And ever stimulating, under its layers and levels and annals and pages that reach out to us, like a good classic novel from a tome in a musty old library.
I have heard many similar comments about history, desultory observations alike. And books. And stuffy, dull names who in actuality were dynamic heroes.
Comments of the unloving are arbitrary to me.
There are many "students" at all levels of education both formal and otherwise, who are not really by definition students, who complain of their lack of interest in studying history.
I definitely put this en par with appreciation of America's game.
Baseball is history. It is America, more than anything else that we possess as a culture.
Too boring?
I suppose maybe, to many.
George Washington, a face on a bill?
Babe Ruth, a candy bar?
Abraham Lincoln, a lanky man with a tall black hat?
Hank Aaron, a man of color who broke the Home Run record of the Babe?
Richard Nixon, a man who professed, "I am not a crook".
Barry Bonds, a steroid using megalomaniac. Literally.
If this is all you can sum up of history, particularly American history and simultaneously its pastime, then maybe you are doomed to miss the absolute sublimity of this sport.
And perhaps sublimity is not a word.
But in this case, it should be if it is not.
They say that Thomas Jefferson and others played this ball and stick game in the 1700s.
Abner Doubleday gets more official credit a century later for being the creator of the game.
And then came the slow march of history. Have you heard of this phenomenon? Causes and effects over time?
Walter Johnson.
Ty Cobb.
Cy Young.
Shoeless Joe Jackson.
The Bambino.
Hank Greenberg.
Josh Gibson.
Ted Williams.
Jackie Robinson.
Joe DiMaggio.
Micky Mantle.
Sandy Koufax.
Bob Gibson.
Roberto Clemente.
Reggie Jackson.
Tom Seaver.
Pete Rose.
Ken Griffey Junior.
Greg Maddox.
Perhaps this list of names means little to you. Or bores you. Perhaps it evokes a little bit of nostalgia or some mythic quality of time like hearing stories of yesteryear from your grandparents.
But perhaps it doesn't really grip you at all. Check yourself.
Perhaps Ernest Hemingway and his novelette "The Old Man and the Sea" is not a real classic too you.
Perhaps names of the Revolutionary War and Andrew Jackson and the Civil War generals and the World Wars and past wars mean little to you.
Perhaps.
Maybe poetry and literature aren't your cup of tea.
Or history.
But if you are a true student of the game, you just might understand.
I am trying to, and will continue these attempts the rest of my life.
And I am enjoying the game.
My team is down 5-0 in the ninth, but it is the march of history, the supernal nature of the spectacle and the humility of the grass roots that make every day a good day in baseball.
162 games per year. And a few more if you can last till the fall.
I hope I can make it again, just like that one cagey veteran who will not put down the glove or the bat.
Have you heard of Jamie Moyer?
Jim Edmonds?
Julio Franco? Omar Vizquel?
If you have not, you are missing out on what the lessons of life, history the United States of America offer us all.
And I know we are blessed, and it has been prophesied.
Baseball is a sport of destiny and glory.
Ask Japan. Or Cuba.
All of us understand the beauty and pageantry, the pathos and the pleasure of history.
what day is it? saturday. good. it's light outside, it's warm, and i want to check the internet for news and my sites...i need to help others of my family get up so that we can leave the house by seven thirty...i wanted to be up by six, but it is now close to seven...
what a luxury to wake up this late...i usually have to get up at four, always dark, or maybe five thirty, which has been light lately but early and i have to get to work...things to do, even homework...
i am in school but it is my paid job...i go by a tight schedule most of the time...this weekend we are going to our temple and the kids have a special program...my wife will hang out with them as i do special ordinances for the ancestor of my hometeacher...lingo that is common to me but uncommon to most other human beings...
i looked at peegs.com to see goings on of the indiana hoosiers...terry hoeppner to be inducted into the college hall of fame...good for him and his wife and his family and his former players and schools...
i didn't think of the pittsburgh quarterback, but he is one of them...from university of miami...ohio...don't ride motor bikes without a helmet...i am afraid of motorcycles...and combatives (a form of Brazilian jujitzu)...my left shoulder still hurts...i hope it isn't serious, it does seem to be getting better...
i check the blogs and check mine...i think i did some comments...what time do the cubs and white sox play?
