On baseball: An unlikely World Series journey

What an unbelievable and unlikely baseball journey it’s been for my adopted (hometown) team, the Washington Nationals. A week ago, at 11:08 p.m. Eastern Time, the Nationals completed a four-game sweep of the St. Louis Cardinals to win the 2019 National League Championship Series. After beating the Milwaukee Brewers in a winner-take-all Wild Card game, then prevailing over the Los Angeles Dodgers in the National League Division Series, the Nationals captured the team’s first pennant in its brief history since the franchise grew out of the defunct Montreal Expos after moving to Washington, D.C. in 2005. It’s been a time to remember.

Not since the days of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt in 1933 has there been a World Series played in the nation’s capital city. It involved the original Washington Senators, who played their games at the long-since-torn down Griffith Stadium in the Shaw neighborhood, near Howard University. Those Senators left town three decades later and are now the Minnesota Twins. Then, a second Washington Senators franchise arrived in 1961 and promptly left town in 1972 to become the Texas Rangers.

In 1904, the Senators were playing so poorly that well-known baseball writer and humorist Charles Dryden famously wrote: “Washington – first in war, first in peace, last in the American League.”

Finally, Washington’s baseball fortunes all changed a week ago on October 15.

⚾️ Prize least expected.

⚾️ Pop the corks. Raise the pennant.

⚾️ Improbable team.

Now, the Nationals will face the mighty Houston Astros in the 2019 World Series starting tonight. Pretty good for a Nationals team that was 19-31 on May 23 and seemed hopeless. The team wasn’t hitting in the clutch, it wasn’t pitching effectively, it wasn’t fielding particularly well. The team’s manager, Dave Martinez, was on the verge of being fired.

Then, the team started winning – and people started paying attention.

“Since baseball time is measured only in outs,” the esteemed longtime New Yorker baseball writer Roger Angell wrote in The Summer Game, “all you have to do is succeed utterly; keep hitting, keep the rally alive, and you have defeated time. You remain forever young.”

While I’ve long been a fan of the San Francisco Giants from living 21-plus years in the San Francisco Bay Area before moving to suburban Maryland two years ago, I’ve (finally) begun taking an interest in the Nationals, too. After all, Nationals Park is only 6.5 miles from our home just across the District line – and I’ve been a baseball fan all my life.

As longtime Washington Post national baseball columnist Thomas Boswell, who’s been around the nation’s capital city writing about baseball through good times and bad – mostly bad – wrote upon the Nationals’ pennant-clinching victory over the Cardinals: “What the Washington Nationals have done this season is like going into your backyard with a spade to plant petunias and, instead, striking oil.

“Their appointment with the World Series, just 14 days after facing elimination in the wild-card game, is like spilling water on Grandma’s painting of an old farm house and finding out she had painted over a still-pristine Picasso.”

Last week’s Game 4 pennant-clinching victory over the Cardinals – another “Curly W in the books” as the team’s radio play-by-play broadcaster Charlie Slowes bellowed in a celebratory tone across the air waves – was part comedy, part horror show. But in the end, the Nationals won 7-4. Indeed, as NLCS MVP Howie Kendrick of the Nationals said, “Some of the best things come from the unexpected moments.” Indeed, they do. How else do you explain the “Baby Shark” phenomenon that’s unified the Nationals and rallied their fan base? I witnessed good fortunes for the Giants in 2010, 2012, and 2014. Maybe, good fortunes will come to the Nationals, too.

So, I say: “Congratulations to the Nationals and good luck!

#STAYINTHEFIGHT

A World Series postscript:

The Washington Nationals won their first World Series title on Wednesday, October 30. They beat the Houston Astros 6-2 in the decisive Game 7 of the best-of-7 series and won the series four games to three. It brought the city of Washington its first World Series title in 95 years.

⚾️ Can you believe it?

⚾️ World Series Curly W!

⚾️ A great victory.

#FIGHTFINISHED

Photo: Courtesy of Google Images.

Bill James: Baseball is universe you can figure out

Since 1977, Bill James has written more than two dozen books devoted to baseball history and statistics. During that time, he’s worn many influential hats in and around the National Pastime as a baseball writer, historian and statistician. In 2006, Time named him to the Time 100 as one of the most influential people in the world. Currently, James is a senior advisor on Baseball Operations for the Boston Red Sox.

James coined the term sabermetrics in homage to the Society for American Baseball Research (SABR), in which one scientifically analyzes and studies baseball – think of Moneyball  by Michael Lewis – often through the use of statistical data that goes beyond mere home runs, runs batted in and batting averages in an attempt to determine why teams win and lose.

On Saturday, James visited the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C., where he spoke on a variety of subjects in conversation with D. Bruce Brown, president of the Baltimore Babe Ruth Chapter of the Society of American Baseball Research.

Why do you like baseball?
“You can trace it and study it unlike much of the rest of the world.”

Is research ruining the romance of baseball?
“We can get so wrapped up in what we do that it drives people away, dying the game. It’s a legitimate concern.”

What is the future of baseball?
“It’s old and has the ability to adapt. What I see as the next thing to save the game is – and I don’t know how or where it will happen – but it has to go broader. You can change everything (about the game) and it’s still baseball.”

