Editor of the Fantasy Sports Guides since 2000. Writer of Ask Rotoman since 1996. Designer of Booknoise since 2001. Consumer of music since like forever.
Barack Obama was born in the US. We all knew it in 2004, in 2008, in 2012. Now, holy cow, even Donald Trump agrees that’s true. Boy genius!
But why did Trump spend seven years insinuating that Obama wasn’t born in the US?
Was it because there were legitimate questions? Or was it because Trump could gain political advantage by exploiting the prejudices of people who weren’t comfortable having a Black man with an unusual name as president?
Three authoritative pieces about Donald Trump have emerged in recent days. These are based on solid straight-forward reporting by Newsweek, The Atlantic and Washington Post, and are followed by Keith Olbermann’s oxygen depleting recitation of factual reasons Donald Trump shouldn’t be president.
These stories are all over the place today, but I’m pinning them here just in case anyone lands here who needs to be reminded what their vote for Trump is actually a vote for. Continue reading The Known Facts About Donald Trump→
Here is the architectural rendering by West 8, the firm that is designing the island, showing what it would look like.
Click for larger image.
And here’s a picture I took yesterday of the finished, sort of, project (the trees will grow larger).
Uncanny, except in reality the kids are all adults. There were in fact many children enjoying the slides, but somehow none of them made it into this shot.
The other mindblowing photo I saw at the Brooklyn Museum sports photography exhibit was this one, a picture of Wrigley Field from outside the park, that shows the day transitioning from day to night.
I was at the Brooklyn Museum show about sports photography this past weekend. It’s a fine survey of the art of sports photography, with some iconic sportastic imagery that everyone knows (Cassius Clay towering over the fallen Sonny Liston in Maine, for instance) and then some other striking stuff.
This picture is by a Polish photographer named Tomasz Gudzowaty and it is a constant amazement to me. The spiral of the roadways and the careening angles of the cars is dizzying, and at the same time embracing. My first thought was of what rules such races might be run, and my second thought was who needs races, the speed is the thing!
Copyright Tomasz Gudzowaty.
You can find more of his pictures of Mexico’s Car Frenzy at his website here. I think his shots of the cars are stronger than the people shots, but all are worth a looksee. And I’ll be coming back to this one often.
My first baseball memory was the 1960 World Series. It was the ninth inning of the seventh game, the teams were knotted at nine apiece. One for each inning, I probably thought, because I’ve always created relationships between numbers, often fancifully. Of course, maybe not, since I had just turned four and probably didn’t think that much about numbers at all.
How the teams got to 9-9 is a story, but not one I knew. The game was played on Thursday, October 13, starting at about 1:00 PM (television and radio coverage began at 12:45 PM). From the start of the game to its dramatic conclusion took two hours and 34 minutes. I remember coming home some time after the game started, having missed the start.
Home from preschool? My mom had started a preschool at the Presbyterian Church that year, in part to make sure I had a good school to go to, but it only offered half days. Maybe I went home with a pal, or maybe we’d been out shopping. One thing is for sure, my brother was just two-and-a-half months old.
I remember listening on the radio in the kitchen, my mother was getting things ready for dinner, I suppose, or tending to some other business. My brother was sleeping in his cradle, or eating. What else did babies do? I imagine everyone was tired, but I don’t remember that.
We listened on the radio, maybe not that attentively. We listened on the radio because that’s what everyone did for the World Series. Those four to seven games were a soundtrack to the American experience in those days. That week in 1960 the US contemplated the start of sanctions on Cuba, an embargo, and John F. Kennedy and Vice President Nixon debated, as election day approached. But everywhere you went the game was on the radio. People who didn’t pay attention all year long tuned in, or turned on the TV, which would play in the background while business went on.
So, we listened to the radio, and I’m sure I did something or other else, too. I was a baseball fan, just turned four, but I can’t imagine I followed the events of this back and forth slugfest of a game.
The shock of discovering the Yankees trailing, the thrill of the Yankees going ahead 7-5 in the top of the eighth, and then the total devastation of Hal Smith’s homer over Yogi Berra in left, plating Dick Groat and Roberto Clemente as well, putting the Pirates up 9-7 going into the 9th. (I don’t remember this stuff, but I’m sure I was listening to it on the radio. I didn’t remember Hal Smith’s homer, I looked that up.)
