From Across the Pond

Interesting comparison concerning Yankees

Just reading (via RealClearSports) this article from the St Petersburg Times by Gary Shelton. It is basically an article saying that the Tampa Rays are, at the moment, a better team than the New York Yankees. Anticipating a rather vigorous reaction from Yankee fans he comes up with this brilliant line:

Any moment now, Yankee fans will hit you with their history books. And it is true: The Yankees have a glorious past. On the other hand, so did Constantinople.

And while I do not want to predict the Yankees entering a period of mediocrity, but it was a good line. Of course, the extend the analogy the Eastern Empire as led from Constantinope had a hell of a habit of resurgences from the almost-dead, and knew how to stick around. So perhaps the analogy is more positive than it appears at first blush. :)

Book review: Babe - The Legend comes to life

by Robert Creamer (link)

I have been looking forward to reading this book for a while, ever since I read Baseball in '41 some time ago. Also, I wanted to know more about this mythical figure that looms over baseball in so many ways. But until I started to follow baseball a few years ago, I had literally no idea who Babe Ruth was. I think I may have heard his name, but with no context.

So, is this book a good introduction to this legendary sportsman? I would say yes. Robert Creamer has a very easygoing style. It is as if he were sitting next to you in a pub, telling a story over a pint of beer. The book seems to assume that the reader may know very little about Babe Ruth himself, though it does presume some basic knowledge of baseball (which is fine, after all who but someone with some interest in baseball would be reading a book on Babe Ruth?). It starts with a chapter on his legend, to place his life in the context of what follows and continues to this day. The next chapter starts with his birth, and sets the scene.

This first portion of the book - which goes from his birth to his trade to the Yankees, including him becoming a professional baseball pitcher and then the switch to a fulltime hitter - was for me the most interesting. This is in part because his exploits as a hitter - the home runs in all their majestic glory - I already know a little about. But his origins and his pitching were virtually unknown to me, so it was just damned interesting to find out more.

The second portion of the book is the main bulk, and is his time at the Yankees, including the separation from his first wife, his relations with the women who would become his second wife after his first wife's death, and also the stormy relationship with his managers, and the showdown he had with Landis - and, of course, all those home runs. What interested me most in this section was not so much Ruth himself, but the other characters that played a part in his story, particularly Gehrig, Huggins, Barrow, and a few others.

The final portion goes from when he left the Yankees to his death, and I found this a little disappointing. Perhaps this is because, in many respects, after Babe left baseball the rest of his life was disappointing. While he played he was a legend, and did great things. After he retired, nothing he did amounted to very much (in this he reminds me, strangely, of Oskar Schindler, who after the war ended also did very little of note). I think part of the problem is that Creamer choose to put the chapter on his legend at the start of his book, and I think I would have preferred it at the end.

This is something of a quibble however. Creamer does an excellent job of painting the pictures of the past on the canvass of the printed page. His does a marvellous job at imaging the characters of his story - of Ruth himself obviously, but also all the others who made up world, with the curious exception of Ruth's first wife Helen. He tells plenty of anecdotes, but is also careful to distinguish from what is probably true, and what is probably exaggerated. On a couple of the most famous episodes - for example the called home run shot - he goes into quite some detail, which in its way is interesting of an example of how a legend can grow.

Ultimately I read through this book swiftly and with great enjoyment. I would recommend it to anyone just starting to explore baseball's past. More seasoned baseball fans may find less in this book as they may already know more things, but I would still recommend it.

Verdit: A-

Book Review: Lords of the Realm - The Real History of Baseball

by John Helyar

Lords of the Realm was recommended to me by Al from Hear the Hurd (also known as coz1 to Paradox forum-ites). So it sat on my shelf for a while, and I finally got around to read it a couple of weeks ago.

As presented to me it was a book more about the goings on of the owners and management. This is mostly true. However, its subtitle of being the 'real history' of baseball is a tad misleading - its story really begins in the 1960s, and skirts all that went before in an opening chapter. Starting in the 1960s, of course, what this book charts is the conflict between management and labour that started then, and culminated in the 94-95 strike. Unlike, for example, Koppett's Concise History, this book has vastly more detail on the permutations of that evolving conflict, and in particular the goings on in the owners' camp. The intrigues around the commissioners are more firmly linked to what was going on in the labour negotations, and overall a fuller picture presented. The difference between an overview history like Koppett, and a more focused book, like this one.