How does your affiliation with the Red Sox change your outlook on the other 29 teams?
“I may have at times spoken disrespectfully of teams, but I would never write a book telling secrets. You have to have respect for secrets.”

Who was your favorite team growing up?
“I grew up a Kansas City A’s fan and became a Royals fan. (James was born in Holton, Kan.) I’m more of a Red Sox fan (now) than I was ever a Royals fan. It was difficult rooting for a team owned by Charlie Finley.”

What have you changed your mind about in 40 years?
“I used to think if you had a player who played second and shortstop, you made him a shortstop because he was more valuable. Maximize team value.”

James was asked to name his All-Time team:
C – Yogi Berra
1B – Lou Gehrig
2B – Joe Morgan/Eddie Collins
3B – Mike Schmidt
SS – Cal Ripken
OF – Babe Ruth, Willie Mays, Ted Williams
P –  Lefty Grove/Roger Clemens

A few closing thoughts ...

“Younger people now have a better command of the game than before.”

“Are you trying to win or entertain the fans? Many teams now put (those principles) on equal footing.”

Photo: By Michael Dickens

Baseball Americana: celebrating history, community

Baseball Americana at the Library of Congress

Baseball in 1879

Americans, I learned, during a recent visit to see the "Baseball Americana" exhibit at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C., had been playing baseball for a long time before they agreed upon the rules of the game – or even settled on how to spell it. Baseball, it seemed, was known by some as "town ball" or, more generically, as "round ball." Yet, no matter what form, the sport which has given us Babe Ruth, Ted Williams, Hank Aaron and Mickey Mantle, among so many stars – and broken the color barrier with Jackie Robinson – has endured. But it hasn't stayed the same in anyone's lifetime. One need only look at the use of the designated hitter in the American League since the 1970s.

"Baseball Americana" is a colorful and important showcase of pieces of baseball history curated by the Library of Congress with the help of Major League Baseball, ESPN, and the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum, that cannot be found anywhere else – but it's not meant to be a comprehensive history of baseball. Instead, as viewers to the exhibit will see, "Baseball Americana" is a celebration of baseball as community as well as an exploration of the sport's "gritty roots" and its "changing traditions." It's also about the game of baseball as we know it today.

The  American essayist and culture critic Gerald Early once said, "I think there are only three things America will be known for 2,000 years from now ... the Constitution, jazz music, and baseball."

Magna Carta of Baseball

Visitors are given a chance to consider baseball, both in its past and present forms, as it relates to the players and teams and to the communities that it creates. We learn how each of these groups has contributed to the fabric of baseball – its customs and traditions – and how they thrive, evolve or eventually fade into memory.

Front and center, the Magna Carta of Baseball shows the handwritten "laws" of the game. They are the founding documents for the modern version of baseball, going back to 1856, before the Civil War. The evolution of baseball equipment – bats, balls and gloves – are explored. The role that Jackie Robinson and Branch Rickey played in integrating the Major Leagues is discussed in great detail. There are also plenty of vintage black and white photographs, colorful posters, scouting reports and scorecards – even bobble-heads. Also, there are interactive areas that allow visitors to touch and feel bats and balls and gloves, create their own baseball cards, and test their baseball knowledge and IQ.

Free agency and player rights are addressed. The Negro Legues and the role of women's baseball are featured, too. And, the comedy of baseball as seen on TV (Cheers) and in film (Bull Durham) is not to be missed.

Willie Mays ca. 1965

My favorite part of "Baseball Americana" was hearing the "voices of the game" – Mel Allen, Vin Scully, Russ Hodges, to name a few – create colorful word pictures of some of the great moments of our National Pastime, including the final out of Don Larsen's 1956 World Series perfect game, Hank Aaron's record-breaking 714th home run from 1974, and Bobby Thomson's 1951 "shot heard 'round the world." And, nothing beats watching the greats of the game, including Willie Mays, Bob Gibson and Barry Bonds – in black and white and in color – come alive on the video screens.

The late commissioner of baseball, Bart Giamatti, once said, "Baseball breaks your heart. It's designed to break your heart." How else do you explain what the long-time suffering Chicago Cubs fans endured before they finally won a World Series in 2016 after not winning one in the past 118 years?

Time and again, baseball brings us together to watch or play the game – and to discuss it, analyze it, debate it. Heck, it's even spawned an entire cable network devoted to our National Pastime. From visiting "Baseball Americana," which opened on June 29 and continues through next June, I came away with a renewed appreciation of the way the history of baseball illuminates the history of our nation and the role baseball plays in providing us with a shared sense of belonging.

Cover Photo: By Michael Dickens © 2018.
Note: A digital version of "Baseball Americana," can be seen at www.loc. 

Baseball haiku: Play Ball!

Posey's at the plate / Panik's on the run from first /
Belt awaits his turn.

Celebrating Major League Baseball's 

2016 Opening Week

with a series of haiku poems:

Fathers playing catch /
 Tossing the ball back and forth /
With their sons, all's well. 

Peanuts! Cracker Jacks!
The smell of fresh-cut green grass.
Batter up! Play ball!

The crack of the bat ...
Pence looks up to the night sky.
Catches the full moon.

