It is interesting to see Meade's effect on Althouse's preferences. I think I've been reading this blog since 2004 and I can't really imagine Althouse watching baseball. The process has been slow and subtle. I'm sure this happens in most relationships, but it is fun to see how it percolates up into the blog.This is the 203rd post with the tag "baseball," and 26 of them pre-date Meade. What did I blog about baseball, pre-Meade? Here are 16 things:
March 4, 2004: "Should we swoon over John Kerry because he responded to Dowd's culture questions with long, long answers, unlike George Bush, who, asked to name his favorite 'cultural experience,' said 'baseball'?"
June 7, 2005: "I know what it's like to need to breastfeed and be in a situation where there's nowhere private to go. One time, back in the early 80s, I breastfed my baby at the Baseball Hall of Fame. I remember feeling I was doing something really wrong and that I was about to be discovered at any point and treated harshly."
June 21, 2005: I complained about too many baseball quotes on the AFI 100 great movie quotes. ("We're at the fourth or fifth baseball quote, including the mushy-headed 'If you build it, he will come.' (#39) 'Luckiest man on the face of the earth' follows at #38.")
July 12, 2005: The retro pleasure of listening to baseball on the radio, restored by satellite radio. ("Baseball has always been regarded as the sport best suited to radio, given all of its long pauses and blank spaces.... baseball broadcasters sprinkle quirky stories with signature home run calls.")
September 13, 2005: My reaction to John Roberts comparing judging to umpiring: "Great, a sports metaphor. The man is accused over and over of not caring about women's rights and the first thing that comes out of him is a sports metaphor. For decades, I have negatively judged men who, speaking to a general audience, fall back on a sports metaphor. It says: I come from the world of men...."
September 13, 2005: Senator Joe Biden "goes on at length" with John Roberts's baseball metaphor and it was "really getting on my nerves."
November 5, 2005: "'Baseball's the perfect sport for nerds.' That's why Washington types keep talking about it'... Aw, then I guess I shouldn't be so mean about sports metaphors as long as it's a baseball metaphor."
March 27, 2006: That time Bob Dylan started his "Theme Time" radio show singing "Take Me Out to the Ball Game"... "not trying to sing it well, just singing it like your grandad might do if he was trying to remind you why it's great to go to a baseball game."
December 13, 2007: "Cancel all your baseball memories. They were all on steroids."
December 28, 2007: I try to hold up my side of a Bloggingheads diavlog with Stephen Kaus on the topic "Prosecuting steroid use in baseball."
March 4, 2008: Hillary Clinton is on "The Daily Show," and she didn't get Jon Stewart's comparing her and Barack Obama to Ted Williams and Joe DiMaggio. "Isn't Hillary Clinton reputed to be a big baseball fan?"
June 23, 2008: George Carlin died and one of the 2 bits I looked for to embed was the comparison between football and baseball. (The other was "stuff.")
October 23, 2008: "Last night, I checked out a little of game 1 of the World Series... The players look like hell! When did they stop wearing stockings and knickers? Those long pants look like pajamas. I remember tight pants...."
October 28, 2008: John McCain, at a Diamondbacks-Padres game, for some reason declared that he would hate to live in Milwaukee. An Obama campaign video throws it in his face right before the election.
October 29, 2008: "Phillies. The team my grandfather and father loved. Congratulations!"
December 12, 2008: "When William S. Stevens was law student at the University of Pennsylvania in 1975, he wrote a law review note about the infield fly rule: 'Published as a semi-parodic 'aside' in June 1975, 'The Common Law Origins of the Infield Fly Rule” quickly achieved legal fame'..."
Posts
23 comments:
I don't do baseball.
I used to listen to the Tigers' Ernie Harwell and Paul Carey at night though, and they'd fade in and out, as I was programming up something on my VIC-20.
Just the rhythm and pauses and the fades.
I have no idea who won any game, or who the opponent was.
Possibly there were people paying attention, but they weren't getting any work done.
It's still our national past time. Yes, it's slow in today's multiple media entertainment menage. But it sure beats the Soccer boredom.
I saw Ryan Braun playing well last week. Good for him.
Life is like baseball, but I'm not exactly sure how.
@rh That's what the July 12, 2005 post was about. I do think that the function of radio is at a sub rational level, about the feeling of companionship with other human beings.
