twee-est major professional sport (US)

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

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_iiwJQZFvT8E/SmFcHOYNU8I/AAAAAAAAANk/LcDZqJWCDwI/s400/the-glare-michelle-obama-carla-bruni-sarkozy-glare-demotivational-poster-1244466818.jpg

l-r: CAD, me

loooool

worst hockey game i ever went to was a bruins-wild game. we took my irish friend who had never seen hockey in person and we were all like "it's really fun, you're gonna love it" and it was a horrific stagnant affair that ended like 1-0.

Brooklyn Dodgers average home attendance in '57, their last year in Brooklyn: 13,354. If they really wanted them to stay, maybe more of them should have gone to the games.

13k was pretty high for '50s attendance. For all the Golden Age talk, teams routinely draw 3-4x as many fans today as any team did in the '50s.

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...

looool at this

iirc the dodgers moved because of a dispute with NYC's city planner who wanted them to build their new stadium in flushing, not brooklyn (ebbets wasnt cutting the mustard anymore - too small, too inaccessible to suburban fans), dodgers threatened to move, city hall didn't believe them, then they moved

13k was pretty high for '50s attendance. For all the Golden Age talk, teams routinely draw 3-4x as many fans today as any team did in the '50s.

― FIST FIGHT! FIST FIGHT! FIST FIGHT IN THE PARKING LOT! (milo z), Thursday, March 4, 2010 1:45 PM (28 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

In 1957, the Brooklyn Dodgers were 10th out of 19 teams in attendance. I think I'm missing what the dewey-eyed nostalgia regarding this team is about. Im of half a mind to have Hammill produce ticket stubs to prove he ever went to Ebbets Field.

'57 was soon after a few teams changed cities and saw a bump in attendance (the Dodgers are well within the top half of teams in their old cities). They were also hurt because it was obvious early in the season that they'd be moving.

Before 1957, the Dodgers had been first or second in NL attendance for most of the decade (though average attendance was basically the same).

I can understand pining for the Brooklyn Dodgers in two ways - a lot of people are still alive for whom the Dodgers were the team they grew up with (the move worked out for my dad, though - he grew up a Dodgers fan in California, they moved to LA when he was 10), and because losing them was (as I understand it) a big knock against Brooklyn having an identity of its own.

Ok, fair. I dont agree, but you make fair points.

Wow this thread. It's totally baseball.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Twee-est, eh? Hmm, now which one of the sports listened in the OP did Ken Burns make an 18 and 1/2 hour documentary about...

baseball probably is the right answer here, but within my group of friends hockey fans are the most precious

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

wau

not surprised by the result, but i thought that w/ all us Yanks here that there'd be more votes for soccer-twee.