1:05 eastern standard time...i will be in the temple, after driving a ways...gas is too high but we have a mostly full tank...my wife didn't use up too much of the tank this week, thank goodness...
my little boy woke up without too much crying, that is good and unusual...he was sick this week and he went through a lot of diapers with diarrhea and vomiting...he drank a lot of fluids...it tired my wife out and me a bit but we ended up not taking him to the emergency room, good thing...
my two daughters are done with the school year and it is warm this summer...my wife took them to a cool pool yesterday, indoor...it was unusually hot yesterday, 95 at least, which is really hot for here...
i listened to about five innings of the cards versus the red sox on 1050 am...on the way home, air conditioning pumping...we saw lighting ahead of us to the south, and some smoke from some fires...
it is dry and hot, but not as hot as yesterday...we like air conditioning, and drive through restaurants where we buy lunch for seven and change, sixteen cents to be exact...
white sox lost to the impressive cubbies eleven to seven...they are now ahead of the streaky twins by just a few, who beat their opponent, come to find out...
i like baseball...i like it, love it when my internet works...
and this is just a small fraction of my streams and flow...
Of course I used that line to pique your curiosity.
He is from Cartagena, Bolivar, Columbia, and he was born the same year as my wife, 1974. November 2.
He is listed at 5'9", 185 pounds, and like many gifted Latinos is a short stop.
He broke into the majors 11 years ago with Montreal, playing 16 games in 1997.
He got four hits in 18 at bats. Knocked in two runs and struck out three times.
To date (end of May 2008), he has played in 1460 games, been at the plate 5,498 times, scored over 700 runs and almost has 1500 hits.
I always find the number of strike outs in comparison to runs batted in compelling.
Not sure why.
He has 638 RBIs (100 HRs even) to 517 SOs. 393 BBs with only a .320 OBP.
Nothing outstanding. But productive.
Lifetime .979 FLD%, which I don't know the exact meaning of but it signifies his fielding.
He's good.
His first 7 major league season he played with the Montreal Expos, and switched mid season in 2004 and was a part of the historical Bambino curse busting Red Sox.
Then he played with the Anaheim Angels the next three years, and this year is playing with the Chicago White Sox.
Ken Griffey, Jr. 593 6 My personal hope to surpass the Bondster. Gotta love his character. He has been hurt a lot, but could he be as sweet an old hitter as he was a youngster?
Harmon Killebrew 573 9 My Idaho guy. I love big farmer types like this. Anymore, they become linebackers, lineman or hay bailers. Or occasionally a world class wrestler. (That is Rulon Gardner from Wyoming, mighty close to Idaho.) Harmon was a O SM. (Original Stormin' Mormon)
Rafael Palmeiro 569 10 He gets a nod for the difficulty with which Haray Caray had pronouncing his name corectly with the Cubs, and then backwards? See Galarraga.
Jim Thome 507 22 Old school. All heart. Fun to watch.
Eddie Murray 504 23 He was a switch hitter. And mostly DH still awesome.
Lou Gehrig 493 24 Anybody with a disease named after them is cool. Great history related to him and the glorified Yanks. That is pure Americana. Like Mantle, DiMaggio, etc...
Fred McGriff 493 This guy was big and tall and powerful. He looked like a class act.
Vladimir Guerrero 365 65 Love him. Swings at anything and hits a lot of it. Expos forever. More talent in one pinky than Canseco's bicep.
Jeff Kent 365 A member of my church who has a swearting problem. Have to admire his honesty except for his "washing the pick up truck" accident (by his motorcycle). Getting it done later in life, and famously confronted Barry Bonds while simultaneously helping his career numbers.
The ones in bold all played last year and most are still swinging for the fences.
My favorites have to be Ken Griffey, Jr., Dale Murphy, Vlad Guerrero, Andre Dawson and Jeff Kent. Not exactly in that order. And the Big Hurt. and Matt Williams, and Harmon Killebrew. And maybe McGriff and a few others. Jim Thome. Bags. Yaz. Yeah!
When it comes to sports, I have argued for a number of years that a mediocre utility player in the major leagues of baseball is a better athlete than the most elite of golfers.
I still maintain that point of view, to a degree.
