Pirates Ask Fans to Hope Against Hope The New York Times Last year’s Pirates celebrated their surprisingly competent first half by losing 14 of 16 games immediately after the All-Star break when they “just got complacent,†in the words of Jason Bay, one of the team’s few recognizable players. The Pirates finished 68-94, in last place for the fourth time in 10 seasons. If this were British soccer, they would have long been demoted to the International League. “The city of Pittsburgh, I don’t know how much longer they’re going to wait,†the right-hander Ian Snell said. “The losing’s got to stop somewhere.â€
Traditional Visit with an Untraditional Twist The New York Times Sandy Koufax, stopping by the back pitching mounds of the Mets’ complex, talked curveballs with Billy Wagner, reminisced with Pedro MartÃnez and shared his thoughts on both pitchers — and more — in a rare interview with reporters. Koufax, who has long enjoyed counseling players but rarely, if ever, speaks about it, put himself back into a spotlight that he has tried so hard to avoid. “If somebody wants to get better, and I think I can help them, then it’s a pleasure,†Koufax said of his semiannual visits to Mets camp.
Jeter a Lousy Fielder? So Say the Eggheads Toronto Star Derek Jeter is the worst-fielding shortstop in the majors. Who says? It is right there in black and white, the result of something called SAFE (Spatial Aggregate Fielding Evaluation), the best-yet analysis of baseball defence, prepared by some eggheads-turned-seamheads at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School.
Why Baseball Balked at Integrity Christian Science Monitor Between December's Mitchell Report and this month's congressional grilling of Roger Clemens, many of baseball's biggest names may have lost their ticket to the Hall of Fame. But all of the emphasis on players' use of performance-enhancing drugs misses a much bigger issue: Major League Baseball (MLB) itself took the performance-enhancing step of looking the other way in order to juice profits.
Guillotin is often associated with the most effective executioner's tool ever created. But in reality, he wanted to make death more humane, not more ghastly.
 by lowcountrypen |
|
 by nachista |
|
 by MissIve |
|
February 26, 2008
The steroids scandal has gotten people to talk about baseball again. We're not shocked. Baseball is now stuck in what we can only think of as its bronze age. The glory is gone.
We knew that baseball's golden era was marked by by the arrival of Babe Ruth in New York in 1920 and the departure of the Dodgers and Giants from Gotham.
But the game brought us so much joy as recently as the 1960s and ‘70s . We think of that time as baseball's silver age.
We still had the individualistic, old-boy managers - Earl Weaver, Sparky Anderson, and Billy Martin. Street smart and pugnacious winners.
We could count on certain teams to be perennial losers - the Phillies and Indians, for example. The owners were quirky and strange and sometimes even charming. They were as much a part of the city as the teams they owned - Joan Payson (New York), Bill Veeck (Chicago), the Tom Yawkey (Boston).
There were a few grandiose idiots - Chuck Finley comes to mind - who at least had the cojones to try some different things. And, of course, there was George Steinbrenner, a shipbuilder from Cleveland who snatched the Yankees away from CBS for a measly $10 million in 1973. He immediately declared he wouldn't get involved in day-to-day operations, and then did the exact opposite.
Old George is still around, but he's not the same as Young George.
Most ballplayers made the same as the average working stiff. Many struggled by on the measly major league minimum salary of about $6,000. A few, like Willie Mays, Sandy Koufax and Mickey Mantle, were over the $100,000 mark.
Yes, the ballplayers were still larger than life, but they lived like the rest of us, at street level, unprotected by gated communities, private jets, and posses that can be bought with today's average salary of about $3 million.
Strange and wondrous things happened. In their first season, the 1962 Mets won only 40 games, the most losses in Major League history. Then came 1969. Tom Terrific, Jerry Koosman, Ed Charles, Donn Clendenon, Art Shamsky, Tommie Agee, Ron Swoboda, Cleon Jones and good old Gil Hodges, aided by some shoe polish, won 100 games and beat the unbeatable Orioles in a World Series romp. The Miracle Mets, indeed.
We went to games back then. It was a father-son thing, a family outing. It was no less affordable than going to the movies, and a lot more exciting. Now, a trip to a big league ballpark requires serious advanced financial planning. More often than not, we choose to see our local minor league team. It's a lot more fun, a lot less expensive, and seems much more authentic. But it's not the bigs, and that we miss.
And, last but not least, will ever be another Oscar Gamble? His hair, a veritable eighth wonder of the world, practically required its own locker. But outsized hair didn't require steroids or HGH. Just good, steady grooming. Which is what great baseball's all about, isn't it?
Share the Eye:
Finley Entertained and Enraged ESPN Classic Charley Finley was a loud-mouth, a tyrant and a miser. He also was a master showman and an innovator.
The Anti-Yankees thebaseballpage In 1962, the Mets had their first game rained out...and the season pretty much went down hill from there. The team was a cobbled together group of ex-Dodgers and ex-Giants, meant to be more lovable than effective. It could not be said that, at a major league level, the 1962 Mets were competent at any single aspect of the game.
Ebbets Field ballparks.com Named after Dodgers owner Charles Ebbets, the rotunda was an 80-foot circle enclosed in Italian marble, with a floor tiled with a representation of the stitches of a baseball and a chandelier with 12 baseball-bat arms holding 12 globes shaped like baseballs.
still thinking about today...
Who had the best hair in baseball?
50% 0% 50% 0% 0% 0%
