In 1988, David Palmer once took to the bases and, upon arriving at third, perpetrated this:
Look at David Palmer flopping about like an astounded halibut. Just look at him.
This is the offseason, and I have been making a GIF out of footage from a game in 1988.
Gary Carter was before my time. I wasn’t alive during the height of his years with the Montreal Expos, and was only four years old when he and the New York Mets did the world a favor, winning the 1986 World Series in seven games. By the time I found baseball, Gary Carter was in the twilight of his career. I don’t remember ever watching him play.
With news of Carter’s worsening condition in his difficult journey with cancer, and having read some of his daughter Kimmy Bloemers’ heartbreaking journal entries about her father’s illness, I’m tempted, as a student of baseball history, to read everything I can about Carter, about his time in Montreal, and his time in Queens. I want to listen to Carter’s Hall of Fame speech, dive into SI’s Vault, and even watch the stupendously thrilling — by all accounts — 1986 World Series. And I’m going to do all that. But, before I do, and most of all, I want to hear from those who watched Gary Carter — revered by all, it seems — play baseball not as journalists, but as fans. I want to know how you remember Gary Carter. I want you to tell me, someone who never watched Carter play the game, what it was like to do so.
What do you remember? What does Gary Carter mean to you?
Tell me about “The Kid.”
Image courtesy The Associated Press, via CBS News.
A line — a beautiful line — from Charles Baudelaire:
See on these canals those sleeping boats whose mood is vagabond; it’s to satisfy your least desire that they come from the world’s end.
A line put to action:
Just this afternoon I’ve submitted an application for employment to baseball’s new Most Interesting Club, the Houston Astros. Here are some notable excerpts.
From the Cover Letter, Page 1:
Mr. Luhnow,
With the announcement yesterday that PITCHf/x expert Mike Fast will be joining the Astros’ baseball operations department — that, coupled with a generous comment about FanGraphs in your Twitter account — it’s apparent that both you and the new-look Houston Astros are looking for fresh ideas. It’s what that in mind that I submit the present application for employment in the Houston Astros organization.
What, precisely, qualifies me to work for the Astros? Allow me to answer candidly: nothing, really. To that admission, allow me to add hastily that I have never, at any point in the roughly 2.5 years during which I’ve worked for FanGraphs, been qualified for even one position I’ve held there — and yet, over that same span of time, both the site’s traffic and presence in the mainstream media have increased exponentially.
“Correlation, not causation,” you say? Luckily for me, I have no idea what that means!
With the news last week that Fausto Carmona is not actually Fausto Carmona, many have been wondering how widespread this fake identity phenomenon actually is among major league players. While it is generally assumed that such players hail from the Dominican Republic, my investigative reporting has uncovered a more surprising poser in the major league mix.
“Hunter Pence” of the Philadelphia Phillies was arrested yesterday outside the consulate my heart, for assuming a false identity. His real name is Rick Nielsen, he is 37 years older than he has claimed, and he is the lead guitarist and songwriter of Cheap Trick.
“hunter pence”
Moneyball had a big day yesterday, garnering a surprise six Academy Award nominations, including nods in four of the bigger categories: Best Actor, Best Actor in a Supporting Role, Best Adapted Screenplay, and Best Picture. It’s nice to see a baseball movie get this kind of recognition, but nobody should really expect the movie to actually win anything, because 1) the movie wasn’t really that good, and 2) baseball movies, when they get nominated (which is rare), tend to fare abysmally in the final voting. To whit:
– The Pride of the Yankees (1942) received 11 nominations, including Best Picture, Best Actor, and Best Actress. It won only one, Daniel Mandell for Best Film Editing.
–The Natural (1984) received four nominations, including Glenn Close for Best Supporting Actress. It won none.
–Bull Durham (1988) received only one (!) nomination for Best Original Screenplay. It lost to Rain Man.
–Field of Dreams (1989) received three nominations, including Best Picture. It won none, losing best picture to Driving Miss Daisy.
-Vincent Gardenia earned a Best Supporting Actor nomination for Bang The Drum Slowly (1973). He lost to John Houseman in The Paper Chase.
The closest baseball has had to a major Oscar victory is when Robin Williams won Best Supporting Actor for Good Will Hunting in 1997. “I just slid my ticket across the table and I said ‘Sorry guys, I gotta see about a girl.'”
Look at David Nied! Just look at him!
David Nied is playing a boy’s game in a god’s country! Is that a cowhide baseball or a frosty snowball, both totems to a lad’s insouciance! The promises of youth! The crisp air in one’s lungs! The ball taking determined flight from the determined hands of a Young Man of America! Who cares if his paymasters will force him to pitch in Mile High Stadium! David Nied, Young Man of America, can do this!
This is Vic Tayback’s grave:
(Thanks, I guess: Old Time Family Baseball)
“Oh how those Nipponese love their baseball!”
– James Sakamoto of the Seattle Japanese-American Courier
Yesterday I, along with Carson Cistulli and The Common Man, attended the second annual Bud Selig Distinguished Lecture in Sport and Society. This year’s presentation was titled “One Base at a Time: Baseball and the Nikkei People,” a lecture presented by Samuel O. Regolado (nephew of Rudy) of California State University-Stanislaus.
The lecture series has been designed and supported with the intent of going beyond the men and teams who comprise sports but to examine the communities behind the sports. In many ways, the games we watch and play are a reflection of us as a people (maybe it is, in fact, just society). Specifically, Regolado’s lecture looks at how baseball was a key component of the communities of the first generations of Japanese immigrants in America used baseball as part of their assimilation into American culture.
Today’s News in Pictures:
This has been Today’s News in Pictures. This has been your Daguerreotype of the Evening.
(Tiger-striped Zubaz pants: BTF)
Last week, my world’s collided. Let me explain: I work by day as a producer on a nightly current affairs television program up here in God’s city, Toronto, called The Agenda with Steve Paikin, producing one-on-one interviews on a myriad of topics, and moonlight as a very mediocre sports writer by night. The inimitable host of our program, veteran journalist, great Canadian, and the hardest working man in show business, Steve Paikin, is a huge baseball fan. He’s got a framed painting of Ted Williams in his office. I’m quite certain that if Steve weren’t a Boston Red Sox fan, he’d be perfect. And, so, when veteran Toronto Sun baseball scribe Bob Elliott got the call to Cooperstown, winning the 2012 J.G. Taylor Spink Award, Steve invited him into our studio for an interview. Now, Bob Elliott’s usually on the other end of this equation; he’s the one asking the questions. But when Steve Paikin invites you on The Agenda, you don’t turn him down. So Elliott sat down with Paikin, magic happened, and television was made.
