MBB: College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin

[Ryan Scott (Hoops Fan)]

I didn't mean he was comparable talent-wise, I just mean that maybe he's really 18, but all of his records say 15.  That's what I meant by the comparison.  All of the Euro football writers and coaches I've heard talking about Freddy have said that most likely he is really two years older than his printed age, but there is no way to tell.

[emeritusprof]

With trees you can simply take a core boring and count the rings.  Probably not helpful with hoops players.

[Knightstalker]

GS there is no Dodgers, only the LA Carpetbaggers, traitors to Brooklyn, the Bane of Bensonhurst.  Now that I have vented in my fathers memory I feel better. 

I understand what you and E-Prof are talking about with the closeness of the series, but the Yankees R-Sox is a lot closer if you start tracking when the rivalry really began, after Ruth was sold to the Yankees.  The closeness in this rivalry is how close they have played each other when something is on the line.  The closest in that sense to Yanks sox is possibly the Giants and Dodgers, or Dodgers and Cardinals if you really want to go back.

[Knightstalker]

When you are a Yankee fan and your father is a Brooklyn
Dodger fan, you see bitterness.  I also know more than one brooklynite who is still bitter about the dodgers.  They even hear the name O'Malley and the veins in the forehead start bulging.

[Mr. Ypsi]

I finally got around to reading "The Boys of Summer" by Roger Kahn a couple of weeks ago (about the Brooklyn Dodgers, c. 1953).  It has a number of references that d3 fans would find of interest, but I'll have to post them another time.

My older son graduates from high school tomorrow (actually, later today - I still remember that wrinkled, purplish, 'borderline premie', like it was yesterday, even if he is now bigger than me!), and with the reception party, I need to go to bed!

[emeritusprof]

Mr. Ypsi --

Congrats to your son and to you.  However, you may now have to face some pretty stiff college expense.

Yes, 1953.  As I recall, that's the year the St. Louis Browns abandoned their home city and migrated to Baltimore.  Guess what?  No one in St. Louis even cried.

Also, from that year hence, St. Louis major league baseball was no longer geographically farthest west as well as farthest south.  But the Cardinals still maintained enormous southern fan base.

[Gregory Sager]

GS there is no Dodgers, only the LA Carpetbaggers, traitors to Brooklyn, the Bane of Bensonhurst.  Now that I have vented in my fathers memory I feel better. 

I understand what you and E-Prof are talking about with the closeness of the series, but the Yankees R-Sox is a lot closer if you start tracking when the rivalry really began, after Ruth was sold to the Yankees. 

That's not really true. The Red Sox were dreadful after they beat the Cubs in the World Series in 1918. They fell to sixth in Ruth's last year with them, 1919, and they would remain a second-division club for fourteen straight years thereafter, finishing in last place for six straight seasons in the 1920s (which I believe is still an American League record). Boston was the joke of the American League throughout the Murderers Row era of the Yankees; it was Connie Mack's Philadelphia A's that gave the Ruth/Gehrig Yankees their best competition.

The Red Sox didn't really get good until 1938, when rookie second baseman and future Hall of Famer Bobby Doerr joined Jimmy Foxx, Doc Cramer, Joe Vosmik, Pinky Higgins, and Ben Chapman in a lineup that managed to slug enough to overcome Boston's chronically poor pitching. That team was the first of many Red Sox teams to finish second behind the Yankees. The following year Ted Williams joined the team, and they again finished second behind the Yankees. So, in other words, the rivalry between the Yankees and Red Sox didn't really begin until shortly before World War II.

The closeness in this rivalry is how close they have played each other when something is on the line.

Yeah, but until two years ago it was a closeness that always resulted in New York being on top. To me, what makes a rivalry special is its evenness. The Yankees/Red Sox rivalry has always been marked by its unevenness.

Speaking as a Cubs fan who greatly enjoys the annual sparring with the Redbirds and their fans, I get a little irritated by the unceasing focus that the national media places upon the Yankees/Red Sox rivalry. I know Giants fans and Dodgers fans that feel the same way. Watching ESPN's baseball coverage, it's as though all of the rest of MLB comes to a screeching halt and stops playing when the Yankees and Red Sox square off. It's why I feel a twinge of sympathy for SCIAC fans when they whine to Pat about D3hoops.com's "East Coast bias", however misguided that sentiment may be. 

Having said that, of course the 2004 ALCS still has to rank as one of the all-time great series in baseball history. It would've been great baseball even if it had been between, say, Seattle and Texas, but the history behind the rivalry was what made it transcendent.