Baseball on the air,
Nine innings of word pictures.
A hungry mind smiles.

Always playing, Pence /
We believe in Hunter Pence /
Pence, always cheerful.

Now pitching: Matt Cain.
Twenty-seven up, all outs.
Matt Cain: A perfect game.

Seventh inning stretch,
We stand, stretch, and sing: Take me
Out to the ball game ...

Long fly ball hit deep,
The crowd rises together ...
"It is OUT-TA here!"

Strike three called; game's over.
Giants win, the Giants win!
Life's good. Let's get even!

Photographs: All photos by Michael Dickens ©2016.

Baseball isn't perfect ... but it feels like it is

The Hall of Fame Class of 2014 / (L-R) Bobby Cox, Tony LaRussa,
Tom Glavine, Frank Thomas, Greg Maddux, Joe Torre.

"Baseball isn't perfect, but it feels like it is," said Joe Torre, one of six living inductees, whose speech capped a lively and, at times, emotion-filled day packed with wonderful stories and heartfelt memories as the Class of 2014 was honored in ceremonies and welcomed to Major League Baseball's Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, N.Y. on Sunday afternoon.

On a day when baseball got it right, the tone of Torre's speech was best described by The New York Times "as if designated to deliver the greatness-of-the-game testimonial." 

And he did.

"We're responsible for giving it the respect it deserves," said Torre, who managed the New York Yankees to six American League pennants (1996, 1998-2001, 2003) and won four World Series (1996, 1998-2000).

During the nationally televised three-hour ceremony, Torre was joined at the podium by fellow managers Bobby Cox and Tony LaRussa, slugger Frank Thomas and pitchers Greg Maddux and Tom Glavine. Each living great -- and I saw all of them play or manage -- exemplified the game in the right way. Together, they represented quite an assemblage of accomplishments across the baseball diamond: World Series championships, Cy Young Award winners, Most Valuable Player awards.

Decent men all of them, too.

Roger Angell accepting the J.G. Taylor Spink Award

Baseball also got it right when it enshrined the esteemed Roger Angell, a longtime writer and editor for The New Yorker, who received the J.G. Taylor Spink Award on Saturday, the Baseball Hall of Fame's writing honor. The bespectacled Angell, 93 and thin, is revered for his revealing portraits and essays on baseball, which began appearing in The New Yorker in the early 1960s. Since then, they have been compiled into several books filled full of meditations and observations about our national pastime, most notably The Summer Game, which I first read as a teenager. I still treasure the book's words today like the literary baseball bible it is.

In his debut as a baseball writer for The New Yorker in 1962, Angell wrote a wonderful essay full of humor and insight about attending spring training in Florida. "Big-league ball on the west coast of Florida is a spring sport played by the young for the divertissement of the elderly -- a sun-warmed, sleepy exhibition celebrating the juvenescence of the year and the senescence of the fans."

Many have acclaimed Angell as the greatest baseball writer. "Angell's prose is clear and erudite, elegant and informed; he is a fan with a wicked eye for detail, a sense of humor and a curiosity about the way athletes perform," wrote Richard Sandomir in The New York Times. "He filled his notebooks but did not have to convert his jottings into an article under a tight deadline. He had months to digest his observations and then wrote long -- very long."

Said Angell: "I didn't have to write after a game. That was unforgivable."

Angell's main job for many years at The New Yorker was as a fiction editor, a job once held by his mother, Katherine White. His stepfather was the famous children's author E.B. White, who penned Charlotte's Web. So, it's no surprise that writing became Angell's life-long passion. He was raised in good company.

"When he accepted the award Saturday at Doubleday Field," wrote Sandomir, "Angell said that he collected '.300 lifetime talkers like a billionaire hunting down Cézannes and Matisses' -- loquacious folks like Keith Hernandez, Roger Craig, Bill Rigney and Dan Quisenberry. And he gave his thanks to baseball, 'which has turned out to be so familiar and so startling, so spacious and so exacting, and so easy looking and so heartbreakingly difficult that it filled my notebooks in a rush.'"

Peter Gammons, like Angell, a longtime chronicler of baseball, wrote: "It isn't simply nostalgia, it is a weekend that allows us a sense of where we are. As Angell spoke, one thought about a life of literacy, not tweets, that not only did he wrote so elegantly, but he edited John Updike, he edited John McPhee, which made me recall the sign Angell said McPhee had in his kitchen: 'When everything is going your way, you're probably in the wrong lane.'"

Angell is a "lover of books and words," wrote Maureen Dowd in a wonderful New York Times Sunday Review column that appeared over the weekend. His prose combines his love of language with his passion for baseball. "Who else could use 'venery' in a story and write the world's longest palindrome?" she asked.

"Within the ballpark, time moves differently, marked by no clock except the events of the game," wrote Angell in The Summer Game, the first of his seven books about baseball. "This is the unique, unchangeable feature of baseball, and perhaps explains why this sport, for all the enormous changes it has undergone in the past decade or two, remains somehow rustic, unviolent, and introspective. Baseball's time is seamless and invisible, a bubble within which players move at exactly the same pace and rhythms as all their predecessors. This is the way the game was played in our youth and in our fathers' youth, and even back then -- back in the country days -- there must have been the same feeling that time could be stopped. Since baseball time is measured only in outs, all you have to do is succeed utterly; keep hitting, keep the rally alive, and you have defeated time. You remain forever young."

