A L O H
A !
Connie Mack Stadium, Philadelphia 1955
Prelinger Archives
Dad took me to a game here
when I was very little.
It looked like a gritty factory from outside,
inside was cement, brick, and exposed girders.
But the emerald green of the field
took my breath away!
Surely it is one memory sight
that I will see again
at the end.
Dad took me to a game here
when I was very little.
It looked like a gritty factory from outside,
inside was cement, brick, and exposed girders.
But the emerald green of the field
took my breath away!
Surely it is one memory sight
that I will see again
at the end.
"A hot dog at the ballgame
beats roast beef
at the Ritz."
Humphrey Bogart
Philadelphia 1892
" Baseball is almost
the only orderly thing
in a very unorderly world.
If you get three strikes,
even the best lawyer in the world
can't get you off. "
Bill Veeck
Out at Home 1905
" Ideally, the umpire should
combine the integrity of a
Supreme Court judge,
the physical agility of an acrobat,
the endurance of Job
and the imperturbability of Buddha. "
The Villains in Blue,"
Time magazine, 25 August 1961
Philadelphia Athletics & Boston Red stockings
1875
" This is a game to be savored,
not gulped.
There's time to discuss
everything
between pitches
or between innings. "
Bill Veeck
" No game in the world
is as tidy and
dramatically neat
as baseball, with cause
and effect,
crime and punishment,
motive and result,
so cleanly defined. "
Paul Gallico
" What is both surprising and delightful
is that spectators are allowed, and even
expected, to join in
the vocal part of the game....
There is no reason why the
field should not try to put the batsman
off his stroke at the critical moment by
neatly timed disparagements
of his wife's fidelity
and his mother's
respectability. "
George Bernard Shaw
" I see great things in baseball.
It's our game — the American game.
It will take
our people out-of-doors,
fill them with oxygen,
give them a larger physical
stoicism. . .
and be a blessing to us. "
Walt Whitman
" Baseball is the only sport I know
that when you're on offense,
the other team controls the ball. "
Ken Harrelson,
Sports Illustrated, 6 September 1976
Poets are like baseball pitchers.
Both have their moments.
The intervals are
the tough things. "
Robert Frost
" Say this much for
big league baseball -
it is beyond question
the greatest conversation piece
ever invented in America. "
Bruce Catton
" Baseball is an allegorical play
about America, a poetic,
complex, and subtle play
of courage, fear, good luck,
mistakes, patience about fate,
and sober self-esteem. "
Saul Steinberg
" It breaks your heart.
It is designed to break your heart.
The game begins in spring,
when everything else begins again,
and it blossoms in the summer,
filling the afternoons and evenings,
and then as soon as the chill rains come,
it stops and leaves you
to face the fall alone. "
A. Bartlett Giamatti,
"The Green Fields of the Mind,"
Yale Alumni Magazine,
November 1977
[]
Baseball is
a predictable series
of unpredictable events.
The pace is majestic
yet peppered with quick action
and reflexes,
like explosions in a
precise piston
driving motion forward
towards "Home"
Just like the automobile,
and invented in the same era.
Time to absorb the
ever-changing situation
is built into the structure
of the game.
Each inning is full of promise.
Guests go to bat first,
but that sportsmanlike rule
means the home team hosts
have the "last say."
Decision of the umpires
is instant and final,
Satisfying in it's finality.
There ARE no unending arguments
on the diamond field.
Baseball is a mental,
even a psychic, game.
Everyone knows
how many Strikes,
how many Outs remain
before the teams
change roles again.
Before exultation
or "next time."
Powerful strive-alries,
exertions to the final
ounce or farthest reach,
But the staunchest enemies
are both just teams
of baseball players,
of cities and regions
alike.
Wearing the same caps,
uniforms and cleats,
just in different colors
but playing by
the same rules
like Life is supposed to be:
Playing-field level,
Each player having
a chance at bat.
A baseball game
is like a life
with chances to try again.
Private courage plays out
in public display.
Springtime promise,
endless Summer afternoons,
thrilling action under the lights.
The companionable silence
of those closest to us,
as well as those
we've lost
[but will always remember]
Wreathed in Ballpark buzz,
smells of popcorn, and peanuts,
and beer.
Being part of something bigger,
older
than your own private benefit;
every neighbor your fellow fan,
the best kind of civic pride
and patriotism,
The game you grew up with.
And for the length of the game
we sit among the generations,
remembering other games,
other Summer days
gone past.
You've been outdoors,
away from work and worries
for a time.
Ar least for the
length of the game.
Baseball is timeless,
pure as numbers
human as a thrill.
Play Ball!
Dedicated to Dad,
and to Jim Labig
[///]
[]
Baseball is
a predictable series
of unpredictable events.
The pace is majestic
yet peppered with quick action
and reflexes,
like explosions in a
precise piston
driving motion forward
towards "Home"
Just like the automobile,
and invented in the same era.
Time to absorb the
ever-changing situation
is built into the structure
of the game.
Each inning is full of promise.
Guests go to bat first,
but that sportsmanlike rule
means the home team hosts
have the "last say."
Decision of the umpires
is instant and final,
Satisfying in it's finality.
There ARE no unending arguments
on the diamond field.
Baseball is a mental,
even a psychic, game.
Everyone knows
how many Strikes,
how many Outs remain
before the teams
change roles again.
Before exultation
or "next time."
Powerful strive-alries,
exertions to the final
ounce or farthest reach,
But the staunchest enemies
are both just teams
of baseball players,
of cities and regions
alike.
Wearing the same caps,
uniforms and cleats,
just in different colors
but playing by
the same rules
like Life is supposed to be:
Playing-field level,
Each player having
a chance at bat.
A baseball game
is like a life
with chances to try again.
Private courage plays out
in public display.
Springtime promise,
endless Summer afternoons,
thrilling action under the lights.
The companionable silence
of those closest to us,
as well as those
we've lost
[but will always remember]
Wreathed in Ballpark buzz,
smells of popcorn, and peanuts,
and beer.
Being part of something bigger,
older
than your own private benefit;
every neighbor your fellow fan,
the best kind of civic pride
and patriotism,
The game you grew up with.
And for the length of the game
we sit among the generations,
remembering other games,
other Summer days
gone past.
You've been outdoors,
away from work and worries
for a time.
Ar least for the
length of the game.
Baseball is timeless,
pure as numbers
human as a thrill.
Play Ball!
Dedicated to Dad,
and to Jim Labig
[///]
Inventor of Baseball
Alexander Joy Cartwright, Jr.
(April 17, 1820 – July 12, 1892)
Alexander Joy Cartwright, Jr.
(April 17, 1820 – July 12, 1892)
is buried here in Honolulu!
Read about him HERE
The Eternal Sound of the Ball Park:
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