Of course, elite golfers do something that thrills certain masses more than the mediocre back up in the major leagues.
But the point of this article is to draw attention to the stellar everymen and women of the world.
Some call them normal, or even boring or dull.
But they are the hard working, steady and constant engines that keep the world pumping. Moving. Thriving. Alive. Content.
And they sacrifice to do so.
They get up early in the morning and do their jobs. Some get up at odd hours to contribute their portion.
They are consummate and thorough.
They sometimes get hurt or uncomfortable in the workplace or areas of service, but they know how to compensate for deficiencies and they plug on.
They keep a steady pace, they are consistent and fair.
And they are even kind and generous, but always underlyingly disciplined and no fool.
Some louses think that they can take advantage of them, but under their cool exterior is the soul of a sage.
Geovany Soto and Joey Votto! Is that right? Do they rhyme?
Don't look now baseball fans (and people who should appreciate the sport more like the ubiquitous and eponymous Lisa H), but it seems that the Italian-American community might be coming on strong in America's pasttime through these two new guys.
Ba da boom!
If Andrew Dice Clay were performing, he would lay down a blue streak for these two fellow Amerigo paisani...
Dice Clay is Italian-American, right? Does the Pope like bratwurst? (I used to say "does the Pope like spaghetti?", but now that we have had two non-Italians in the Vatican in a row it has me rethinking the trite question. No offense to anyone by that. I think it's an attempt at levity.)
But anyway, these two guys appear to be the real deal, at least so far this season.
Geovany Soto has been pounding the ball for the Cubbies, and maybe the answer to the "maldicion del chivo" (that is Spanish for curse of the goat; my Italian is very limited).
He is a catcher, too, I believe, which is always good to see for production. Go Cubs! Kielbasa the curse!
Mr. Votto (I would like to know if it rhymes with Soto, a la songs sung in falsetto sotto voce by Adam Sandler: Opera Man!) made a statement today for the Reds by belting three homers in its runaway win.
Tre hom ronne, bambini!
En un matche! UNO. Que potenza! Que linguini!
Now THAT is Italian.
Well, American, really.
This is a baseball thing.
OK, Lisa? It's a great game. Most football players like it.
'Nuff said.
And speaking of Italian and baseball, who was the best Italian-American ball player of all time?
Joe DiMaggio? Yogi Berra?
Certainly the former had better numbers and romantic hype, while the latter inspired more witticisms and cartoon characters.
But if you think about it, our culture and history would not be the same without these three things, dedicated to Votto three dingers (powatzos) today:
1. Baseball.
2. Italian-Americans. Yeah, I'm talkin' ta you!
3. Italinan-American ball players.
So, forza Votto and Soto!
Now that I think of it, it is more likley that Soto is Latino, but who cares? Then again, maybe both of them are only 1/16 Italian, both of them might be Mexican or Puerto Rican. Does it matter?It's the thought that counts. Celebrate our diversity and fascinating mix of identities in baseball and America.
Every cause and good intention brings with it sacrifices in many forms. In the most extreme and tragic cases, these sacrifices include the loss of life.
Of course, all of us can list those who have sacrificed themselves for causes willingly, and not necessarily for what we deem a “good” cause.
Most of the martyrs and victims of good causes (the ones that we identify with and espouse) do so by accident or not by their own design, or as a result of their aims or hopes. It was not suicide that concluded their final breathes spent, but rather they are a victim of their own success or dreams.
Dreams.
Usually these victims are not the ones who will call themselves innocent victims, but rather will probably admit that their lives were spent as a champion or co-participant of an idea that was greater than them, and that their memory only benefits the cause[s] that they lead or inspired.
Roberto Clemente was a Puerto Rican baseball giant and definitely one of the best of all time. Had he not died suddenly in a plane crash on his way to help earthquake victims in Nicaragua in 1970, perhaps many now would still be chasing his records on the baseball paths. He would attend the Hall of Fame functions as a leader among the rest.
But his memory and cause lives on. God bless his noble actions.
In my faith tradition, Joseph Smith, Jr. was jailed and then lynched leading what he thought was a righteous and bold cause. The year was 1844 when he was a proclaimed US presidential candidate and controversial religious leader.