BTW, I followed the Detroit Tigers in the mid 1970s and went to a couple games at the old Tigers Stadium. We saw Mark Fidrych pitch, when he was at the height of his popularity, and I will never forget the intense closeness to the play that we experienced there. I remember driving home, from Detroit to Ann Arbor, and feeling in complete communion with the slow moving cars around us, like we were all together, in love with The Bird.
I happened to snap a little league game on the way to the store.
That's nothing like baseball. No rhythm.
OK. I was sitting on the third row just behind 3rd base when the earthquake hit.
Sounds to me like you all got into the stuff in Dock Ellis's locker. Does Michigan seem like a dream to you now?
When it comes to baseball, Althouse has been Meadeated.
We were high on baseball.
Those posts have held up well. I especially like the baseball on radio one.
I didn't get into baseball growing up. The Phillies were terrible. It seemed treasonous to root for another team. Freshman year of college was 1975, and in the days before everyone had a TV in their room I watched the 1975 world series with 100 guys (one of my close friends a huge Reds fan) in the commons room. Then the Phillies got good and had two of the all time great announcers: Harry Kalas and Richie Ashburn. I now had a subscription to MLBTV, but I usually use it to listen to the Phillies radio broadcast and follow the elaborate stats on the computer. It's quite pleasant when the Phillies aren't playing terribly.
I don't know if I need to defend myself here, but I also had done a cursory inspection before posting and didn't really see any of the type of posts where you focus solely on the Milwaukee Brewers. Most of the pre-Meade baseball posts reflected some intersection of baseball and culture-at-large.
SWING AND A MISS: The Greatest Game Never Seen
http://swingandmiss.blogspot.com/2004/07/greatest-game-never-seen.html
http://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/BAL/BAL198308240.shtml
Imagine listening to this on the radio back in the day. And on Cal Ripken Jr's birthday, no less.
I have not followed baseball since Dizzy Dean stopped selling Falstaff Beer from St. Louis on the radio.
rhhardin wrote: I used to listen to the Tigers' Ernie Harwell and Paul Carey at night though
I did too. For some inexplicable reason I rooted for the Tigers as a kid. In upstate New York, on a good night, I could pick up the Tigers' broadcast on the AM dial once it got good and dark.
My brother was a Yankees fan, so I listened to a lot of Phil Rizzuto, Frank Messer, and Bill White, another classic broadcasting team.
I still follow baseball mostly on the radio, especially if I'm working in the basement or garage. It's a perfectly paced game for following in parts. It's also a perfect game for print -- both in words and numbers.
The dogged meadeator .... has the patience of a baseball umpire.
You know....I really liked the profile picture.
But....what in God's name is THAT??
Some early protozoan selfie at a pagan festival??
I think you are being purposefully provacative.
"Aligned with Meade"? Interesting choice of phrase. I've heard it put more romantically.
Best radio annuncer I ever heard: Harry Caray with the Cardinals back in the 60s. When he got to my beloved Cubs, he was shadow of his former self.
Worst analyst I ever heard: Gary Carter with the Marlins. May he RIP. I always said I didn't blame him - he was doing his best. I blame whoever hired him and then refused to fire him before his K ran out.
Best umpire: Never seen Meade in action, but I have to go with Doug Harvey, although Al Barlick and Dutch Rehnert were personal favorites.
Best Pitcher I ever saw: I used to say Seaver until I saw Pedro in the 3-4 year window in his prime.
Best baseball writer: Bill James.
I remember listening to the Tigers Cadinals 1968 World Series games while in school...I was eleven. Had a transistor radio in my desk, and snaked the earphone cord through my shirt and up my sleeve. Sat their with my head propped in my hand to hie the earphone. McClain won 31 that year, but Mickey Lolich won three games in the series including game seven against Bob Gibson.
Can't stand baseball.
"Johnson is 0 for 3 on days with light rain against left-handed pitchers with speech impediments!"
The whole thing is so SWPL. That's why you get foghorns like Garrison Keillor, Ken Burns, George Will, and Nate Silver so into it.
You can argue me, harangue me, and slang me, but I will never give up my conviction that watching 1000-yard bench rest shooting is actually more boring than watching baseball. Not even soccer is duller. Now go ahead, do your worst.
Curious George - I used to do the same with Brewer's games when I was in junior high. I'd still rather listen to a game than watch it on tv. I don't know if that's the charm of the game or from listening to Uecker all these years...
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