Of all sports, baseball is, in my opinion, the most poetic. If you’ve watched the game, you agree. If you were raised on a desert island  and never watched the sport but through some turn of events managed to have a radio (or construct one from found objects, say coconuts or potatoes) and happened to tune into Vin Scully at Chavez Ravine, you would agree. Baseball is poetic. Through the gradual paced buildup, the long-awaited moments of euphoria, and all the slow innings that gently roll into one another, baseball has distinct rhythm and meter unlike any other sport.

Baseball is poetic in movement and in word. The concentration; the subtleties in windups, in swings, in outfield snags; even charging the mound has a colorful language of its own, one that we try to capture with words, but fail at our attempts using the common tongue. Baseball demands a set of words and phrases- a lexicon- of its own, in order for the feeling to be captured, transcribed, and understood.

On today’s Throwback Thursday, I would like to begin a tradition of sharing baseball poetry of auld lang syne, some less auld than others, of course. We will begin this week with a brief poem by Franklin Pierce Adams, published in 1910 in the New York Evening Mail. This poem is written from the viewpoint of a New York Giants fan in witness of the impressive (and utterly heart-wrenching) fielding prowess of three early 1900′s Chicago Cubs infielders: Johnny Evers, Joe Tinker, and Frank Chance.

If poetry isn’t really your thing (yet) but baseball is, read this poem through a couple times. Familiarize yourself with the story that the poem is describing. Then, I highly recommend, read the poem aloud. You’ll notice how playful the language seems, though the mood still lamenting.

These are the saddest of possible words:
“Tinker to Evers to Chance.”
Trio of bear cubs, and fleeter than birds,
Tinker and Evers and Chance.
Ruthlessly pricking our gonfalon bubble,
Making a Giant hit into a double-
Words that are heavy with nothing but trouble:
“Tinker to Evers to Chance.”

“Baseball’s Sad Lexicon” by Franklin Pierce Adams, (c) 1910.

Do you have a favorite baseball tradition? Is there a particular ghost of baseball past you would like to revisit? Ever wonder why they do what they do, and when they started doing it? If you have a suggestion, question, or submission for Throwback Thursday, contact Elise by tweeting @Elise_Myers.

Pretend you’re a mouse. It’s a stretch, I know. For some of you.

Now, pretend you’re a mouse with an intellect rival to that of a human being. Like mouse-Stephen-Hawking, mouse-Einstein. Harder still, eh?

And imagine you used your incredible mousey intellect to design a supercomputer named Deep Thought, in order to ask her one question:

What is the answer to the ultimate question of life, the universe, and everything?

And seven-and-a-half million years later, Deep Thought tells you this:

42.

42 is the answer to the ultimate question of life the universe and everything.

You would agree, if you were a mouse-genius, or at least, if you’ve ever stumbled across one of Douglas Adams’ delightful science fiction novels in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy series. That’s my excuse.

But also, you would probably find 42 to be a significant number if you have ever been inside a baseball stadium. Which is more what this Throwback Thursday article is about, as you might guess.

Because, you know, Jackie Robinson wore number 42. And, I might add, Jackie Robinson was The Man. (And I don’t mean that in the stick-it-to-the-man way.) But we talk about Jackie Robinson so often, don’t we? So why today? Because, dear reader, tomorrow, a very special movie about a very special man is coming to theaters near you. Yes, that’s right, it’s 42, the Jackie Robinson story and who cares if it’s going to be good (it is), because baseball.

We could sit here and go through the story of Jackie’s life, but that would include too many spoilers. So this weekend, while you’re struggling through that painful pre-preview “entertainment” at your local movie theater, or waiting in line outside in the near-freezing cold for the 10pm showing tonight, why not whip out some Jackie Robinson trivia to go with that fluorescent-yellow popcorn? It will be a good time (But it probably won’t help with the kernels that are stuck in your teeth).

» Continue reading “Throwback Thursday: The Number 42″

Monday was the eighth day of the season, so on one hand it’s way too early to crown anyone as a post-season favorite. But it’s also far too early to jump ship. The 162-game grind is barely under way, and there’s no way to have a grip on things yet.

That being said, how can we not wonder who truly will be in the hunt for the ring?

There are several things that will be necessary for a team to make it to the post-season:

1. Good starting pitching. No matter what kind of offense a club has, it’s going to need top-notch pitching. That begins with the starters. How about the Nationals, Reds, Dodgers, Giants and Phillies in the N.L. and Detroit, Tampa Bay, Oakland and Toronto in the A.L.? The Phillies will hope Roy Halladay is healthy, and Toronto will need to have new faces few comfortable on the bump and in the stadium.
2. Bullpens. Start with Atlanta, then probably Tampa Bay. The Cincinnati Reds, Giants and Orioles are surely in the mix, and Oakland and the Nationals merit mention.

