Roger Maris

Wikipedia - "Roger Eugene Maris (September 10, 1934 – December 14, 1985) was an American right fielder in Major League Baseball who is primarily remembered for hitting 61 home runs for the New York Yankees during the 1961 season. This broke Babe Ruth's single-season record of 60 home runs (set in 1927) and set a record that would stand for 37 years. Maris played with four teams during a 12-year Major League career, appearing in seven World Series and winning three World Series Championships."
Wikipedia, Baseball Reference, Baseball Almanac, Roger Maris Museum, YouTube - Roger Maris Home Run Record 1961, YouTube - Roger Maris, baseball's greatest unsung hero

Charles Barasch - "World Series"

Why, when Carlton Fisk
hit the home run,
did the man in section 22,
down the third base line,
raise his hand for joy,
forgetting his fat wife
at home with the teenage daughter,
and driving home
why did he remember his wedding night,
and even the first night
parked by the river,
which is why he married her
in the first place?

Homestead Grays: Gone But Not Forgotten

"The story of Washington D.C.'s Negro League baseball team. I was the producer and co-editor on this film."
YouTube

Mikhail Horowitz - "The All-Pugilistic Team"

C Steve Decker
1B Alex Hooks
2B Mike Champion
SS Monte Cross
3B Pie Traynor
OF Taffy Wright
OF Jimmy Wynn
OF George Bell

RHP Jimmy Ring
Bill Hands

LHP Roy Hitt
Jess Buckles

MGR Vern Rapp

1966 World Series

"The 1966 World Series matched the Baltimore Orioles against the defending champion Los Angeles Dodgers, with the Orioles sweeping the Series in four games to capture the first championship in franchise history."
Wikipedia, YouTube - 1966 World Series Part 1, part 2, part 3

Steven Schild - "Journeyman Student, Standout at Third"

Agony of Aristotle and blue book,
other-worldly cant of Kant
and categorical whatever
and Sartreís loneliness
lay siege to this boy
who would otherwise be
on God ís green grass
if not for this test, these texts
that count so little
next to the certainty of
straight white lines,
dust raked rich and red
under cleated feet,
the sound of the spheres
when bat hits ball
like subject kisses verb,
when horsehide makes love to leather,
comes loudly, snugly consorts and stays,
the verity of curveball that does not hang,
the hope that one does when he bats,
the hope that it rockets the unabstract
distance to dead center,
the knowing that sometimes he can
hit one out, round the bases
and be part of a wholeness
that would make even Aristotle
leap up to cheer
and not care a damn
if he spilled a full beer.

Kelly Terwilliger - "How Baseball Becomes the Beginning of Longing"

The hum of the crowd
is a warm pool, and you wade in happily,
the green field below as smooth as a freshly made bed,
and the sky fading peach into the cooling
air, the lights so bright, so white they trick the eyes
into seeing the whole world sepia, like an old movie
steeped in the color of nostalgia, the smells
of hot dogs and popcorn clinging to the very air
and somewhere inside, you can still hear the smack of the ball
you can feel the arc it makes over the stands and the boy next to you
so wanting to catch it he brought his tiny red mitt to the game
just in case, and he tells you again and again how it would be:
the ball, so hard, so fast it could hit him in the eye and blind him,
would come sailing right between the two of you, and he—he would snatch it
from the air as fast as anything, and it would be his! And how bare
and pointless the evening turns when he knows it is too late,
no ball will come his way tonight and you will go home
and he will be empty-handed and this was in fact
the worst baseball game ever and now he isn't even sure why
he wasted his time coming, and you climb
that hill with him, his head down, his sandals flapping and the air
clear and darkening all around you, carrying the moon on its breath
like a not-quite-ripe baseball, just out of reach.