Indeed, baseball hasn't always been perfect, but this past weekend it felt like it was. It made me feel forever young.

Photographs: Courtesy of MLB.com.

Relishing our wide world of sport

The beautiful game / Relishing our wide world of sport.

What a week it's been to be an international sports fan.

Let's see: Between the FIFA World Cup in football, the Stanley Cup in ice hockey, the NBA Finals in American professional basketball, and the U.S. Open golf championship, which crowned its champion on Father's Day, there's been something for every sports fan to enjoy during the month of June. Add to the mix, Major League Baseball with its pennant races taking shape here in the U.S., and there's just not enough hours in the day to watch everything being shown on TV or now made available for viewing via our mobiles.

It's a beautiful game.

• Thanks to the worldwide interest in international football (known to American audiences as soccer), the quadrennial World Cup tournament in Brazil has become must-see viewing around the globe. Here in the U.S., ESPN (and its sister networks) is broadcasting all 64 matches in this year's tournament, which continues through July 13.

There's new "made for TV" drama unfolding with each match and curiosity is building day by day. It will be interesting to see if the Netherlands can continue its dominance after the Clockwork Oranje dealt Spain a shocking World Cup defeat last Friday with a 5-1 annihilation of La Furia Roja. Also, the Nationalmannschaft of Germany looked very solid as Thomas Müller scored a hat trick during a 4-0 shutout of the Ronaldo-led Portugal on Monday. And, three cheers for the Stars and Stripes as Clint Dempsey scored the fastest goal in U.S. World Cup history (29 seconds) and the Americans beat Ghana 2-1. Of course, host Brazil plays the sport dubbed the beautiful game oh so beautifully, and the Canarinho are a sentimental favorite of many worldwide fans.

• On Friday night in Los Angeles, the Kings became king of ice hockey as they skated to a 3-2 overtime victory over the New York Rangers to capture the NHL Stanley Cup for the second time in three years. It's always a thrill to see the players of the winning team kissing Lord Stanley's Cup and hoisting it proudly above their heads as they jubilantly skate around the rink in celebration. It's an experience every hockey player wants to enjoy at least once in their career.

The Spurs' Parker, Duncan, Ginobili.

• On Sunday night, the San Antonio Spurs showed that it's cool to be a team -- again -- and to play like a team, too. The Spurs beat the star-studded Miami Heat 104-87 to win their fifth NBA Finals championship, thanks to a total team effort from an eclectic roster filled with international flavor, including: Tim Duncan of the U.S. Virgin Islands, Tony Parker of France, Manu Ginobili of Argentina, Patty Mills of Australia, Tiago Splitter of Brazil, Cory Joseph of Canada and Kahwi Leonard of the U.S.

• With the weather heating up across America, the Major League Baseball pennant races are heating up, too. Here in the Bay Area, thanks to San Francisco Giants and Oakland A's compiling the best records in their respective leagues, interest in the Summer Game is filling ballparks on both sides of the Bay nearly every night.

• Lest we forget: The United States Open golf championship crowned a new champion Sunday in Pinehurst, N.C. as Martin Kaymer, a 29-year-old German, won an historic eight-stroke victory in a what many described as a totally dominating performance.

• Finally: The Wimbledon Championships fortnight start next Monday in London SW19 as Scotland's Andy Murray defends his gentlemen's singles title against the likes of Roger Federer, Novak Djokovic and Rafael Nadal in the world's premier grass-court tennis event. Break out the strawberries and cream.

Indeed, it's a time for relishing the spirit and passion of a truly wide world of sport.

Photographs courtesy of Google Images.

Hope springs eternal for the Summer Game

Chicago's Wrigley Field / One of baseball's green cathedrals,
where hope always springs eternal for the Cubs.

"Now there's three things you can do in a baseball game: You can win or you can lose or it can rain." -- Casey Stengel

A brand new Major League baseball season started yesterday. Opening Day was celebrated at New York's Citi Field, and in Baltimore, Miami, Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, Detroit, Milwaukee and Chicago (for the White Sox), as well as in St. Petersburg, Phoenix, Arlington, Anaheim and Oakland. Today, it's Houston's turn to celebrate Opening Day against the Yankees.

Every team starts with a clean slate. Zero wins. Zero losses. Zero games behind -- even though two teams, the Arizona Diamondbacks and the Los Angeles Dodgers, started the 2014 season two weekends ago in Sydney, Australia, all in the name of expanding the Great American Game all around the world. Meanwhile, all of the other teams remained back in Arizona and Florida playing Spring training exhibition games and getting into shape. The Dodgers played their "second" season opener Sunday night in San Diego, and they entered with a 2-0 record before losing 3-1 to the home team Padres in high drama on a home run in the late innings.

