A few quotes to get us in the mood - Baseball 2013

 Some of the best things said by baseball people – Part 1

This is the last pure place where Americans dream. This is the last great arena, the last green arena, where everybody can learn lessons of life.
                            ...(Marcus Giamatti partially quoting his father, Bart Giamatti).

 Since baseball time is measured only in outs, all you have to do is keep hitting, keep the rally alive, and you have defeated time. You remain forever young.

                           ...Roger Angell

It breaks your heart. It is designed to break your heart. The game begins in the spring, when everything else begins again, and it blossoms in the summer, filling the afternoons and evenings, and then as soon as the chill rains come, it stops and leaves you to face the fall alone.
                           ...A. Bartlett Giamatti

Luck is the residue of design.
                           ...Branch Rickey

You spend a good piece of your life gripping a baseball, and in the end it turns out that it was the other way round all the time.
                           ...Jim Bouton

There ain’t nothing to being a ballplayer – if you’re a ballplayer.

                            …Honus Wagner

He couldn’t hit a bull in the ass with a banjo.

            …Ted Kleinhans, former Syracuse University baseball coach

Baseball, it is said, is only a game. True. And the Grand Canyon is only a hole in Arizona.
                        … George Will

Marilyn Monroe, returning from a USO tour in Korea, to her husband, Joe DiMaggio:

 Joe, you’ve  never heard such cheering.

Joe D.: Yes I have.

The secret of successful managing is to keep the five guys who hate you away from the four guys who haven't made up their minds.

                            …Casey Stengel.

If there's a foul ball behind third base, it's the shortstop's play!

             …Peppermint Patty

I'm throwing as hard as I ever did, but the ball is just not getting there as fast.

                        …Lefty Gomez

MICKEY MANTLE
A GREAT TEAMMATE
1931-1996
536 HOME RUNS
WINNER OF THE TRIPLE CROWN 1956
MOST WORLD SERIES HOMERS 18
SELECTED TO ALLSTAR GAME 20 TIMES
WON MVP AWARD 1956, 1957 & 1962
WHO LEFT A LEGACY OF
UNEQUALLED COURAGE

DEDICATED BY THE NEW YORK YANKEES
AUGUST 24, 1996

                        The Mick’s plaque at Yankee Stadium

And the winner is...

Partly because of my association with the Baseball Hall of Fame and partly for any number of other reasons, people ask me my opinion of the Hall’s recent non-election.

Appropriately, I will use the words of Brian McNamee, Roger Clemens’ trainer and alleged drug source/injector:   “It is what it is.”

For any etymologists in the crowd, here’s an interesting blog on the phrase itself:  http://www.slate.com/articles/sports/sports_nut/2008/02/it_is_what_it_is_but_what_is_it.html

Casey at Christmas

An oldie, but I like to think it's a goodie.

Happy Holidays

 ********************************

Casey at the Pen
Herm Card 1994


The outlook wasn’t brilliant for my poetry that day,
The clock said four to two and I had nothing much to say.
And every time I tried a verse it came out sounding lame,
The more I tried the worse it got, each stanza seemed the same.

A word or two would hit the page, but couldn’t stand the test;
They made no sense, they had no flair-nowhere near my best.
I thought if only Casey, could but get a whack at that,
I’d bet the ranch that I’d be done in twenty minutes flat.

Where was this muse I needed, to get my poem done?
The guy whose inspiration I’ve used for more than one.
I thought if only Casey could stop to help me out,
I’d have the problem conquered, of this there is no doubt.

I tried to paraphrase Shakespeare, and also William Blake,
But the former was a lulu, the latter was a fake.
So there upon my stricken brain, grim melancholy sat,
And there seemed but little chance that Casey could fix that.

But then my dog, the fearsome Nick, let loose a lusty yell,
Reacting as he always does to the ringing of the bell.
It rattled all the windows and echoed through my flat,
And Casey, mighty Casey, arrived, and tipped his hat.

There was ease in Casey’s manner as he stepped into my place
There was pride in Casey’s bearing and a smile upon his face,
And he responded as my cheers recoiled throughout my den,
There was no room for any doubt, ‘twas Casey at the pen.

“Now here’s the problem, sir,” I said, “here’s why you’re at my door,
I need to write a Christmas poem, but not like Clement Moore.
I always write my Christmas ode, with a really clever twist,
To give to all my friends each year some cheer they might have missed.