In form this is a narrative history, with reconstructed scenes and the like. It makes it an easy read, though sometimes it felt more like a story than a historical account. It is possible, I suppose, to have too much of a good thing. Also, although it addressed well the subjects it covered I yearn to know more about the business of the earlier game, pre-war. To the extent this book did not cover that, it was a disappointment. The other disappoint, alas, is that the copy I own (picked up on eBay) was published before the end of the '94 strike, and so in some ways it feels like a book without its ending.

For all that a most excellent book, but reading it leaves me with one minor problem. I have now read my small stock of baseball books. I have ordered (again off eBay) the Boys of Summer. But I am in need of more baseball reading. What I currently own can be found by looking under the baseball tag at my library. Any suggestions?

Waiting for April

I must admit to starting to become impatient for April 1st. It is not exactly as if I have been starved of sports to watch - there is always Rugby, winter Cricket, and the Cricket World Cup is just around the corner. But the simple fact is that the only sport I follow to any degree has been quiet since October, and I am anxious for it to begin again.

I may even have the audacity to dream up a few predictions in a few weeks' time.

The All Star Game

This is a late post, as the All-Star game obviously took place a little while ago. Not something I was able to watch live (since it happened midweek), but I did manage to avoid hearing the result so the recording I did was grand all the same. A good game I thought.

For someone such as I - that is somewhat still relatively new to baseball and who, because of the curse of timezones, watches far less than I would like - the All Star game is very useful. It allows one to see players of some note one would not ordinarily see. Indeed, back in 2003 when I first watched a baseball game it was just shortly before the All-Star break. I had, sort of by accident, discovered this wonderful sport, and there providentially on display were some of the great names batting and pitching for my delectation. I don't actually remember very much about the game, but I do remember my fascination.

Today of course things are a little different, but the All-Star game is still a place where I can see these other players from around the leagues - especially the western teams where the timezone difference becomes a real killer.

And it was a game. A great, low-scoring game. I emphasise that because recently, of course, it was the World Cup. I detest soccer, but one of the things I have gotten rather sick of hearing and reading is that one reason why Americans apparently do not like soccer is that it is low scoring. Sure, baseball scores runs more frequently than goals in soccer, but by no stretch ofthe imaginatoin could baseball be called a high-scoring game. Particularly not from the country that invented cricket! Put it down to the general ignorance of media, I suppose.

It's been a great first half of the season though (well, not if your a Braves fan like Al Hurd). I must confess to hoping that the Tigers make to at least the ALCS. The Mets on the other hand have so dominated the Division I find myself rooting against them. Bring on the second half.

Deeper thinking

Not related to anthing in particular I very much liked this post by David Pinto over at Baseball Musings about a bit of a slack in offence recently. Not that I had noticed, but I don't watch nearly enough or follow things closely enough to notice. Anyway, the stats confirm recently offence has been a little lower, and the suggestion is this is a by-product of the steroid issues, with people no longer taking them. David Pinto acknowledges this, but suggests another factor might just be the average age of players is older than it has been for a couple of generations.

If a baseball analyst can do it why can't (insert appropriate group here)?

If the players' average is getting older though surely that suggests some teams are going to get young relatively quickly as the older guys retire. I wonder if we're seeing a little of that happen in the Atlanta Braves, for example.

Appreciating Pitching

When I first starting watching baseball, a little over two years ago, watching pitching was pretty much a mystery to me. Of course back then I didn't really know much about the difference from a sinker to a change-up, so that can be excused. Last year though I could not really appreciate a good pitching AB. More or less I had to rely on the commentators to tell me what was going on, whereas I could tell myself what the batters were doing, and brilliant fielding just spoke for itself.

Watching the Braves against the Diamondbacks last night it came to me that this year I have finally started to be able to watch pitching. No longer is it just a sequence of balls being thrown in the batter's direction. Now I can tell more about what is going on, see how the AB develops and appreciate what it is I am seeing. A very welcome development.