The baseball season is a marathon -- definitely, it's not a sprint -- and it lasts 162 games, stretching from March until October. Even the best teams are bound to lose at least 60 games over the course of a season and the worst teams will win at least 60 games. It's what happens during those other 42 games that makes or breaks a season. With the Dodgers commanding one of the highest payrolls in any sport, the media and Los Angeles fans will be monitoring every at bat and every pitch throughout the season, expecting the Dodgers to win their first World Series crown since 1988. 

Last year, one of my hometown teams, the San Francisco Giants, finished 10 games under .500, which, understandably, was a letdown for both the team and its fans. Yet, there's reason for optimism because the Giants have won the World Series in each of the last two even-numbered years, 2010 and 2012. And, as this is an even-numbered year, 2014 could be another year for the Giants to win it all.

Built in 1914, Wrigley Field is
the oldest ballpark in the N.L.

As for the lovable Chicago Cubs, who lost their season-opening game on Monday against the Pittsburgh Pirates on an extra innings walk-off homer, they still haven't won a World Series since 1908 -- that's 105 years. The Cubs haven't even played in a World Series since 1945.

Will this be the Cubbie's year? Time and 162 games will tell their story. At least, the ivy-covered walls of the historic, friendly confines of Wrigley Field will be colorful even if the Cubs don't win many games in 2014. The Cubs' home opener at Wrigley Field is Friday, a day for North Siders to rejoice.

On Monday night, the Giants started their 2014 season on the road against the Diamondbacks on a clear, 80-degree evening in Phoenix. Lefty Madison Bumgarner, who earned his first Opening Day start, got roughed up early and left the game after the 4th inning. However, he saw his team rebound nicely in the late innings, rallying from a 7-3 deficit by scoring four runs in the seventh and adding two more in the ninth. The Giants won 9-8 on Buster Posey's two-run homer off closer Addison Reed in the ninth that broke a 7-7 deadlock and easily cleared the left-field fence at Chase Field. The ball landed well back in the bleacher seats and the "OUTTA HERE!" call by Giants TV broadcaster Duane Kuiper, himself a former Major Leaguer, was a welcome sound for Giants fans.

Giants catcher Buster Posey during
the 2010 World Series parade.

"I think we want to be a team that keeps grinding and keeps pushing," Posey said after the Giants' first victory of the season. "It was nice to be able to do that tonight right out of the chute to give us that confidence that when we get down we known we have the ability to come back."

Closer to home, the Oakland A's, my other hometown team, played their home opener against the Cleveland Indians Monday night before a loud and enthusiastic crowd at the aging and concrete Oakland Coliseum, which endured day-long rain showers that soaked the entire Bay Area, but finally subsided about an hour before first pitch. During ceremonies on the field before the game, which included fireworks, the A's were honored with a banner celebrating their 2013 A.L. West Division title. Unfortunately for Oakland and its fans, the A's lost their 10th straight home opener, 2-0. So, there was no walk-off heroics to celebrate. Tuesday night's game was rained out and the A's and Indians will play a day-night doubleheader on Wednesday. Rain or shine, hopes are high this year for the A's, and you should never count out the team's general manager Billy Beane, of Moneyball fame, from getting the most value out of his 25-man roster.

Baseball is the perfect companion for the summer as the days grow longer. It is both rhythmic and poetic -- its memories are savored for a lifetime while its losses are lamented. 

Indeed, it's a brand new baseball season and every team starts with a clean slate. One win doesn't make a season just as one loss doesn't, either. And, as fans, we'll be checking the baseball box scores every morning -- in the newspapers and online -- dissecting the rhythms of yesterday's games, with the hope that springs eternal for the Summer Game.

Play ball!

Photographs of Buster Posey and Wrigley Field by Michael Dickens © 2010 and © 2013.

Curt Flood: An every day reminder of one of America's past baseball heroes

Beyond boundaries / Outside Curt Flood Field in Oakland, Calif.

As the Major League baseball pennant races heat up across the country, here in the Bay Area, the San Francisco Giants have gone from first to worst while the Oakland A's of Moneyball fame continue to fight for survival, remaining at or near the top of their division, while playing in what one local sports columnist labeled the Oakland Coliseum as "the greatest terrible place on Earth."

While San Francisco has played center stage to many of baseball's greatest stars -- Willie Mays, and Willie McCovey of the Giants come to mind -- as well as one of the game's biggest anti-heroes, Barry Bonds, across the Bay in Oakland, most of its greatest home-grown talent like Frank Robinson, Vada Pinson and Willie Stargell have earned their accolades elsewhere.

Then, there's Curt Flood, a Major League baseball player, who spent much of his career as a center fielder for the St. Louis Cardinals.

Curt Flood / Won seven consecutive Gold Gloves
for the St. Louis Cardinals between 1963-69.

Born in Texas but raised in Oakland, Flood played in the same outfield as Robinson and Pinson at West Oakland's McClymonds High School. Each became a major leaguer with the Cincinnati Reds in the mid-1950s. After two seasons, Flood was traded by the Reds to the Cardinals in December 1957. For the next twelve seasons, Flood became a defensive fixture for the Cardinals, winning seven consecutive Gold Gloves, making three All-Star teams, and winning two World Series titles. In 1969, he collected the first hit in a major league regular season game in Canada. During his career, Flood hit .293, knocked out 1,861 hits and drove in 631 runs.