Periodic Table of Hall of Famers

"There are few charts in the world as well-known and recognizable as the Periodic Table of the Elements. On charts and folders and schoolbooks everywhere, the periodic table has been around for almost 150 years. It has been in use for so long thanks in large part to its ability to tell a complex and sophisticated story about the known elements in the world in a simple layout. With 118 elements known on the current chart, and 109 players elected to the Hall of Fame by either the BBWAA or via special election (no Veteran's Committee here!), it seemed like a fun exercise to try and arrange the Hall of Famers into a periodic table structure. Well, maybe 'fun' is a bit relative."
wezen-ball

Michael Cantor - "An Octina for Wally Pip"

This starts with New York Yankee Wally Pipp,
who loved each moment of each baseball game—
the grass and sweat, tobacco juice, the pitch,
the spirits that meant Wally came to play
wherever fist hit glove and ball met bat.
Broad-shouldered, tall, his voice a manly bass,
he wooed true fans from Beantown to St. Lou',
and thrilled to hear the crowd's ecstatic bawl

exploding as the umpire called, "PLAY BALL!"
But then a migraine's grip felled Wally Pipp
and Coach told him, No need to stew. In lieu
of you that college kid can start a game
or two. We'll test the rookie at first base;
see how he does against a big league pitch.
The fact is that he ain't no acrobat,
and talks just like he's in some Broadway play—

maybe not the guy you want to play
when the pennant hangs on every ball
but, hey, they say he swings a nasty bat.
The kid dug in—he outweighed Wally Pipp!—
bestrode the plate, admired a chest-high pitch,
then rocked his hips, uncocked thick wrists—HALLOO!—
a rocket ship roared wide of second base,
and skied to play a slap-bang crashing game

of tag with empty bleacher seats. The game
became the kid's—he handled every play
at first as if he'd always owned the base,
each swing just tore the cover off the ball,
and fans began to scream his name, Big Lou!!
He had the legs, ran bases like a big-assed bat
from second basemen's hell, crushed every pitch—
a horsehide whip, a battleship, a pip!

And that was all she wrote for Wally Pipp,
who didn't start another Yankee game.
He shared the bench with washed-up vets whose pitch
to him each day — that kid needs dirty play;
piss in his shoes and hat, chop up his bat
for firewood — was the bitter rant of base
old men who'd plot a rookie's Waterloo:
we'll take him out and get him drunk and ball

some five buck whore—for five bucks more she'll bawl
to all that it was rape—but Wally Pipp
already knew that greatness lived in Lou
and wouldn't play that sick old-timer's game.
He praised the man who took away his base
and led the cheers for him to slug each pitch,
while tycoons, heartless as a cork-plugged bat,
had Wally quickly sold away, to play

for Cinci'—small-town Cinci'—where the play-
by-play announcers peddle hay; and ball-
field summer heat can scorch a wooden bat;
and that became the end of Wally Pipp.
He left to run a bar and grill; would pitch
in nights, and lift a few and talk of Lou:
how sure it was that he would make the Base-
ball Hall of Fame, an All-Star of the game,

the Iron Horse, who never missed a game
in fourteen years. Bad calls can ruin the play
of life, and Wally found he was off base
once more: he thought some day they'd name a ball-
park after Lou—not a disease—then Lou
fell ill. The Scoreboard marked his last at bat.
When millions mourned him on the final pitch,
the saddest man of all was Wally Pipp.

At every New York game the ghost of Lou
is said to grab a bat and try to play;
smash back a pitch, bring home the men on base,
for baseball fellowship—and Wally Pipp.

Home Run Derby (TV)

Wikipedia - "Home Run Derby was a television show held at Wrigley Field in Los Angeles putting the top sluggers of Major League Baseball against each other in nine-inning home run contests. The show was produced and hosted by actor/broadcaster Mark Scott and distributed by Ziv Television Programs. The series aired in syndication from January 9 to July 2, 1960 and helped inspire the Home Run Derby event that is now held the day before the annual Major League Baseball All-Star Game."
Wikipedia, amazon, MovieWeb

Ernie Banks

Wikipedia - "Ernest 'Ernie' Banks (born January 31, 1931 in Dallas, Texas), nicknamed 'Mr. Cub', is a former Major League Baseball shortstop and first baseman. He played his entire career with the Chicago Cubs (1953–1971). He was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1977."
Wikipedia, Baseball Reference

J. Kelly Yenser - "Out of the Yard"

Hendu saw it all the way, sat
on a flat slider, driving it out to left.
The sore-armed Moore slumped and that
was that. Soon after the Sox headed for the Mets.