Great starting pitching can make bullpens look better than they are, because they can be used with more flexibility. Solid bullpens can help starters out on the rough days. Teams that have both live in a state of luxury.

And remember, good bullpens might start with a closer, but as often as not they have the middle relievers and setup men capable of getting the ball in the closer’s hand in the ninth. Mariano Rivera wouldn’t have the rep he does if he pitched for a lower-echelon team. He might have been just as good, but we would never have heard of him.

» Continue reading “What Does It Take To Get To October?”

In or out? The Knothole Gang, photograph from the Milwaukee Sentinel, via BorchertField.com.

When I was in second grade, Derek Jeter was a much younger man, and my greatest worries were what was being offered for hot lunch in the cafeteria. We spent the class day learning how to type and write in cursive (guess which skill has proven more useful), and we ate watermelon jelly beans. Life was good.

I remember one day in class we watched a movie called The Buttercream Gang. I don’t remember anything about it actually, other than that it happened. And also that there was one scene from the movie that has been inaccurately remembered in my mind… some angsty teenage kids from the ’50s walking around in caves or cliffs or something, with little knives, sitting on the hoods of their fast cars, saying things like:

“Is that a threat?”

“No. It’s a promise.”

That became the coolest thing to be said on the playground. Ever. I didn’t know what threats were. Or much less, buttercream. And I didn’t know a lot about gangs either, except that being in one made you cool, so we decided to start throwing pinecones at all the other kids (we called them atomic bombs).

Gangs appeal to kids. I don’t mean the violent scary serious kind of gangs though. I mean the kind of gangs where you buy bubblegum cigarettes and ride your bikes around the north woods of Wisconsin, scaring deer and doing secret hand signals with your second-cousins-once-removed (for instance). The kinds of gangs that appeal to kids desired to fit in and to be cool and, if you were to degrade humanity to animals with clothes, our instinct to be a part of the pack.

“If kids wat to be in a gang, for one reason or another, like to delineate the in from the out, or simply to watch baseball games together, then why not exploit that simple human desire, the desire of belonging, as a marketing strategy?”

-Said one St. Louis Cardinals organization under Branch Rickey in 1917.

And voila, the Knothole Gang was established.

The Knothole Gang: an organization of youngsters fostered to early-onset addictions to baseball. The theory being:

“If we let these little ones come to baseball games at reduced prices now, by the time they are adults they will be completely physically and mentally dependent upon our franchise, and will pay big money for fully grown adult-sized tickets. Then, if they could be so lucky, these baseball-breathing adults might reproduce and create more munchkins to fuel enrollment in the Knothole Gang. And the money floods into our pockets, and the cycle continues. Have a cigar.”

» Continue reading “Throwback Thursday: The Knothole Gang”

At last!

After last night’s warm-up with the Astros win over the Rangers in their American League debut, there is a full slate of games ahead today — including the first-ever interleague Opening Day game this afternoon in Cincinnati when the Reds take on the Angels.

Why is today not a holiday? It’s the best day of the baseball season, so full of hope and promise — anything could happen over the course of the next six months.

Well, almost anything. The Cubs are still the Cubs. (What else would you expect a Cardinals fan to say?)

But it is true that the Astros are in first place in the entire American League this morning, and that’s not an April Fool’s joke.

Find the full schedule of today’s games online here, as well as the Opening Day lineups for all 30 MLB teams.

Play ball!

This is a photographic portrait of Christy Mathewson from 1910. The quality of this shot  baffles me. And look at his eyes! Even Tyra would be impressed. Source: Library of Congress Prints and Photographs division, via Wikimedia Commons.

I think someday I will need to rename this column “Turn Of The Century Thursday,” because I blatantly happen to marvel at that period of baseball history so darn much. However, Throwback Thursday is quite catchy… so we’ll leave it at that.

I have a friend who has a simple theory about this, about my fondness, my romanticism of the “ages past,” as we shall call them. For instance, I gush to him about 1960′s Ford Mustangs and pine for men’s fashions from the pre-Victorian era (Hello, Mr. Jackman in Les Mis). Then subsequently, I turn my nose up at 1990′s Ford Mustangs, and cringe and scoff at music and movies from the 80′s (I am sorry that you love it).

I try to explain to this friend that I have mature well-rounded tastes for design and engineering, like the way one who is trained and educated enjoys coffee, or craft beer, or pipe tobacco (I imagine).

He tells me I like things that are old because they’re old. He tells me that I don’t like things that are recent because they’re recent.

He tells me that someday the recent things will be old things, and I will like them. And the old things? I don’t know exactly his theory on that, but I assume, they will just be older things, so I will probably still like them.

So this one’s for you.