Once, years before in the 1830s when his church movement was in its volatile infancy, he lead a group of a few hundred men from Ohio to Missouri on a militia march to defend the fellow members who were being violently displaced and even killed on the border of the Indian territory around current day Kansas City and Independence. Locals of the slave state Missouri were not fond of Mormons, the new wave of immigrants to the west central United States.
Many of these armed followers in what was called “Zion’s Camp” were disappointed with their prophet when Joseph declared, upon arrival after a 700 mile march, that they would not fight their persecutors. Some of his followers wanted blood for blood, an eye for an eye.
Joseph thought better. He also had premonitions, or dreams, of his own fate. He would never reach the Rocky Mountains, but thousands of his followers would.
He was a man of peace.
In the greater Christian tradition, Jesus Christ was the victim of His own cause. He was tried by both Romans and Jews and was deemed guilty of his new status as Messiah.
Most would argue, two thousand years later, that Emmanuel of Nazareth was a person of peace.
His followers name Him the Prince of Peace.
I agree.
Another man who took up the cause of Jesus was a person we celebrate today: Martin Luther King, Jr.
A year ago at this same time I wrote a piece (see the following: Have you ever heard of Antietam? ML King? Love? Sacrifice? posted Wednesday, January 17, 5:45PM ) about how he is linked to Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln himself was the victim of his cause due to the unfortunate results (yet proper intentions) of his conscientious decisions to keep our Union united and emancipate the slaves. The assassin’s bullet found him on a fateful spring day.
As did the cruel bullet that found Dr. King.
He died for his causes, which were many.
Equal rights. The US Constitution. The cause of peace and forgiveness and the Gospel of the Lord. Tolerance. Justice. Peace. Civil rights. Letting a person of any color sit and eat and vote as anyone else. Amen.
Dreams.
His life was snuffed out quickly, a casualty of a projectile like many of my heroes: Patrick Tillman, Abraham Lincoln, Joseph Smith, Jr., John F. Kennedy, and many more…
But their dreams are not forgotten.
On the contrary, in the words of George Lucas in the original Star Wars: A New Hope, uttered by the seminal actor Alec Guiness playing the role of the Jedi master Obi Wan Kenobi to the former trainee who betrayed him and his cause of good, “If you strike me down now, I will become more powerful than you can possibly imagine.”
O ye haters of these men, who aimed a rifle or weapon or epithet or sneering jibe at them and their causes:
Be careful upon whom ye cast a stone.
King lives forever. As does his cause.
Dreams are not destructible, although they may be damaged, but they are tangibly expansive and durable.
The dream is alive. And I, for one, have dreamed of meeting this great man in the hereafter.
2008 (Gregorian Calendar): The vaunted Boston Red Sox go for a repeat in the old fall classic, something that was a mere pipe dream a half decade before.
The Sox are a lock! Wicked good!
1908 The Chicago Cubs---Win the world series over the Detroit Tigers. The BoSox won the first WS in 1903---Yes, a half decade before. But the best for the Beantown boys was yet to come: 1912, 1914 (Braves), 1915, 1916 and 1918 would see Boston reign in baseball. Perhaps only the Great War and the Spanish flu spoiled a few peoples' lives...They never lost a series that they played in!
Until the the invention of the Beantown modern 20th century heartbreak, that is. A lot of us remember that. The 1940s. The 1950s. The 1960s. The 1970s. The 1980s! And the 1990s...Good riddance old century! Williams, Yastremski and Boggs...A triumvirate of frustration.
Of course, there were those 1920s and 1930s to think about the rise of the Yanks in the wake of the trade of the Bambino. An error in judgement, perhaps. Curses!
And that depression called 'Great' and the Next Great War didn't help much. Teddy Baseball would have had crazier numbers had he not been chazing zeros across the Pacific...
1808 Boston had been the site of the beginnings of the "revolution" that freed us from the monarchical rule of London. A man of African heritage named Crispus Attacks fell to Red Coat muskets in the snowy streets here in 1775 or so, eventually leading to other sundry events, not far from the church where Paul Revere was indicated how to call the minute men to arms, and not far from Concord and Lexington where the shots were "heard 'round the world". Just ask the French.
