twee-est major professional sport (US)

Tim Burton... 3D...

The popular narrative of baseball in U.S. history, especially wrt 'simpler times' and racial integration is amongst the most saccharine things in an already cloying American context.

― La religion est une fatigante solution de paresse (Michael White), Thursday, March 4, 2010 11:26 AM (12 minutes ago)

I agree with this. I dont understand the whole romanticizing of the game's past. Again I cite Pete Hammill's embarrassing article in last Sunday's Times Book Review.

Otoh, no sport has even come close to self-aggrandizing and romanticizing itself than the NFL with NFL films. It is a genre unto itself; sui generis.

― La religion est une fatigante solution de paresse (Michael White), Thursday, March 4, 2010 11:28 AM (12 minutes ago)

But NFL Films gets a pass, becuase they are fucking awesome.

Pro football was integrated before baseball was - you never hear about that. Look up Kenny Washington, Woody Strode, Marion Motley, Bill Willis.

NFL films set the standard a long time ago for technical prowess in documentary cinema.

nfl is just a hilarious 5+ month soap opera imo

and that's not even considering Brett Favre's annual "am i really gonna retire now?" spiel during the off-season.

"but the sport is relatively dainty compared to the '50s, '60s version...."

I would add the '70s as the most violent decade. You had the advent of the longer pass after the AFL-NFL merger, along with the growing sophistication of zone defenses. The combination of these two things led to complete and utter bloodshed in the defensive secondary, culminating in the tragic paralysis of Darryl Stingley.

NFL Films is indeed great, but the NFL has sort of conspired to perpetuate the idea that pro football didn't exist before NFL Films started (1963) or even before the first Super Bowl (1967). It's a weird propaganda move. And of course they never acknowledge that there were other pro leagues at various times.

And if you had 1970's rules combined with the size, speed and athleticism of today's NFL players, there would be at least one death a season.

xpost.

There are some pretty good pre-67 NFL films

^ Which you never see on TV anymore.

They can make a dull season in a sport I haven't followed since the 80's seem like the most compelling, epic and poignant thing ever. If Goebbels or Stalin had had NFL Films...

Josefa, it's kind of like the History Channel mostly making shows about stuff that occurred after the advent of film. The NFL is very carefully branded and before the 60's, football was not the dominant sport it has become.

NFL Films is indeed great, but the NFL has sort of conspired to perpetuate the idea that pro football didn't exist before NFL Films started (1963) or even before the first Super Bowl (1967). It's a weird propaganda move. And of course they never acknowledge that there were other pro leagues at various times.

― Josefa, Thursday, March 4, 2010 11:47 AM (5 minutes ago) Bookmark

NFL films did a 5-part doc on the history of the AFL ("Full Color Football") just last year

I acknowledge that the concussions threaten to take the word "twee" out of consideration, but the sport is relatively dainty compared to the '50s, '60s version.

― Josefa, Thursday, March 4, 2010 11:05 AM (47 minutes ago) Bookmark

the 50s, 60s version was pretty lightweight compared to the turn of the century version that killed hundreds of people every year and had teddy roosevelt threatening to ban the sport if colleges didn't start regulating the game themselves

Forward Pass!!

Read this and weep. And not in a good way:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/28/books/review/Hamill-t.html?pagewanted=1&ref=review

I love Mays as much as the next Giants fan but there's a point where hagiography just gets annoying.

holy shit

now do you see why you were talking out of your ass, LJ?

great example

holy...shit

The interestig part is that the book he is reviewing is apparently not a hagiography at all (based on what Ive heard from people who read it).But this review totally is. In fact, this review almost seems to be about him, Hammill, not about the book or Mays. The part where he refused to ever see Mays play after the Giants moved to SF. Are we supposed to give you a medal man???? Tell me if the book is any fucking good.

I can't really decide whether my hatred of Geroge Will stems more from his being a smarmy right-wing dick or being a snivelingly rank sentimentalist when it comes to baseball.

^^^^^^^^

(probably go with the right wing dick, but it's close)

baseball writers do have an annoying tendency to all but canonize their favorite ballplayers -- whether it's Willie Mays or Kirby Puckett.

DO NOT SAY SHIT ABOUT KIRBY PUCKETT THAT'S WHEN I GO OFF

ahem

See, Bill, that's really what pisses me off. Hamill has every right to be a sentimental memoirist but that's not a proper review, is it?

the NY Times Book Review is a joke--the quality over the 10+ years I've been reading has declined so much.

I agree.

This line killed me:"Above all, the story of Willie Mays reminds us of a time when the only performance-enhancing drug was joy."
Mays retired in '73 or '74. Jim Bouton's book (where he describes speed being set out in candy bowls in the clubhouse) came out in 1970. Either Hamill never read Bouton's book, or chooses not to believe anything in there because it ruins his narrative. Either way, he loses all credibility with me regarding baseball.

Golden Age bullshit is always just that.

By all means mourn your own youth but don't treat it like it was objectively better. That's the point; your subjectivity, for being yours, is no less valid - for you, not for everybody.

and don't do it in the New York fucking Times book review.

note to dan: i liked Kirby Puckett, too. it's just that he was all but declared to be a saint when he was still playing, so when all of the news about his much-less-than-saintly personal life broke a few years back it was all in very stark contrast to his previous public/media image.

it also works the other way: witness Albert Belle (who IS by many accounts an asshole and no doubt not a very pleasant man, but who was also one of the most dominant players of the 1990s).

LALALALALALALALALA I CAN'T HEAR YOU

googling "Kirby Puckett saint" is v.v. depressing btw

NFL films did a 5-part doc on the history of the AFL ("Full Color Football") just last year

Yeah, I should've said they ignore all the leagues that they didn't absorb in toto. The AAFC, for example. That AFL doc was a really impressive piece of work, btw.

re Albert Belle: the media treatment of the guy back in the day was almost analogous to that afforded to ax murderers, child molesters and Bernie Madoff. again, he isn't a very nice man who did a lot of borderline-psychotic things -- but the press laid it on him a little too thick, he isn't Jeffrey Dahmer.

Albert Belle's antics are also good evidence that at least some baseball players aren't very twee at all.

Yeah, I should've said they ignore all the leagues that they didn't absorb in toto.

^hence the name "NFL Films"

wow the beginning of that book review literally could have been posted at fire joe morgan. unbelievable.

add ppl who still pine for the displaced ny baseball teams to the list of disgusting savages imo

pining for displaced teams seems to be a strictly NYC phenomenon -- magnified a zillion times by NYC being a media capital. almost no-one in Philly who isn't in a nursing home gives a shit about the Athletics or pines for the return of the Warriors, for example.

(on second thought: aren't some Baltimore fans still butthurt about the Colts?!?)

yeah i was gonna say

yeah but that was also only 25 years ago

the baltimorians i know will never forget the moving trucks

I still can't quite wrap my head around that.

lol I'm still pissed off about the North Stars so I'm not going to get on anyone's case over losing their team

Walter O'Malley is one of the most unfairly maligned people in American history. based on everything i've read about the guy, his only real "black mark" (if you can call it that) is moving the Dodgers to LA (and his reasons for doing so were entirely defensible).

cmon dan you got the "wild" now