Christopher “Christy” Mathewson grew up in Factoryville Pennsylvania, the son of farmers, a brother of three brothers, a boy scout. Where many stories start, but none quite like Christy’s. After all, the town of Factoryville, PA is still celebrating Christy Mathewson Day nearly 90 years after his death, and you can’t say that about just anyone,  whether their aura of fascinatingness is derived from their oldness… or perhaps, something more.

» Continue reading “Throwback Thursday: Christy Mathewson’s Quiver Ball”

I’ll be up front with you. I’m on vacation in one of my favorite cities in the world (San Francisco!), so this post may be brief, but the video that follows is excellent and hand-picked by yours truly for your utmost enjoyment. It features the clip from 1976 at Dodger Stadium, as well as interviews with Rick Monday and Tommy Lasorda reflecting on an unbelievable moment in baseball history that has forever tarnished (or polished, for that matter) the reputation and memory of one Major League Baseball player, Rick Monday:

On April 25 1976, not-so-coincidentally the Nation’s bicentennial anniversary, the Chicago Cubs played the Los Angeles Dodgers at Dodger Stadium. One man and his 11-year-old son crashed the field and proceeded to kneel down in the outfield. The pair laid out an American flag onto the grass, poured lighter fluid atop it, and then began attempts to light the flag with matches.

But their plans for the flag’s ill were foiled when, suddenly, Cubs center fielder Rick Monday sprinted at the two figures and, swooping like a patriotic pelican over the San Francisco Bay, rescued the flag from a certain fiery doom.

Will anyone ever remember Rick Monday’s All Star Game appearances (1968, 1978)? Will anyone fondly recall his league-leading double plays as an outfielder (1967, 1974)? Monday’s career falls to the wayside of one somehow seemingly heroic act. And when Trivia Night rolls around at your local bar, Rick Monday will forever be remembered as the ballplayer who saved the flag.

Do you have a favorite baseball tradition? Is there a particular ghost of baseball past you would like to revisit? Ever wonder why they do what they do, and when they started doing it? If you have a suggestion, question, or submission for Throwback Thursday, contact Elise by tweeting @Elise_Myers.

As of Monday afternoon, when I write this, the World Baseball Classic is down to two games and three teams.  Puerto Rico is in the finals Tuesday, and the Netherlands will take on the Dominican Republic tonight for the opportunity face them.

Starting last night, the playoffs took on a “seventh game” intensity.  No more pool play, one and done.  Energy, excitement, with every decision possibly being the one that would influence the outcome.  March Madness with bats and baseballs.

No one would have projected Puerto Rico in the finals if they were to look at the numbers.  The Boricuas stand 12th in hitting with a batting average of .227, and a lowly OPS of .611.  They stand seventh in runs scored with only 23 in seven games.  Do the math – that’s slightly less than 3.3 runs per game.

How has Puerto Rico managed to make it to the finals?  First of all, they’re ranked fourth in ERA, at 2.83.  Secondly, they have the fourth-best WHIP.  And in 70 innings, they have only allowed TWO home runs.  Defensively, Irving Falu and third baseman Andy Gonzalez have put on a show.  Yadier Molina has been, well, Yadier Molina.  If he’s not the best catcher in baseball, he’s always in the discussion.

» Continue reading “Looking At The World Baseball Classic Finals”

For today’s Throwback Thursday post, I direct you to our St. Louis Cardinals blog - Aaron Miles’ Fastball - where today they are celebrating the World Series of 1934 and Cardinals Hall of Fame pitcher Dizzy Dean, with some excellent videos for you to enjoy.

Check it out by clicking the link below:

Cardinals Throwback Thursday: 1934 World Series

In 12th grade, I remember taking the first class of my school career (besides the one where you cook pies and take home an electronic baby that shrieks when its head falls back) that actually answered the question, “When am I ever going to use this?” That class was called Economics, and it was taught by the Most Intelligent Man In The World, Mr. Morris, who looked exactly like that old dude in Jurassic Park. I’m not kidding. Ask anyone.

My 12th grade economics teacher. If this photograph doesn’t make it obvious, he’s the man.

So, Mr. Morris told us about this guy named King Gillette, born in Wisconsin in 1855. Silly name I know, but King Gillette was a genius… who happened to be in the right place at the right time. King Gillette invented the disposable-blade safety razor in 1895 (because before that, men had to go to the barber for a shave with a straight razor, a la Sweeney Todd).

During World War I, the United States Government issued Gillette’s safety razor to all troops, an estimated 3.5 million razors. And they were quite the hit with the soldiers. Can you imagine? Finally! No more fear of being turned into a meat pie by a singing psychopath every time you go in for a shave!

Once the war ended, soldiers returned home, and demanded Gillette’s razors for their every day use. The rest is history, and the streets of London no longer run with the blood of the barber’s prey. » Continue reading “Throwback Thursday: Civil War Baseball And Razorblades”