And we all know what happened almost next:
Buckner kicked a Sunday bounce,
Mookie legged it out, etcetera.
(Did you hear the one going around

that winter: How Billy Buck thought
to step in front of a bus . . . but it went between his legs?)
What's the diff, finally? We all foresaw
the curse before it was again, but never

the worst: that Donnie Moore, sore at heart,
would take it in so soon, would take it all so hard.

Ishle Yi Park - "Agbayani"

(Subway Series, Shea Stadium, 2000)

I claim the 7 train as mine. For 15 years it has rocked me indelicate
above crisp beds of maple, graffitied brick, and a metallic
Worlds Fair globe. Called the Oriental Express back
when Oriental was not offensive. I loved that nickname
because it banded us together like thieves in collusion.

And the stubble-chested Italian boy, who stuffed my little brother's face
into the fender of his dad's '84 Chevy, cannot even think victory
tonight without an Asian name breaking waves against his hesitant lips,
to scatter his notion of American into fine spume,
like the red-brown dust rising from a slide into second.

Agbayani . . . Agbayani . . . Agbayani . . .

Shea Stadium. I've seen it dark as a janitor's closet,
and vibrant as fiesta, where faces confetti the stands.
My grandfather hobbled to a game when Shea's marketing sharks
promoted ethnic day on Korean night, which was accidentally billed
with Dominican night, and he cheered for Chan Ho Park to the clave
of fifty thousand hands.
Agbayani. You make their lips twist. Agbayani. My grandfather
circles the scores in the cut-out newspaper with a magnifying glass.
Your name is beautiful. I will ignore the way the pitcher
rubbed your head like you were a cocker spaniel, I will ignore this.
The double, the double, slide into second.
Yellow numbers clicking victory.

Tonight your face is beloved, familiar on the television.
Tonight we are red dirt, stadium light,
tired thighs, champagne spray, wet towel. You gave us this.
I could give a shit about baseball. The crotch-scratching,
gum-chewing Long Island families filling my train
and spilling out at Shea every summer
not my thing. But I can pocket now this torn ticket
night when you filled it, made New Yorkers cheer,
an oil-hot stadium waiting for reason to leap.

As I ride by on the tired commute back to mama's house in Queens,
I think of you. The way you twist their lips.
The night we were soaked towel, stadium light.
My grandfather circles your name
and keeps it in his records. Your beautiful name,
you gave us this.

Mantle’s Griffith Shot

"It was mid-April 1953. Dwight Eisenhower was president, the Korean War was in its third year, and a young baseball player named Mickey Mantle was hitting some monster home run shots for the New York Yankees. One of these came in a game with the Washington Senators at the Senators’ home field at Griffith Stadium, Washington, D.C."
Pop History Dig, A Tribute To Griffith Stadium - Video

Silliman's Blog - World Series, San Francisco Giants

Edgar Renteria gets the pitch he wanted

In 1954, the last time the Giants won a World Series, I was eight years old. I remember the series as one of the first that I watched on TV with my grandfather, gradually becoming a baseball fan but not yet with an allegiance to any team. In ’54, the teams local to the Bay Area were the Oakland Oaks & San Francisco Seals, both minor league franchises in the Pacific Coast League. The Oaks folded after 1955, and I never saw a Seals game in person. But what I remember most about that 1954 series is that TV showed Willie Mays’ catch of a long drive off the bat of Vic Wertz over and over. I may not even have known what a replay was before that series. Although Cleveland had won 111 games that year and was seemingly invincible, the rather motley crew of the Giants, whose heroes included a pinch-hitter by the name of Dusty Rhodes, swept them in 4 games.

