The World Series begins: A reader
George Vecsey wrote a feature in the NY Times today comparing Josh Hamilton's demons of addiction to those that Mickey Mantle had to contend with more than a century ago. Probably not surprising to you, this passage stood out to me:Perhaps Josh Hamilton knows why he took to crack while he was one of baseball’s most promising players. But at least he has been handed the ammunition to stave off the desires. Mickey Mantle, that great charismatic hero, carried the stigma of coming from a poor, uneducated corner of industrial America. His drinkin’ buddy Billy Martin (with friends like this) compared Merlyn Mantle to the discarded mineral waste of Oklahoma, known as chat. Martin was the epitome of bad company but Mantle knew he had himself to blame.
In that age, nobody could help him. Casey Stengel, who drank a bit himself, despaired of getting Mantle to learn from him. Suppose Mantle had signed with his boyhood favorites, the Cardinals, and played for a fatherly manager like Eddie Dyer or Johnny Keane, alongside his temperate hero, Stan Musial, instead of being scolded by Stengel and ignored by Joe DiMaggio and indulged by the open city of New York? We will never know.
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An ESPN headline I enjoyed: "Source: Sandberg not on Quade's staff". Was this ever an option for the Cubs? This would be the same as if 18 years ago, David Letterman had agreed to be Jay Leno's Ed McMahon.
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National League-loyal, I'm pulling for the Giants, but the five dollars I have riding on them with a friend at work was placed in limbo with a dose of healthy skepticism about their chances. It will be cool to see the Giants' Hall of Famers-- Willie Mays, Willie McCovey, Juan Marichal, Orlando Cepeda, Monte Irvin, and Gaylord Perry-- in S.F. tonight to throw out the ceremonial first pitch(es). Win or lose, it will be a fun series to watch. I enjoy any World Series that doesn't involve the Yankees, Red Sox, or in theory, the Cubs.
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One of my favorite players, Albert Pujols, and one of my brother's, Pete Rose, were separately name-dropped on the same episode of "30 Rock" last Thursday:
Jack (Alec Baldwin) to Liz (Tina Fey), on why he would agree to keep his hot streak of solving problems (he was "Reaganing") alive by agreeing to help her with her's: When you're pitching a perfect game, you don't walk Albert Pujols. And you are the Albert Pujols of having problems.
Later, Liz begins to tell Jack the story of the source of her sexual problem: I was nine years old. I was roller-skating in the house, which was absolutely forbidden. I was skating down the hallway on top of the world, with my new skates and my new haircut, which everybody thought was a Dorothy Hamill, but was actually a Pete Rose...
The visual is required to fully appreciate the second line.
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Today is the 4th anniversary of the Cardinals clinching their 10th World Championship and a Game 5 victory over the Detroit Tigers in the '06 World Series, but it's also the 25th anniversary of the Cardinals' 11-0 Game 7 loss to the Kansas City Royals in the '85 Series, and which game do you think they've re-run twice today on ESPN Classic?
Addendum 6:59pm: Never mind the part about the Giants' Hall of Famers in the pregame ceremony. I forgot FOX doesn't bother with that shit.
posted by CM @ 4:37 PM
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