I finally got around to reading "The Boys of Summer" by Roger Kahn a couple of weeks ago (about the Brooklyn Dodgers, c. 1953). It has a number of references that d3 fans would find of interest, but I'll have to post them another time.

Great book, but I actually prefer Kahn's Good Enough To Dream, which is about the summer he ran the Class A Utica Blue Sox in the early '80s.

Yes, 1953. As I recall, that's the year the St. Louis Browns abandoned their home city and migrated to Baltimore. Guess what? No one in St. Louis even cried.

St. Louis folks love to puff out their chests and tell everyone who'll listen that Bob Costas is right when he says that they're the best fans in baseball. But I say that if they were the best, they would've supported both of their teams, no matter how woeful one or both of them may have been. The lure of the almighty dollar would've undoubtedly caused a smaller city like St. Louis to lose one of its two teams eventually, anyway, but as Clayton said the Browns left St. Louis without anyone even noticing.

And, yeah, I realize that the same thing almost happened to Chicago in the 1980s when Reinsdorf and Einhorn almost turned the South Side's team into the Tampa Bay White Sox ... but the point is that it didn't happen, and even in lean years the White Sox draw as many fans and make as much money as they ever could've hoped to have in Tampa Bay.

[Knightstalker]

Mr. Ypsi --

Congrats to your son and to you.  However, you may now have to face some pretty stiff college expense.

Yes, 1953.  As I recall, that's the year the St. Louis Browns abandoned their home city and migrated to Baltimore.  Guess what?  No one in St. Louis even cried.

Also, from that year hence, St. Louis major league baseball was no longer geographically farthest west as well as farthest south.  But the Cardinals still maintained enormous southern fan base.

Actually it was 1957 before a team moved further west than St. Louie, that is when the carpetbaggers left Brooklyn.

[Knightstalker]

If the Dodgers/Carpetbaggers and Giants/Carpetbaggers were playing for first place and a pennant almost every year for the last eight to ten years or the Cubs Cardinals were they would be on TV much more often and touted.  When it comes to ESPN money talks and Red Sox Yankees brings in much more money than any other rivalry.  Is it right, maybe not but it won't change and it shouldn't be held against the teams or their true fans.  If people want to get mad they should get mad at the fat cats who make the schedules and tell the empty heads what to report.

[Gregory Sager]

The A's moved from Philly to KC prior to the 1955 season. They then moved from KC to Oakland prior to the 1968 season.

[Knightstalker]

I had forgotten about the A's relatively short stay in KC.

On another unrelated subject.

Yesterday it burned me a little to hear sportscasters, both men and women say that Michelle Wie had a pretty good day for a 16 year old girl.  She averaged Par on a tough mens course while trying to qualify.  I say she had a good day for a 16 year old period.  I don't think Tiger Woods at the same age and professional stage would have done much if any better.

[markerickson]

If people want to get mad they should get mad at the fat cats who make the schedules and tell the empty heads what to report.

So you believe reporters are told what to report and don't have complete freedom to write without interference?

[Knightstalker]

Not all reporters but many of the empty heads on TV are reading what is written for them.  Plus reporters either have a story idea or write a story only to have it killed by editors because it isn't what they want.

[emeritusprof]

Mr. Sager --
As for St. Louis supporting two teams, look what the Browns offered: Pete Gray, one-armed outfielder; a dwarf pinch-hitter (Warren remembers his name, I don't); the clown of baseball, Al Schacht (check spelling) who would hang by his heels and play catch with someone; cheerleaders; the return of Dizzy
Dean, who tried to bat with one painted like a barber pole, then another that was flattened on one side; plus a whole assortment of other gadgets and gimmicks offered to lure folks into old Sportsman's Park.

Why didn't it work?  Because St. Louis fans were, indeed, baseball fans.  They didn't go to the ballpark for a circus or a "freak show."  They went to see baseball--complete with pitchers who must also hit.

As a kid I saw a ton of Browns games, but only because it was free.  We would be let in the knot-hole gang section for batting practice, then we'd move into the empty box seats for the game.  I've never consistently sat so close to the playing field as I did as a kid watching free Brownie baseball.

Unfortunately, in those days of limited rotation pitching schedules, I didn't often see the truly great American League pitchers--primarily because they weren't used against the Browns.  I saw Bob Feller in uniform, but never saw him pitch.

Kids may have resented the move to Baltimore, but baseball fans didn't miss the Browns.

[joehakes]

Eddie Gaedel was the midget who pinch hit.  Bill Veeck told him that he had a sharpshooter with a rifle trained at his head when he batted, with orders to shoot him if he swung.