However, despite his outstanding career on the field, it was outside the lines that Flood developed his principal legacy to the Summer Game. Flood became a pivotal figure in the labor history of baseball when he refused to accept a trade to the Philadelphia Phillies following the 1969 season, and he ultimately appealed his case to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Flood believed that the decades-old reserve clause that Major League Baseball employed was unfair because it "kept players beholden for life to the team with which they originally signed, even when they had satisfied the terms and conditions of those contracts."

Flood's rebellion against the baseball establishment came at a period of time when the U.S. was coming apart at the seams. We were at war in Southeast Asia, marching for civil rights through the South, and dealing with the tragedy of the assassinations of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Sen. Robert F. Kennedy. As a country, we were losing great Americans who were dying for the rights of others.

Curt Flood refused a trade to the
Phillies after the 1969 season.

In his 1971 autobiography, The Way It Is, written with Richard Carter, Flood cited the Phillies' poor record and dilapidated Connie Mack Stadium, and for what he believed were "belligerent -- and, racist -- fans" as reasons for refusing to report to his new team. He forfeited a $100,000 contract for the season and, instead, chose to pursue his legal options with the blessing of the the players' union head Marvin Miller and the union's funding.

In a December 24, 1969 letter addressed to Baseball Commissioner Bowie Kuhn, Flood demanded the commissioner declare him a free agent. He wrote:

After twelve years in the major leagues, I do not feel I am a piece of property to be bought and sold irrespective of my wishes. I believe that any system which produces that result violates my basic rights as a citizen and is inconsistent with the laws of the United States and of the several States.

"It is my desire to play baseball in 1970, and I am capable of playing. I have received a contract offer from the Philadelphia club, but I believe I have the right to consider offers from other clubs before making any decision. I, therefore, request that you make known to all Major League clubs my feelings in this matter, and advise them of my availability for the 1970 season.

No doubt, Flood was influenced by the civil rights events of the 1960s taking place throughout the United States. In Miller's 1991 book A Whole Different Ball Game: The Sport and Business of Baseball, the union head recalled that in a meeting with the executive board of the players' union, Flood said: "I think the change in black consciousness in recent years has made me more sensitive to injustice in every area of my life."

Flood v. Kuhn (U.S. 258) was argued before the Supreme Court on March 20, 1972. Former Supreme Court Justice Arthur Goldberg, Flood's attorney, argued that the reserve clause depressed wages and limited players to one team for life. Meanwhile, the counsel representing Major League Baseball countered that the commissioner had acted "for the good of the game."

On June 19, 1972, the Supreme Court ruled 5-3 with one recusal in favor of Major League Baseball, invoking the principle of stare decisis ("to stand by things decided"). It cited as precedent  a 1922 ruling in Federal Baseball Club v. National League (259 U.S. 200).

While Flood's legal challenge was ultimately unsuccessful, it united major league baseball players in solidarity as they fought against baseball's reserve clause and sought free agency.

Curt Flood / "Left a legacy of fairness."

Flood sat out the 1970 season and returned briefly in the next year and played in 13 games for the Washington Senators, who acquired him from the Phillies and signed him to a $110,000 contract. He hit only .200 and his defensive skills showed deterioration. He retired after the 1971 season. Four years later, baseball's reserve clause was nullified by an arbitrator and it paved the way for free agency.

On January 20, 1997, Flood died of pneumonia from complications due to throat cancer. Later that same year, Flood's legacy was acknowledged in Congress through the Baseball Fans and Communities Protection Act of 1997. It was numbered HR21 (Flood's Cardinals uniform number) and was introduced in the House of Representatives on the first day of the 105th Congress. The legislation established federal antitrust law protection for major league baseball players to the same extent as provided for other professional athletes. The Curt Flood Act of 1998, which was similar to the House's legislation, was introduced in the Senate and enacted into law the following year.

Flood, who San Francisco Chronicle baseball writer Henry Schulman once wrote "left a legacy of fairness," has been described by many as "pioneer, hero, legend, and freedom fighter -- a sort of all-star in the world at large."

In the book Reconstructing Fame: Sport, Race, and Evolving Reputations, David J. Leonard writes about Flood: "The man who was daily denounced and virtually banished from America has since been compared to Dred Scott, Jackie Robinson and Rosa Parks as a great American." In the same book, Leonard quotes journalist George F. Will, who said of Flood's contribution to baseball: "Few have ever matched the grace and craftsmanship Curt Flood brought to it as a player. However, none have matched what he did for the game as a citizen. ... He once said, 'I am pleased that God made my skin black, but I wish He had made it thicker.' Friends of baseball, and of freedom, are pleased that he didn't."

A welcome sign to Curt Flood Field
in Oakland, Calif.

In paying tribute to Flood, the city of Oakland renamed a baseball and athletic field in his honor several years ago, Curt Flood Field, that is a little more than a mile from my home. I've driven by it numerous times. Most of the time, I've noticed, the baseball field lies empty and it looks a bit tired and worn. A local high school baseball team and other youth sports groups use the facility that is located at the well-travelled intersection of Coolidge Avenue and School Street in a mixed-race urban neighborhood.