Four years later, when I was 12, the Giants moved to San Francisco, led that season by Mays & Johnny Antonelli, one of the pitching heroes of the ’54 series. That first west coast team had a number of young players, most notably rookie first baseman Orlando Cepeda, who would go on to the Hall of Fame, rookie third-baseman Jim Davenport & a slew of good young outfielders that included Willie Kirkland, Felipe Alou, Bill White, Leon Wagner and Jackie Brandt, and I was instantly a die-hard Giants fan. I can tell pretty much everything about the first game I ever attended at Seals Stadium on 16th Street. Ruben Gomez started for the Giants but walked the first four batters & was pulled instantly by manager Bill Rigney, who sent in Paul Giel (a one-time Jack Spicer student!) who shut down the Reds the rest of the way, allowing the home team to beat Bob Purkey. Before they moved to Candlestick Park in 1960, I saw Leon Wagner hit a ball that cleared the stadium walls & crossed 16th Street to land in a park – that is still the longest home run I’ve ever seen, even if it gets a little longer every year.

Once the Giants added Willie McCovey (another Hall of Famer) in 1959 & Juan Marichal (ditto) in ’60, the team became a regular contender in the pre-playoffs era of baseball. In 1962, the Giants came within a hit of besting the New York Yankees in a seven-game series. Game 4 of that series proved to be the only World Series game Juan Marichal would ever play in. Although the Giants won that particular contest, the victory in relief went to Don Larsen, whom everyone remembers for his perfect game with the Yankees in 1956.

I can recall exactly where I was sitting when McCovey’s ninth-inning line drive found its way into Bobby Richardson’s mitt to end the 1962 series, where my grandfather was sitting, and where my brother was pounding on the screen door to be let into the house. But the game and series were already over before either of us rose to get the latch. That was the only World Series the Giants played in as locals while my grandfather was still alive. By the time the Giants got back to the series in 1989, Arthur Collins Tansley been dead already for 18 years. Not one of the 1958 players was still competing. The nation had gone from JFK to George Herbert Walker Bush as president between appearances in baseball’s greatest show.

The 1989 series was marked both by competition from right across the bay, the Oakland A’s, a team that had relocated from Kansas City in 1968, and by the Loma Prieta earthquake that put a huge damper on everything. The upstart American League franchise was in the second of its three-year-run in the series that year, having lost to Los Angeles the year before, and losing again in 1990 to the Cincinnati Reds. I managed to attend Series games in both 1988 and ’90, watching the A’s win in extra innings on a home run by Mark Maguire in ’88 and watching with Kit Robinson as the Reds finished their sweep of the local team in 1990. Jose Rijo, the winning pitcher of that final game was the then-son-in-law of Juan Marichal. Life’s little ironies.

I had thought I would be seeing the Giants in the 1987 series. That was the only year I was ever able to swing post-season tickets for the Giants, led in that era by manager Roger Craig, whose good-ol’-boy persona often strikes me as the template for current Phillies manager Charlie Manuel. The Giants won the Western Division and took the lead in the playoff series two games to one over the Cardinals when they left to play the final two games in St. Louis. But the Cardinals won both games & I still have a photocopy of my World Series tickets somewhere. The originals went back for a refund.

In 2002, the Giants came within six outs of winning the series over the California Angels, only to have the bullpen blow game six and then to lose game seven. By then, I no longer lived in the Bay Area and tho my allegiance was slowly moving over to the Phils, I had no trouble rooting for Barry Bonds-led Giants. Even then, however, Bonds was the lone player left from my days in the Bay Area seven years earlier.

When the Giants made it to the World Series this year, I was rooting in fact for the Phils. The current Giants, the 2010 World Champion Giants, look nothing like that team in 2002, nor any of their previous division-winning teams. With one of the hardest baseball stadiums to hit for power in in the game, the team has been largely designed for the peculiarities of that ball park, and designed on the cheap. As I wrote on October 6, the Giants were the one team that gave me pause in hoping that the Phils would take their second world title in three years, precisely because of the Giants’ pitching. If anything, I underestimated their pitchers. Their number three starter, Jonathan Sanchez, had a case of the yips and went from being their strongest starting pitcher at the season’s end to being a non-factor in the post-season. But Tim Lincecum, Matt Cain & Madison Bumgarner were masterful. Closer Brian Wilson was perfect. And the rest of the staff was good enough.