“But this year nothing’s working-I really feel the fool,
Unable to produce a thing for all the folks at school.
I’d pretty much abandoned hope, given up, but then,
You showed up on my doorstep, you and your mighty pen.”

I saw his face go stern and cold I saw his muscles strain,
I knew that Casey wouldn’t let that rhyme go by again.
“That ain’t my style,” said Casey,” That ain’t the stuff I do.”
He signaled that I take a seat, and then his words just flew.

“First of all I ain’t that guy Casey from Mudville ‘cause I didn’t strike
out in front of the home crowd like he did and send ‘em home crying. I’m
the Casey named Stengel from Kansas City that hit a couple a home runs in
Yankee Stadium that beat these here fellas in 1923 when I played fer them
Giants which was about the last time those local teams did mucha anything
there until the Brooklyns ruined my Christmas in ‘55 when I was there with
Mantle and Berra and I sure didn’t write no poem about that.

“So you think I’m the guy to write a poem about Christmas, but I ain’t and
I’ll tell you this, that Christmas ain’t about no poems and it ain’t about
no stockings, even the red ones from Boston and it ain’t about any of
them things that have price tags cause that’s not what the General Manager
that started this club had in mind.

“Christmas has to do with helpin’ out the other folks on the team and
makin’ room next to you on the bench and not bein’ afraid to sacrifice or pinch hit.                   And this guy Santa really ain’t the guy either, but, even
though he’s outta shape, I’d use him in relief against the Grinch who can’t
hit the curve down and in.

“What you need to tell your friends, young feller, is just that Christmas
is a time for good cheer and peace and love and all that, but you need to
be able to do it all year if you want to be called up to the Big Club, and
if you work together you got a shot at the Series every year and you don’t
hafta worry about gettin’ sent back down to Toledo for more work and almost
forgotten like that feller Scrooge who had a dickens of a time makin’ his
comeback and then in ‘56 my guy Mantle won the triple crown and...”

And as the “Ol’ Perfesser” rambled on and on and on,
I realized he’d said it all, my need to write was gone.
So all you have to do is figure out just what he said,
And add my “Merry Christmas” when all his lines you’ve read.

And so my poem was finished, my message had been passed,
My Christmas job completed, my work was done at last.
I owed it all to Casey, and his poetic clout,
But when I turned to thank him, Mighty Casey had snuck out.

Here there be Juju * -- Yankees 4, Boston 3

On Wednesday night, in the bottom of the ninth, with the Redsocks leading 3-1, my father handed me the July/Aug issue of Smithsonian. He told me I should read the article about   vice presidents.  On page 30, there was juju,  personified by Raul Ibanez, drilling a liner into the rightfield seats.  "Keep reading," insisted my father. It's good luck." My father is 96. "good luck" is his generation's version of juju.  My hand stiffened through another bases loaded failure, then through a second inning of Soriano and through more weak hacks in the bottom of the tenth. My father asked why I was such a slow reader.  I was on about the fifth reading of the malfeasance of Spiro Agnew when my hand began to spasm. I rested it briefly on my lap as one veep after another mocked the office they had held and Cervelli failed to corral Lowe's wild pitch.

I shook my hand, held the mag steady on page 30.

 I wavered slightly - distracted -Alexander and Catalano even advertise here in Binghamton.

Back to Alban Barkley  Then John Nance Garner -- then Ichiro -- Then Nelson Rockefeller and Andrew Johnson. Then Derek.  

Then Humphrey, Gore, Quayle,

And Swisher with a liner to left and ARod  and the rest of us robbed by a centerfielder with a name like a prep school polo player.

Then, Chaney.

Pain crept toward my elbow. The bird-delay served to distract everyone enough for me to flex my fingers, and as the warmth of relief flowed into my fingers, juju reenergized, the once banished Francisco Cervelli kept juju alive with the biggest base on balls  of his career, then moved to second when Grandy walked and made Raul the Cool the hero on the field as the  juju inspired Ibanez slapped a grounder between 3rd and short.  Cervelli's diving slide across home plate ended the agony for all of us.

"Why are you still reading?" asked my  father, as the Smithsonian fell to the floor.  "It's over."

* The Juju Rules: Or, How to Win Ballgames from Your Couch: A Memoir of a Fan Obsessed, Hart Seely

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