Sometimes, I wonder, if you were to ask most of the kids who play on the field about who Curt Flood was or what he did for them and the Summer Game, would you get more than just a blank stare?

Photos of Curt Flood Field by Michael Dickens, copyright 2013.
Photos of Curt Flood courtesy of Wikipedia Commons.

125 years later: Still no joy in Mudville tonight

Casey at the Bat /
At 125, still no joy in Mudville.

The baseball season is in full swing. Across the country, America's Summer Game is heating up with pennant race fever.

Here in the Bay Area, we're fortunate to have two Major League teams, the San Francisco Giants and the Oakland Athletics, to cheer and support. Each team has its own personality and rhythm, just like the cities they represent. Both teams are full of colorful players, too.

One need only look at the Giants' lovable slugger, Pablo Sandoval, nicknamed (Kung Fu) Panda for his friendly demeanor and girth, who often changes the outcome of games with one mighty swing of the bat.

Sandoval hit home runs in his first three at-bats  bats during Game 1 of last year's World Series. It earned him most valuable player honors, and the Giants amazingly swept the Detroit Tigers in four straight games to win their second World Series title in three years.

While Sandoval loves to swing for the fences ~ and his Ruthian home runs are truly a thing of beauty ~ sometimes, he swings and misses, striking out to kill a rally. Sandoval's successes, and his sometime failures at the plate, bring to mind another mighty baseball swinger. Mighty Casey.

"Casey at the Bat", a baseball poem by Ernest Lawrence Thayer, was published in the San Francisco Examiner 125 years ago on June 3, 1888.

As you might imagine, the poem is filled with a lot of references to baseball as it was in 1888, and in many ways, the game hasn't changed too much in 125 years. The poem captures a lot of the appeal of America's National Pastime and there is a lot of audience involvement and baseball jargon, too.

In the beginning of the poem, we learn of the baseball team from the fictional town of Mudville, which is losing by two runs with two outs in the bottom of the ninth inning. The team and fans are hopeful that they can win if Mudville's star, Mighty Casey, who is scheduled to hit fifth, comes up to bat with the game on the line. With two outs, Mudville's Flynn and Blake both successfully reach base on a single and a double, and it brings to the plate Mighty Casey with runners in scoring position and Mighty Casey representing the potential winning run. 

As Mighty Casey is so confident of his abilities, he does not swing at the first two pitches and both are called strikes. Suddenly, he finds himself behind in the count 0-2. On the next pitch ~ the game's final pitch ~ an overconfident Mighty Casey strikes out, ending the game. Then, as now, Mudville has lost and the home crowd goes home unhappy.

For 125 years, "Casey at the Bat" has been part of baseball's lore and literature. And, still, there's no joy in Mudville tonight.

* * * 

Here is the text of Ernest Lawrence Thayer's "Casey at the Bat":

The Outlook wasn't brilliant for the Mudville nine that day:
The score stood four to two, with but one inning more to play.
And then when Cooney died at first, and Barrows did the same, 
A sickly silence fell upon the patrons of the game.

A straggling few got up to go in deep despair. The rest
Clung to that hope which springs eternal in the human breast;
They thought, if only Casey could get but a whack at that --
We'd put up even money, now, with Casey at the bat.

But Flynn preceded Casey, as did also Jimmy Blake,
And he former was a lulu and the latter was a cake;
So upon that stricken multitude grim melancholy sat,
For there seemed but little change of Casey's getting to the bat.

But Flynn let drive a single, the the wonderment of all, 
And Blake, the much despis-ed , tore the cover off the ball;
And when the dust had lifted, and the men saw what had occurred,
There was Jimmy safe at second and Flynn a-hugging third.

Then from 5,000 throats and more there rose a lusty yell;
It rumbled through the valley, it rattled in the dell;
It knocked upon the mountain and recoiled upon the flat,
For Casey, mighty Casey, was advancing to the bat.

There was ease in Casey's manner as he stepped into his place;
There was pride in Casey's bearing and a smile on Casey's face.
And when, responding to the cheers, he lightly doffed his hat,
No stranger in the crowd could doubt 'twas Casey at the bat.

Ten thousand eyes were on him as he rubbed his hands with dirt;
Five thousand tongues applauded when he wiped them on his shirt.
Then while the writing pitcher ground the ball into his hip,
Defiance gleamed in Casey's eye, a sneer curled Casey's lip.

And now the leather-covered sphere came hurtling through the air,
And Casey stood a-watching it in haughty grandeur there.
Close by the sturdy batsman the ball unheeded sped --
"That ain't my style," said Casey. "Strike one," the umpire said.

From the benches, black with people, there went up a muffled roar,
Like the beating of the storm-waves on a stern and distant shore.
"Kill him! Kill the umpire!" shouted someone on the stand;
And it's likely they'd a-killed him had not Casey raised his hand.

With a smile of Christian charity great Casey's visage shone;
He stilled the rising tumult; he bade the game go on;
He signaled to the pitcher, and once more the spheroid flew;
But Casey still ignored it, and the umpire said, "Strike two."

"Fraud!" cried the maddened thousands, and echo answered fraud;
But one scornful look from Casey and the audience was awed.
They saw his face grow stern and cold, they saw his muscles strain,
And they knew that Casey wouldn't let that ball go by again.