I read today that Mel Allen said in the game’s broadcast that Smith’s three-run shot was one of the most dramatic home runs ever in a World Series game, one that would be long remembered. Right.
I like to think I didn’t give up hope. The Yankees were the best team of all time, they could do it. Singles by Bobby Richardson and Dale Long got the rally going in the top of the ninth. This I know from Retrosheet’s account of the game. Harvey Haddix came in to face Roger Maris and got him to pop out. But then Mantle singled Richardson home, and Long scored on a ground out by Yogi Berra. Tie game!
Ralph Terry, who had thrown the last out of the eighth inning, came out for the ninth. Mazeroski stepped up to the plate. Maz was a second baseman, batting eighth in the order, just ahead of the pitcher. I probably didn’t know enough yet about the game to think, “No worries.”
The first pitch was a change up high. Maz took the pitch. The catcher Johnny Blanchard went out to the mound. He says he told Terry to keep the ball down, Maz like the high stuff.
Maz at the 50th anniversary celebration of his homer.
Terry’s second pitch was lower, but right down the pipe, and Mazeroski reached out and slugged it. The ball jumped off his bat, shot out to left field, though I couldn’t see that. What I heard was the roar of the crowd and the announcer’s voice, which rose and rose in excitement and exploded with “it’s gone!” After a pause, “The Pirates have won the 1960 World Series.”
To this day, 55 years later, Bill Mazeroski has the only walk-off Game 7 World Series homer. (Joe Carter hit a walk-off Series ender for the Blue Jays against the Phillies, but that was Game 6.) What I remember most was the excitement that homer generated, the chatter and energy and conversation, even as the Yankees lost. It would have been about that time that my love for the game grew. But I imagine myself that day, sagging there in the kitchen, not believing that anything so awful could ever happen. Little did I know.
Here’s a link to a USA Today story (pdf) about an annual celebration of Maz’s home run in Pittsburgh. They play the radio show of the game, starting at 1:00 PM, so the call of the homer is at 3:36 PM. Nice. Pirates’ Bill Mazeroski 50 years later, shot still echoes – USATODAY
I haven’t found the radio broadcast of the game yet. The radio announcer, Chuck Thompson, says of the final pitch: “Art Ditmar throws…” misidentifying the pitcher, confusing Ralph Terry with Ditmar, who was warming up in the bullpen.
My dad died last year, perhaps one of the reasons I started digging around in these memories, so he wasn’t around to ask about my first baseball game. Was it the game I remember in 1961? Were there earlier games? What game did we go see in 1961. But then it occurred to me that my old friend John was there, too, and maybe I could find him.
We hadn’t been in contact since high school, at least, and we didn’t run together then. We had last been chums when I was in third grade, when my family moved up the road and I was transferred to a different elementary school. But there he was, on Facebook and LinkedIn. To send a message via LinkedIn I had to be a paying member, I’m not, so I sent a friend request on Facebook, which a short while later was accepted.
I messaged him and we had a brief conversation (my messages are in green):
Hi John. I hope you’re well these days. Are you living in New York? I’m out in Brooklyn.
I was thinking about you because I’ve been writing about the first major league baseball game I went to see, and I think it was with you and my dad at Yankee Stadium. I was wondering if you had any memory of that? And any details. Most of the details I recalled were in some way wrong.
Of course, it was a while ago.
I think so. I live in the Poconos. My mind is trying to remember.
It’s a pleasant exercise, remembering, but a little chilling to discover none of the details (weather, opponent, who hit homers, time of day) could have lined up the way I remember.
I hear you. My memory is shot.
What was the question again?
My dad died last year and I started to put together stories about the way our lives intertwined because of baseball, that’s how I got onto this. Thanks for letting me know if anything comes to mind.
The other one was the guy who lived next door to me who was a salesman for Topps. He brought us rolls of uncut baseball cards a few times.
I’m sorry about your dad. I do recall those uncut cards. That was fun
Thanks. I remember cutting them with our little child-safe scissors, so each one had a unique shape.
That’s right. Stay in touch!!
Will do!
Chat Conversation End
Not too promising, I’m afraid. I sent John a link to the first part of this story yesterday and will update here if he has any reaction.
