouth to go from nobody to somebody to nobody he ever wanted to be.

    Sheen is brilliant as a man determined to do great things–and then undo them–and Timothy Spall and Colm Meaney deliver excellent supporting performances, working from an economical, insightful script by Peter Morgan (Frost/Nixon). Jimmy Breslin once opined that if you want to tell a great sports story you have to go into the loser’s locker room, and The Damned United does that with distinction.

    Read other Film posts.

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    The Sporting Life: Bill Simmons Fixes The NBA

    February 25, 2010 in Sports | Permalink

    Please come to the crappy Knicks, LeBron. Otherwise, we will suck forever. (Photo by Keith Allison.)

    Bill Simmons is the preeminent national sports columnist of the day, combining the profane passion of a rabid fan with the objective, gimlet-eyed analysis of the Freakonomics guys. In his recent column on ESPN, “A Fan-Friendly Solution to Fix the NBA,” Simmons analyzes the very troubled league, which Commisioner David Stern has acknowledged will lose $400 million this year. (Here’s one way to start fixing the NBA: Stern, who has done an absolutely atrocious job for the past decade, needs to be replaced.)

    In one passage, Simmons gets to the heart of why so few deep-pocketed Americans are willing to buy a professional basketball franchise these days. An excerpt:

    “For instance, when I was in Dallas for All-Star Weekend, I asked an extremely wealthy person the following question: ‘Why haven’t you bought an NBA team?’

    His answer: ‘Because they’re still overvalued. Anyone who buys in right now is doing it for ego only. That’s why the league grabbed the Russian’s [Mikhail Prokhorov’s] money [for the New Jersey Nets] so quickly. He has a big ego and deep pockets, and he didn’t know any better. He just wanted in. The pool of American buyers who fit that mold has dwindled. Look at [Oracle CEO] Larry Ellison. Five years ago, he would have jumped on the Warriors like Cuban jumped on the Mavericks. Now he’s being much more cautious. He doesn’t think they’re worth more than $325 [million] and they aren’t. Not with the current revenue system, not without a new arena, and not with a lockout coming. It’s a dumb investment.'”

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    Old Print Article: “Base Ball.” Brooklyn Daily Eagle (1888)

    February 21, 2010 in Misc., Old Print Articles, Sports, Urban Studies | Permalink

    Not Rosie O'Donnell.

    The Presidential race of 1888 was raging, as Benjamin Harrison and Grover Cleveland battled furiously for the White House amid the uproar over tariffs. (Harrison prevailed.) But in Brooklyn, people were able to chill out thanks to the twin relaxations of base ball (spelled as two words in those days) and horse racing. In the August 16, 1988 issue of the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, an article simply title “Base Ball” addresses a resurgence in the popularity of what was considered even then to be a waning national pastime. An excerpt:

    “Base Ball and horse racing divide with the Presidential campaign a large share of public attention. Indeed, judging from the amount of sporting news printed in the newspapers and the crowds which gather about the bulletin boards awaiting the latest returns from the field and track, it would seem most people are willing to let the tariff take care of itself until, at least, the warm days are over. The season has been generous in amusements of every kind, and among other things it has witnessed a revival of popular interest in the national game which cannot fail to be gratifying to those who had begun to think that its best days had vanished. The ball field may not possess the exciting and exhilarating influence of the track, but it enjoys an equal share of popularity, and in the East, at all events, it does not sufficiently appeal to the gambling instinct to render it vicious or offensive. Brooklyn’s renewed interest in base ball is due to the fact that for the first time in years the city is represented by a club of undoubted merit.”

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