The sneer is gone from Casey's lip, his teeth are clenched in hate;
He pounds with cruel violence his bat upon the plate.
And now the pitcher holds the ball, and now he lets it go,
And now the air is shattered by the force of Casey's blow.

Oh, somewhere in this favored land the sun is shining bright;
The band is playing somewhere, and somewhere hearts are light,
And somewhere men and laughing, and somewhere children shout;
But there is no joy in Mudville -- mighty Casey has struck out.

* * *

To listen to a reading of "Casey at the Bat" by NPR's Frank Deford:
http://www.npr.org/2013/05/29/186913673/one-more-swing-casey-at-the-bat

To learn more about "Casey at the Bat": 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casey_at_the_Bat

Baseball player figurine by Mississippi artist Walter Inglis Anderson, courtesy of Shearwater Pottery.
Baseball tile art "American Game" by Michael Dickens. 

Out of the Park: The Art of Baseball

We Did It! / 2013, Oil on canvas 16 x 20 inches
By Jon Francis

Out of the Park: The Art of Baseball is a visual and artistic metaphor of the American pastime that reminds us that baseball is rich in art and literature.

Last Saturday, I visited the Out of the Park: The Art of Baseball exhibition at the George Krevsky Gallery of American Art, located at 77 Geary Street near Union Square in San Francisco. Seeing this year's exhibit brought back fond memories of the 2012 San Francisco Giants World Series championship as depicted through a painting of Sergio Romo, shown moments after striking out Miguel Cabrera to clinch the decisive victory, while his battery mate Buster Posey races to the mound to join Romo in celebration.

This year's 16th annual exhibition of baseball art includes iconic images of Jackie Robinson, Joe DiMaggio and Willie Mays, all which reinforced for me on this April afternoon why baseball matters ~ why it has an important purpose in my life.

Also, there's Oakland A's reliever Rollie Fingers illustrated in his prime, a collage of the outfield wall at Brooklyn's old Ebbets Field featuring the advertisement "Hit Sign, Win Suit" ~ even a gelatin silver photograph of Fidel Castro swinging a baseball bat.

Each work of art from the more than 40 artists in this year's exhibition, created through the use of a variety of mixed media ~ graphite on paper, oil on paper, oil on canvas, gelatin silver photograph, acrylic and marker on canvas board, hand-cut paper collage, and pastel on paper ~ cements our lasting memories of the game we've loved since we were children.

And, there's also a featured literary component, "Baseball Canto," by the American Beat poet and San Francisco resident Lawrence Ferlinghetti:

Watching baseball, sitting in the sun,
eating popcorn, reading Ezra Pound,
and wishing that Juan Marichal would hit a hole right through
the Anglo-Saxon tradition in the first Canto
and demolish the barbarian invaders.
When the San Francisco Giants take the field
and everyone stands up for the National Anthem
with some Irish tenor's voice piped over the loudspeakers,
with all the players struck dead in their places
and the white umpires like Irish cops
in their black suits and little black caps, pressed over their hearts
standing straight and still
like at some funeral of a blarney bartender, and all facing East
as if expecting  some Great White Hope
or the Founding Fathers, to appear on the horizon
like 1066 or 1776 or all that.

But Willie Mays appears instead,
in the bottom of the first,
and a roar goes up, as he clouts the first one into the sun
and takes off, like a footrunner from Thebes.
The ball is lost in the sun and maidens wail after him
but he keeps running, through the Anglo-Saxon epic.
And Tito Fuentes comes up, looking like a bullfighter
in his tight pants and small pointed shoes.
And the rightfield bleachers go mad
with Chicanos & blacks & Brooklyn beer drinkers
"Sweet Tito! Sock it to heem, Sweet Tito!"
And Sweet Tito puts his foot in the bucket
and smacks one that don't come back at all
and flees around the bases
like he's escaping from the United Fruit Company
as the gringo dollar beats out the pound.
And Sweet Tito beats it out, like he's beating out usury,
not to mention fascism and anti-semitism.
And Juan Marichal comes up,
and the Chicano bleachers go loco again,
as Juan belts the first ball, out of sight,
and rounds first and keeps going
and rounds second and rounds third,
and keeps going, and hits pay-dirt
to the roars of the grungy populace.
As some nut presses the backstage panic button
for the tape-recorded National Anthem again,
to save the situation.

But it don't stop nobody this time,
in their revolution round the loaded white bases,
in this last of the great Anglo-Saxon epics,
in the Territorio Libre of Baseball.

A special treat of this year's show is A Baseball Salon: Memories of the Game, an evening of baseball poetry and literature readings, music and short film that will be hosted by the gallery on May 2.

"Baseball has a new purpose in our lives," writes Dr. Marshall Ledger, a magazine editor, in the gallery notes for Out of the Park: The Art of Baseball. "We have discovered the sport in the visual arts and in literature, where artists and writers use it as theme or metaphor to draw us into their special, and often unexpectedly rich, creative worlds."

(Out of the Park: The Art of Baseball continues through May 25. Gallery hours are Tuesday-Saturday, 11:30 a.m.-5:30 p.m.)