Results tagged “Baseball”

Open letter to the Stephen Strasburg bandwagon:

September 23, 1954:

(Sarasota Herald-Tribune)

Seven months later:

(Rock Hill Herald)

Just sayin'. Strasburg was outstanding tonight against an overmatched Pirates lineup, and I really do hope we're looking at the start of a Hall of Fame career. But give the kid a chance to develop before anointing him the next unhittable superstar. You don't want another Karl Spooner.

There were a lot of appropriate possibilities for commemorating the day. Watching the Lakers-Suns would have worked; he loved basketball, and he loved calling me to talk about every big game, sometimes calling while the game was in progress to watch it with me, him sitting in Florida, me in California. Or I could have watched the Phillies-Marlins, which would have been especially appropriate, since I used to take him to Marlins games and, being a Phillies fan, I would have been overjoyed to witness Roy Halliday's perfect game.

But in the end, I chose the hamburger.

My father, Harold Simon, passed away six years ago today. The last day I saw him, he was in a hospice, and he asked me to bring him a hamburger. I went out and got him the best burger I could find in Boca Raton, a nice, big, sloppy third-pounder with the works. He took a bite, and, in tears, spit it out. He could not swallow, could not eat, knew he was about to die, and wanted one last taste of the meal he loved the most. At the time, it was heartwrenching. Today, I can look back and think about how grateful I am that he had one last chance to savor his favorite food.

So, yeah, I would have liked to see the perfect game, and would have liked to watch the basketball game. But I know that the best way to salute my father today was the burger, a big, sloppy third-pounder with the works. So we went to The Counter in El Segundo, a place I would have wanted to take Dad if he were here. He'd have loved it. I wish he was with us today. But, in a way, I suppose he was.

I'm a little busy tonight. So, for historical purposes, here's an early sighting of videotape, from April 16, 1958:

KDKA-TV in Pittsburgh took delivery of an Ampex VR-1000 in early 1958. It wasn't the first, but it was still a novelty. I wonder if they still have that tape of the Pirates arriving to open the 1958 season or whether, like most stuff of the era, they wiped it to reuse the (expensive) tape. I'm guessing the latter.

From the Pittsburgh Press, April 11, 1958:

It's interesting that they didn't seem to realize exactly how ridiculous the Coliseum was going to be for baseball until 7 days before the 1958 season was to start. I would have thought that the moment they decided on using the Coliseum and not, say, Wrigley Field (the one the Angels used, also a home run paradise), or Gilmore Field, they'd have laid things out and seen that the left field line wouldn't go more than 250 feet. It didn't take actually building the "Chinese Wall" to know that, did it?

But that's history. The Dodgers did play there, it was a home run haven, they survived four seasons in the place (if "survival" is the right word for a World Championship and four years of record attendance), and went on to Chavez Ravine and great success. You knew that part.

Also, did you notice that it was April 11th and the season hadn't started yet? Granted, they only played 154 games back then, but they waited until the snow was gone to head north, I guess. No more. Oh, and in the other story, the Reds' triple A farm team was in Havana, the Sugar Kings. That lasted until mid-1960, when, after one game where a coach and a player were shot in 1959 (just wounded) and after Castro announced he would nationalize all American-owned businesses, the Sugar Kings became, no joke, the Jersey City Jerseys. They folded after the 1961 season. I would love a Jersey City Jerseys jersey.

All right, so, at a friend's urging, I read Gary Vaynerchuk's book "Crush It," which is a (short) book-length pep talk to people like me to "create a brand" online and crank out niche content related to your passion and make it your livelihood. Sounds great, but I've been doing stuff like that for, what, seven years now, and the monetization possibilities are, at best, limited. More like nonexistent.

But the other thing is that I've never concentrated on one area, perhaps because my "day job" (my ALL-day job) is so constricted to radio. I cover a few different niches here, all under the general pop-culture and historical-pop-culture umbrellla. And sports. And occasionally politics, and radio, and... well, there it is again, too scattered.

So, maybe you can help me out here. Do I concentrate on one niche? Do I spread these out into separate blogs and brands? Is there any interest in old TV shows, old newspaper ads, old baseball cards, old anything? Should I focus on new media, cognizant that there are only about 6 zillion tech blogs out there? Do I convert this to podcasts, video, something else? In which direction should I take this?

Or is it best just to leave it be, to keep everything as is, knowing that it means it remains the hobby it's been for seven years? As I've noted here before, this site started as an exercise, someplace to stretch out my writing and try different things. It morphed into... I'm not sure what it morphed into, but this is it. I'm not sure it's enough.

What do you think? Let me know. A few extra bucks wouldn't hurt.

How much do I love these ads from 1953?

It's May 2nd, 1953. The Pioneer League. Your Salt Lake Bees are taking on the Magic Valley Cowboys from Twin Falls, Idaho at Derks Field, and KDYL-TV has its cameras there for a live telecast.

Derks Field -- look at it here -- was built in 1947, so it was relatively new in 1953. It was pretty basic -- a sort-of art deco entrance, but a basic grandstand with no roof, that's it, built in a hurry after its predecessor burned down. It housed Salt Lake teams from 1947 through 1992, in the Rookie classification Pioneer League as well as the Triple A Pacific Coast League. In 1953, the Bees were in the Pioneer League, the Phillies' affiliate, and the park was tiny, a grandstand behind the plate and some bleachers down the lines. When the team moved up to the PCL, the place was expanded, first to seven sections between the bases, then by extending the concrete stands down the line.

The 1953 Bees had nobody of whom you've heard. The star hitter was first baseman John Moskus, .317 with 28 homers. Clyde DeWitt went 19-8 and 36 year old Burt Barkelew, briefly the manager, was 12-3. THe club finished 4th in the regular season but managed to win the playoffs and the league championship. Magic Valley's one star was Dolph Camilli, the former major leaguer, but he was the manager. The game the night before was postponed due to rain.

What happened? Who won?

I have no idea. I couldn't access a paper for May 3rd. Later papers don't mention what happened. There's no other evidence, unless I go to Salt Lake and check the microfiche.

Someday, I will find out who won that game. There HAS to be a record of it someplace.

How ludicrous was the opening Tokyo series for baseball this season? I completely forgot the game was on this morning. I'll bet a lot of people did.

Not that anyone would have noticed. The A's won 5-1 behind Rich Harden, the Sox managed only five hits, and I'll bet both teams couldn't wait to get on planes and head back to the States. That's not a slap at Tokyo, it's just a recognition that this opening series is just wearing and awkward, and downright weird with both teams back to exhibition games for the weekend before starting again for real. The A's go home to play the Giants, the Sox come here to play the Dodgers (including the Coliseum game Saturday, another surreality-in-the-making, but probably a lot more fun). Did this series even happen?

(This was the third time MLB opened in Japan, the other times being in 2000 and 2004. Pray that they forget to do it again in 2012)

So we're two games in and I feel like the season hasn't started... because it hasn't, not even really for the teams involved. They split, so, really, we COULD just ignore these two games and all agree that they didn't happen. So it's a lot like Pam Ewing waking up and finding Bobby in the shower in "Dallas." If it means we can get back to games that start after 3 am, I'm all for it.