GW himself was there, leading the militia men of Mass and other free colonists against the world superpower. General Washington would go on to the American Republic's presidency and currency fame, as well as the general known as Andrew Jacskon, only a half decade after 1808, making sure the British had ultimately lost their former colonies in North America.
And Jefferson and others of their ilk, had recorded on documents still extant that they played a thing called "ball", in courtyards involving running and bases and perhaps a bat of sorts, not the blind kind.
Long before Mr. Doubleday gets the credit for creating the game of baseball. It all goes back to Beantown, in a sense.
1708 This newly colonized city on the harbor, sitting astraddle the river Charles, having been settled by waves of Pilgrims and then Puritans from England, religious faiths feeling their way out of the old Europe. They made this one of few North American metropolitan areas. Along with Philadelphia, a couple of 18th century cities, almost cosmopolitan shall we say! For 1708.
Only Virginia and New Amsterdam could much compare with the western civilization of this land, New England as it was called on this new continent. No Dutch here! And the native tribes were fleeing in droves, apparently. Leave those for Lake Erie, some day. (The Mistake on the Lake? By the Lake? You know, AL fans: The Tribe!)
Of course, this was not a new place for the natives who knew it. Did their games and activities influence how American colonists thought about games and sport?
1608 No white settlers knew Boston Harbor too well, and not many locals did either. There were not a lot of people inhabiting these lands period.
Apparently, a wicked (not Bostonian wicked, mind you) disease had ravaged the American Indians previous to the 1620 landing of the Mayflower. Perhaps it was spread by birds, or other tribespeople who had contracted human viruses from further south where Spaniards and other nasty human development was coming to fruition.
I suspect we will know the exact story someday by DNA tracing and forensic evidence.
In any case, the tribes like Wampanoag and others had been hurt in number due to serious illnesses, even before the first whites had set foot on those patches of soil!
And they still had the heart to help out our Plymouth Rock pilgrims! Ahh, the heart is quenched at Thanksgiving, in remembrance. And this was long before Barry Sanders was a "Cowboy". Ironic, huh?
1508 There may have been more human activity around the Harbor back then. If your angle was angling, maybe this was the place to be. A half decade before, Chris Columbus was wrapping up his New World visits, apparently oblivious to the fact that he was not in the real ####e Islands, known as Indonesia today...
Hudson would make his way up through North America eventually, as well as Cabot. But I don't think that they made it around Cape Cod...Maybe they did.
Funny islands like Nantaskett and "Rhode". Look that one up on Wikipedia...
1408 Dark times. Hard to get that "rebirth" going. What do the French call it? Renacimiento? No, that's Spanish. Oh, well.
Beantown was just a visionary delusion of the bubonic plague. Our ancestors lived every where else, almost: England, Scotland, Sweden, Prussia, Italy, Spain, Nigeria, Ghana, Sierra Leone, Japan, China or Hindustan...
The roots of Boston were being developed between English and other European architects as well as preachers and translators of the Bible like Tyndale and WyCliffe. What was the first mention of baseball in the Holy Bible in King James English, to come two centuries later?
Genesis 1:1. "In the Big Inning".
1308 No hopes of the pastoral game of the diamond back then. Bloody crusades to retake the holy city of Jerusalem?
Now you are talking stealing bases, my Holy Warrior!
Funny that the Holy Cross Crusaders are now located in the place that you already surmised:
Boston!
As well as the Eagles, a vestige of the Roman Catholic tradition.
Which will take us back another ten centuries.
But not today.
That is enough about wicked Beantown and baseball, and our baked bean roots.
Peace.
Clinch rogers out. Dedicated to Grandpa McWilliams, 1896-1980. Boston born and raised. Here's another ring for you, Grandpa.
I like (am obsessed with) the big US sports of football, basketball and baseball. And I love how they expand globally. I am fascinated by World Cup soccer, Olympics and certain tennis matches.
Oh, yeah, and I will talk your ear off when it comes to religion, politics, right, wrong, demography, history and truth.
Blog on and blog it.
Uh, also I have a Foxsports blog called papaclinch'si t and that was the original, and this was created as a mistake and then a parallel world for more spiritual topics on occasion. More BYU here, more IU over there...
Make sense? I love both schools with an odd type of crazed loyalty... Hard to explain. Thus the blogging.
Keeps me out of trouble, maybe?
