The Chicago Cubs went so long between World Series championships that, even after finally winning one, the pop culture references to their dry spell continue to haunt. This song is an example of just that. You know you’ve had a rough time of things when the likelihood of your winning again gets compared to the likelihood of the Canterbury Tales becoming a bestseller.
There is an old saying that money can’t buy happiness. If it could, I would buy myself four hits every game.
~Pete Rose
U.S. District Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis accepted the offer to become baseball’s first commissioner on November 12, 1920. The decision to hire a commissioner came in the wake of the 1919 World Series scandal, which involved eight White Sox players who were paid off by gamblers to throw the Series against Cincinnati. Landis would officially begin his new role in January 1921.
Yesterday I happened across a tidbit stating that one of the largest baseball card collections resides at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. I’ve never been a card collector, so I suppose this might already be common knowledge and I’ve just been out of the loop. I did want to check it out all the same, so I poked around and discovered that the Met is in the process of cataloging the cards, all part of the Jefferson R. Burdick collection, online. You can find the collection here.
Just minutes of exploring has revealed some gems, such as this collection of cartooned baseball stars from 1943:
And these old school pennants from 1933.
And there are, of course, a myriad of traditional baseball cards:
I have to say, this is my type of card collection. A variety of cards, and yet virtual so that they don’t actually take up a bunch of physical space. Happy exploring!
I’ve fallen in love with baseball.
~Nick Jonas
I came across this piece last night, and I love the sensory details it provides, even in such a concise poem. The author is right — sometimes all it takes are a few words to have an impact.
*
even for
the non aficionado
when you say
such trite things as
step up to the plate
knock it out of the park
they can still feel
the solid oak of the bat
smell the oiled
leather of the glove
and hear the crack
as the ball soars
higher into the sky
past the cheap seats
and beyond
and I wonder
how could I
have dismissed
these words
and turns of phrases
so raw
golden
sweet and bardic
Here’s a song that isn’t really about baseball, though it has some baseball allusions in it. I see this as a song about taking chances, though I have found some other interpretations about it, too. The tune is rather melancholy, but I also find it quite calming.
Ernie Banks won his second consecutive MVP award on November 4, 1959. Mr. Cub finished the season with a .304 batting average and 143 RBIs, including 45 home runs. Banks collected ten of the writers’ 21 first-place votes, with Eddie Mathews (5) and Hank Aaron (2) of the Braves and Dodger Wally Moon (4) dividing the rest of the first-place votes.
I can have fun anywhere, as long as I’m with good people. But in the offseason, I like to go somewhere warm, a nice spot in the Caribbean.
~Derek Jeter
I have had Hardball on my list of movies to watch for awhile. Finally I made a point to get my hands on a copy of the DVD, which I popped into the player to watch one evening this past week.
Mere minutes into the movie, I realized, “Oh, wait, I’ve seen this before.” I had watched Hardball with my brothers shortly after it first was released, but it has been so long that I had forgotten the name of the movie, or even who starred in it. But I remembered the plot very clearly.
Funny how memory works.
I also remembered enjoying the flick, and so I was more than happy to kick back and enjoy it again. 
Keanu Reeves plays Conor O’Neill, a gambler who finds himself severely in debt with two bookies. In order to repay the debts, he is receives and offer from a friend in the corporate world, in which he must coach a baseball team of troubled African-American fifth grade kids from the projects in exchange for $500 each week. Desperate for the money, Conor agrees.
However, Conor doesn’t really care about coaching the kids — at least, not at first. He shows up at the first practice to be greeted by a group of smart-mouthed, street-smart youngsters who struggle when it actually comes to playing the game. Various outside forces threaten the team’s season — a teacher (Elizabeth Wilkes) who won’t let a couple boys play until they finish their book reports; an opposing coach going out of his way to try to undermine them; and so on — and Conor realizes that if he is to receive his $500 a week, he needs to keep the season alive.
After agreeing to help ensure the boys’ book reports get done, Conor starts to take practices more seriously. He convinces the boys on the team to stop trashtalking one another and to start actually behaving like teammates. While they lose their first game in embarrassing fashion, Conor still treats the team to pizza, which helps to foster a greater sense of camaraderie between the boys. Finally the team starts winning some games, and Conor works to cultivate a romantic relationship with the teacher, Elizabeth Wilkes.
Throughout the season, both Conor and the team endure a series of highs and lows, during which Conor, at one point, even announces that he’s done with the team. However, he realizes that he has come to care about the boys too much, and after winning a large bet to dig himself out of his debts, he instead vows to give up gambling and takes the boys to see their first-ever Major League Baseball game.
Just after winning the game that qualifies them for the championship, the team’s youngest player, known as G-Baby, is killed by a stray bullet from a gun fight outside his home. The team decides they still want to continue on and play the championship game in his honor.
As I mentioned, I enjoyed this movie the first time I had watched it, and I’m happy to say I enjoyed it just as much this time around. It’s a heart-warming flick that can be pretty eye-opening when it comes to realizing just how good so many of us have it in our own lives, compared to life in the inner city.
