The White Sox are one key to understanding that massive chip on Vernam's shoulder. With White Sox Interactive, he may be home at last . . . Tonight will be little Vernam Jr.'s sixth Sox game, and he hasn't seen them win yet. The kid is on his way to a lifelong persecution complex.
Posted by Vernam at May 28, 2004 06:39 AM | TrackBackDeano wins! His prize is a Democrat in the White House come January 2005.
Posted by: TOF at June 11, 2004 11:48 AM'To boldly google for the most famous split infinitive in history?'
I guess the internet has obsoleted trivia games. Another national pastime, which has changed radically since our glory days.
Of course I remember that game ... I was 4 for 4.
I remember Cosell doing play-by-play on Monday night baseball with Jim Palmer doing the color commentary. There was a cut-off play and Palmer said something like, "He didn't know who to throw it to."
Cosell corrected him by saying something like, "'Whom' Jim. He didn't know to whom to throw it."
Palmer laughed. About three innings later Cosell corrected Palmer for splitting an infinitive and there was silence in the booth for about ten seconds.
Question: What is the most famous split infinitive in history?
>IMHO Berman and Cosell is/was great.
Re: Berman, that's a little like admitting you watch Jay Leno, but to each his own. Re: Cosell, I referred specifically to his professed disinterest toward baseball. He at least bothered to stay informed about the other sports he covered.
You're right about the distance between players and fans. It's sort of unhealthy to empathize deeply w/ pampered millionaires, as each day's news reinforces. 8^P
I suppose you've forgotten the playoff win over Central where I went 3 for 4 and threw out Bouchard at 2nd?!
Posted by: VC at June 10, 2004 10:43 PM>IMHO Berman and Cosell is/was great.
Re: Berman, that's a little like admitting you watch Jay Leno, but to each his own. Re: Cosell, I referred specifically to his professed disinterest toward baseball. He at least bothered to stay informed about the other sports he covered.
You're right about the distance between players and fans. It's sort of unhealthy to empathize deeply w/ pampered millionaires, as each day's news reinforces. 8^P
I suppose you've forgotten the playoff win over Central where I went 3 for 4 and threw out Bouchard at 2nd?!
Posted by: VC at June 10, 2004 10:43 PMAs much baseball as I played and watched through college, I lost all interest after the labor strikes and was permanently turned off when Alomar was barely slapped on the wrist for spitting in an ump's face. I’ve been to the new Comiskey park exactly once … for a birthday party. This is not the game that I grew up watching and although VC predictably seeks to assign blame with management, I think he is misguided.
Baseball has undergone a neo-commercialization that started around 1974 when an arbitrator freed Catfish Hunter from slavemaster Charlie Finley. Of course, baseball was a business before that but it was at that point that players rightfully sought a larger piece of the pie. I certainly don’t blame them, but it was the beginning of the end of the baseball era I loved.
VC writes of well-to-do people not wanting working stiffs around any more than necessary. That has always been true. The real difference now is that the players are part of the more-than-well-to-do crowd. Most players only meet the obligatory minimum requirement when it comes to fan interaction. When we were kids, Joel Horlen, Gary Peters, et. al. worked at a sporting goods store four blocks from my house in the offseason to make ends meet. These guys were not prima-donna-self-promoting rock star celebrities like we have today.
The game, particularly the White Sox, have always had owner-barrons … from Charles “Eight Men Out” Comiskey to Einhorn and Reinsdorf. They were in it for the buck first and the love of the game second, if at all. It’s unrealistic to expect someone to invest $200 million and not try to maximize the return on that investment. To me, it’s the players that have changed.
In my view, the chain of events went like this: players asked for and got more money (can’t blame ‘em), owners raised ticket prices and started marketing to corporate America to maintain their profit margin (can’t blame ‘em), ballparks evolved into nice restaurants surrounding playing fields (must accommodate new customers), players became rich (God bless ‘em) and started acting like rich people (God help ‘em), TOF turned his back on baseball (never looked back), and working class America got squeezed out (unfortunate).
It is not atypical that VC would reflexively blame the owners/the man/ the establishment/the well-to-do/authority figures in general. There doesn’t always have to be a bogey man when things don’t go our way. Americans invariably act in their own-self interest. It is one of the first lessons that new immigrants (particularly infielders from the Dominican Republic) learn. Sometimes evolution doesn’t go our way and there’s no use whining about it.
IMHO Berman and Cosell is/was great. One of Cosell’s greatest lines comes to mind: “Ignorance is bliss my friend … you must be ecstatic.!”
Veeck was the greatest!! I went to his funeral service.
Note: I went to see Lartnec yalp Htuos in the sectional pihsnoipmahc last Saturday at TL. Recall that TOF pitched in that game and beat Lartnec (at TL) 92 years ago!!!
Also note that a high school basketball teammate of my nephew was the Cubs first pick in the draft Monday.
I’ve talked enough baseball now to last me another 20 years.
Posted by: TOF at June 9, 2004 09:53 AMThey finally won in our presence: Paul Konerko drove in the game winner in the bottom of the 9th. Making it even sweeter, the Cubs blew a doubleheader in Pittsburgh. All is right with the world, as Jean Shepherd would say.
Posted by: VC at May 29, 2004 01:48 AM