tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1178284085080580526.post8739566089129957030..comments2024-02-12T23:25:09.583-08:00Comments on Overweening Generalist: From My Childhood Baseball Card Collection to Walter Benjamin: The Vortex of Historymichaelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13526042582094867513noreply@blogger.comBlogger10125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1178284085080580526.post-75601960751092774112012-12-27T13:52:35.049-08:002012-12-27T13:52:35.049-08:00I love that you could show your Grandpa sometime a...I love that you could show your Grandpa sometime about the Great American Pastime. <br /><br />Every collector who ever lived looks back to the "good old days" when the thing they collect was plentiful and cheap. If I've heard one story, <br /><br />I've heard a dozen about how some card collection or another was disposed of - often by parents who were clearing out their stuff while away to college or life-in-general. <br /><br />Now that Christmas has passed and Santa can take a break, maybe he'd like to get himself a cool baseball book - try Amazon for a used copy of The Dickson Basball Dictionary - 3rd Ed. (2009). There are something like 10,000 entries - so far I've only come up with two omissions: "bell ringer" and "world series share" (the latter is NOT obscure - I'm suprised it's missing). <br /><br />Send an email if you want definition and reference for bell ringer<br /><br />(remove the stars, etc.):<br /><br />**j*a*h*n*ghalt( )yahoo(dot)comJahn Ghaltnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1178284085080580526.post-14001927966442648172012-04-25T18:29:52.615-07:002012-04-25T18:29:52.615-07:00I don't really have a team. I considered myse...I don't really have a team. I considered myself a Pirates fan for years until they dumped Bonds and Bonilla in the early 90's. I really only follow the NFL these days, and I have remained a loyal Redskins fan for forty years.Eric Wagnerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04312033917401203598noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1178284085080580526.post-3051177673640227932012-04-24T21:44:20.994-07:002012-04-24T21:44:20.994-07:00I haven't seen the film, but I enjoyed Michael...I haven't seen the film, but I enjoyed Michael Lewis's book Moneyball. What's sorta odd: the book was a best-seller, then his option was actually made into a Brad Pitt film, but the A's have gone nowhere since they were competing in the AL West and Lewis was hanging around Billy Beane, trying to get the story. The message about baseball and economics is not that SABREmetrics can work for you if you have no money to buy the best free agents; the message is that, if you compare the more egalitarian revenue sharing of the NFL vs MLB, the NFL has it right...if we believe teams should compete on a more metaphorically level playing field.<br /><br />Every team uses SABREmetrics now, even the Yankees.<br /><br />I'm a lot like you. In elementary school I LITERALLY read every sports biography in the library.<br /><br />I love baseball lore, and it's bizarre how many little bits of trivia from my boyhood have stayed alive in little neural clusters, only to pop back up now and then, although many of the records I memorized have been broken since I was a kid and obsessed with all that. I grew up thinking no one would throw more than Koufax's 4 no-hitters, but have to remind myself that Nolan Ryan ended up with 7. Maury Wills had 104 stolen bases in one year! Then: Ricky Henderson. Not long ago I looked at the Wiki for guys with 500 career HRs and...Eddie Murray? Man, how things have changed. Etc.<br /><br />I remember watching a Dodger game with my grandpa when I was 10 or 11. The pitcher had a 0-2 count on a batter, and I said, "Now he'll waste on, either high or probably low and in the dirt because no one's on base." And sure enough, the next pitch was in the dirt. My grandpa said, "How did you know that?" And I said I just read in a biography about Warren Spahn about how his dad taught him how to pitch.<br /><br />Is your team the Washington Nationals now?michaelhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13526042582094867513noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1178284085080580526.post-20654258209391829262012-04-24T18:51:56.114-07:002012-04-24T18:51:56.114-07:00I don't see myself as into the Sabremetrics st...I don't see myself as into the Sabremetrics stuff. I like how James uses a multiple model approach. In The New Historical Baseball Abstract he gives a variety of possible lists for the ten best players in history using a variety of approaches. I loved his books on the Hall of Fame and on the history of coaching. I also loved the film "Moneyball."<br /><br />As a kid I became fascinated by baseball's history. I read my mom's old books on baseball. I considered Walter Johnson and Honus Wagner my favorite players, Johnson because he played for my hometown Senators.Eric Wagnerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04312033917401203598noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1178284085080580526.post-4690770703866051082012-04-23T18:09:21.346-07:002012-04-23T18:09:21.346-07:00Yes, that's the comic. Charlie Brown tried to ...Yes, that's the comic. Charlie Brown tried to trade a bunch of his cards, including most of his superstars, for the Joe Shlabotnick card, but Lucy wouldn't trade because she thought Joe was "kind of cute." After Charlie Brown left in despair, Lucy tosses away the card, muttering, "He's not so cute, after all." Perhaps a hint of sexism, implying that girls didn't take baseball cards seriously enough?Cleveland Okie (Tom Jackson)https://www.blogger.com/profile/07810736442596736041noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1178284085080580526.post-22492018502000927642012-04-23T13:35:58.340-07:002012-04-23T13:35:58.340-07:00CORRECTION: Birth control Pill invented by Djerass...CORRECTION: Birth control Pill invented by Djerassi and friends. I need to enlarge the little box I respond to here; I often type in it and it's so small I can barely see it.michaelhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13526042582094867513noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1178284085080580526.post-45642143614189091622012-04-23T13:33:40.395-07:002012-04-23T13:33:40.395-07:00Hippie Bird-Day to Billy the Shakes! (And it's...Hippie Bird-Day to Billy the Shakes! (And it's quasi the First Day in the Illuminatus! welt).