The Giants also had the weakest starting players of any team in the playoffs, possibly ever. Not one of their starting outfielders began the season as regulars with the team. The left side of the infield was a patchwork, and they traded their starting catcher to make room for a 23-year-old phenom. The phenom, Buster Posey, first baseman Aubrey Huff (signed in January as a free agent), and second-baseman Freddy Sanchez (a former batting champ with worst-team-in-baseball, Pittsburgh, a few years back) were really the only solid starters the team had most of the season. Another way of looking at this is that five of the starting eight positions were being held by back-up style ballplayers, mostly older ballplayers who could no longer play as regulars elsewhere. I still think that Buster Posey is the only position player on the Giants who could compete for a starting job on the Phils. A lot of good that did the Phils.

Because, with good enough pitching, that turns out to be good enough. In three of the games the Giants won, the Rangers scored one run or less. The World Series MVP is a good-hands, no-hit shortstop who is on the cusp of retirement. His obvious replacement, Juan Uribe, is, shall we say, stocky for an infielder, tho not by comparison to the gargantuan Pablo Sandoval, who had starred for the 2009 Giants only to lose his job this year.

One other phenomenon should be mentioned here, tho, which is momentum. The Phillies had the best record in the National League, but only once in the past decade has the National League team with the best regular season record even gone to the World Series – the 2004 Cardinals who were then swept by the Red Sox. The Giants instead executed a more common narrative by being the team that had to work hardest in September to get into the play-offs, and then going on to win it all. Usually that’s the wild card team, but the Braves had that wrapped up a week before the season ended. The Giants, by contrast, hustled to take the Western Division crown on the final day of the season. Of the eight teams in the playoffs, they were the one that spent the fewest days in first place, just 37 days from six months of competition. But once in the playoffs, they never stopped hustling. In the National League Championship Series, you could tell in at least the first four games that the Phils were trying hard not to lose the series, while the Giants were instead trying to win, taking greater chances and getting good results. Playing the team with the best record in the American League in the series, the Giants even made it look easy. Once it became clear that Lincecum had better stuff than Cliff Lee in Game One, the championship never seemed in doubt. To somebody who has been watching the Giants for over 50 years, that sentence just sounds odd, but it’s true. Watching them cruise to the title took me back a long ways, to my childhood really. I wish my grandfather could have seen this team.

Silliman's Blog

Home run

Wikipedia - "In baseball, a home run (abbreviated HR) is scored when the ball is hit in such a way that the batter is able to circle all the bases in one play without any errors being committed by the defensive team in the process. In modern baseball, the feat is typically achieved by hitting the ball over the outfield fence between the foul poles (or making contact with either foul pole) without first touching the ground, resulting in an automatic home run. There is also the 'inside-the-park' home run, increasingly rare in modern baseball, where the batter circles the bases while the baseball is in play on the field."
Wikipedia, Baseball Almanac, YouTube - Babe Ruth's 60th Home Run 1927

Larry Moffi - "Homage to a Vacant Lot"

Mr. and Mrs. Davies live upstairs.
He follows the Dodgers. She follows
him. She works for Aetna, he
for The Travelers. They do what
nobody bothers to ask, the paperwork
of other people's lives in offices
where colleagues are legion. Twice
each summer they go off on her company
sponsored trip, or his, cardboard valise
holding them up on the corner
until the blue tobacco bus takes them
away: Boston, a long weekend.

Otherwise, he drinks beer and smokes
five solid months on the porch,
Brooklyn on the radio, the mourning
of the pennant race. Drunk, especially
drunk, he dispenses his portion of wisdom,
the philosophy of the all-important loss
column, "losses being what kill you,
you can make up a win but never a loss."
Or else I am shagging flies he lifts
high across the vacant lot. "Two hands!"
he shouts, "Two hands!" And I try.