<br /><br />I'll look for A Dangerous Method.<br /><br />Eric: are you into the SABREmetrics stuff?<br /><br />There's a pretty cool book by Carl Djerassi, legendary chemist who is credited with inventing the bill control Pill. He's also a novelist and art collector. He wrote a book called Four Jews on Parnassus, which is imaginary conversations between Adorno, Schoenberg, Benjamin, and Scholem. Pretty cool...<br /><br />The original for Benjamin has its own unique history, sorta like you do. If you were cloned your clone would have different life experiences in different environments, and other factors, so even though your clone was 100% your DNA, I think a lot of people would wonder about the Original: you. That's sorta what Benjamin's getting at. Beethoven wrote a string quartet, then there was the first public playing of it, live. It was around, say 1820, in THAT time and place. Listening to it in Berkeley or Cleveland in 2012 in wowee-gee stereo gizmos in your own home, via a digital replication of some hotshot quartet that was well aware of previous group's recording of the same Ludwig Van piece, etc, etc, etc: it's somehow very removed from the Original. <br /><br />Now: we all negotiate Art works on our own terms, whether we're in the Louvre looking at the original Mona Lisa, or listening to a burnt CD of some band. Benjamin wanted to argue that the Original was in some sense alive, it seems to me. Alive in a way any reproduction is not. It's easy to disagree with him, and if you read the essay (which I linked to), it's a very intellectualized version of a thought he got while very stoned on hashish.<br /><br />I really appreciate both your guys' comments.michaelhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13526042582094867513noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1178284085080580526.post-34011137440326039352012-04-23T07:55:23.990-07:002012-04-23T07:55:23.990-07:00Great blog, as usual, and Happy Shakespearemas!
A...Great blog, as usual, and Happy Shakespearemas!<br /><br />As a child I fantasized at a geneological relationship between Honus Wagner and myself. In Bill James' Historical Basball Abstract he considers Honus Wagner the second best player in baseball history after Ruth.<br /><br />I just watched the film A Dangerous Method which deals with Freud and Jung and Sabina Spielrein. Reading about Benjamin's death reminded me of Spielrein, whom the Nazi's killed in 1941. I first heard of <br />Benjamin reading Gershom Scholem.<br /><br />Tom, I don't think mechanical reproduction harms art, but it does change our response to it. This goes back to our discussions of live music vs. recorded music.Eric Wagnerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04312033917401203598noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1178284085080580526.post-55495815297845839112012-04-22T23:18:55.682-07:002012-04-22T23:18:55.682-07:00Yea, I remember devouring all those Peanuts (sorry...Yea, I remember devouring all those Peanuts (sorry!). Charlie went nuts trying got get Joe Shlabotnick (I'm guessing you got it right), and IIRC, Lucy - who wasn't even into baseball cards - bought ONE pack and "Well, what do you know? Joe Shlabotnick."<br /><br />All of us are happy about mass production. Benjamin - under the influence of hashish! - thought the Original had a special aura. It's a very stoned idea, or at least it seems that way to me. I like the idea (sorta borrowed [IRONY?] by the postmodernists as "the metaphysics of presence"), but totally agree that all those copies of Beethoven or Ulysses are a fantastic thing, and allow us to have that experience Benjamin had, even if the work of art we're perceiving was mass-produced or not. <br /><br />Seriously: I saw an article about one of the Wagner cards going for over a million, had been reading Walter Benjamin, and thought, "can I somehow link baseball cards and Benjamin together?" <br /><br />I think I probably failed.michaelhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13526042582094867513noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1178284085080580526.post-20418873066182092152012-04-22T18:48:51.752-07:002012-04-22T18:48:51.752-07:00I kind of lost the thread when you wrote about Wal...I kind of lost the thread when you wrote about Walter Benjamin. I don't "get" the idea that mass reproduction harms art. Isn't it a good thing that I can listen to all of the Beethoven I want?<br /><br />But, anyway, your baseball card memories made me think about my baseball cards for the first time in many years (and yes, the gum WAS terrible.")<br /><br />I like this sentence, "Often we'd noticed some barely noteworthy player - a backup shortstop for the Brewers or some reliever with a high ERA - was the one card we couldn't find."<br /><br />Did you ever read the classic "Peanuts" comic about Charlie Brown's struggle to get a baseball card for his favorite player, a mediocre player named Joe Shlabotnick? (I may not have the spelling right, but it's close).Cleveland Okie (Tom Jackson)https://www.blogger.com/profile/07810736442596736041noreply@blogger.com