The Saturday marathon between Washington and San Francisco was so good that I barely clicked on “Chinatown” on the Sundance Channel. That is saying a lot.
Just asking but now many actors have made three iconic movies like “The Thomas Crown Affair,” “Bonnie and Clyde” and “Chinatown?” But even Faye Dunaway had to wait for commercial breaks between the Giants and Nationals. That game had its own Nicholson and Dunaway – Tim Hudson and Jordan Zimmerman, pitching late into the game, almost like latter-day Gibsons and Koufaxes, at least for one night. (Matt Williams blew the game, probably the series, by yanking Zimmerman with two outs in the ninth.) Last week I lamented that I would miss the daily soap opera of the only team I watch regularly, the erratic little Mets. There is something to knowing the pluses and minuses of players, day after day. But 18 innings among out-of-towners takes care of some of that. After 18 innings, I had vastly more respect for the bat-handling prowess of Washington’s Anthony Rendon, and the long-man relief pitching of Yusmeiro Petit of the Giants, whose name I had never quite managed to notice until Saturday night. Petit pitched so long and so well, six innings, no runs, that I found myself thinking of other long-relief jobs – young Nolan Ryan pitching seven innings in relief for the Mets in the 1969 league series. The accumulation of post-season memories (and the overkill of fairly meaningless statistics shoveled at us by the Fox people) reminds me that baseball is a different animal now. The accomplishments of Bob Gibson and Sandy Koufax stand out because they happened in the clear sunlight of the World Series, not the murky, ever-changing circumstances of the so-called post-season. It comes up because obviously Clayton Kershaw just had a truly great season, but I am glad I covered Gibson and Koufax in their shining primes because the memories give me the residual impression that they were special and unique. I resist coronations of players who have a few great years. The other day, somebody suggested that if Andrew McCutchen had another MVP season, we could talk about the Hall of Fame. Let me toss a few names at you – Mark Fidrych, Fred Lynn, Dwight Gooden, Darryl Strawberry. So now Kershaw has had two consecutive wretched starts in the post-season. I don’t think the competition is that much better in October. Rather, the season grinds on and on, wearing down its best pitchers. Baseball is truly a marathon now. Back when Gibson and Koufax excelled, the 60’s, baseball was a mile race. Gibson willed the Cardinals in the final scary days of 1964, and then managed to start three times in a seven-game victory over the Yankees. Before the post-season dance began in 1969, he started nine games in three Series, pitched eight complete games, with a 7-2 record and a 1.89 ERA. He never had to slog through layers of post-season before the now-coda of a World Series. Koufax pitched eight times in four World Series, from 1959 through 1966, starting seven, finishing four with a 0.95 ERA and a 4-3 record. (The Dodgers couldn’t hit much in some of those years.) Plenty of time to think about Koufax and Gibson while watching a wonderful 18-inning drama. Somehow I never clicked over to find the “she’s-my-sister/she’s-my-daughter” moment in “Chinatown.” The game was that good.
18 Comments
Roy Edelsack
10/6/2014 03:49:24 am
I know, I know different times, apples-to-oranges, etc., but gosh look at Sandy's annual salaries over his career:
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George Vecsey
10/6/2014 04:08:17 am
And he and Drysdale had to hold out late into spring training of 1966 to get that final contract. I remember in spring training that year, in Bradenton, running into Edd Roush, old Cincinnati CF, who once held out for the entire 1930 season. The old bird loved what Koufax and Drysdale were doing. GV
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Brian Savin
10/6/2014 02:25:50 pm
Great column. A ton of stuff that could easily provoke comments far, far longer than your efficient essay. I'd vote for all but 1 for the HoF. I remember Drysdale saying to Alston (about this time of year), "I bet you wish I were Jewish."
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George Vecsey
10/7/2014 03:24:12 am
Red Shoes, I agree. Don't like "Chinatown?" How about "LA Confidential."
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10/6/2014 03:11:42 pm
I do not remember the year, but Ralph Kiner once asked for a $6,000 raise after winning the HR title. Branch Rickey offered a $6,000 pay cut. He asked Ralph, “Where did the Pirates finish?” Last place and Ralph agreed to the same amount as the previous season.
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George Vecsey
10/7/2014 03:25:14 am
Alan, it was: "We finished last with you; we can finish last without you."
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bruce
10/6/2014 04:39:28 pm
george,
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George Vecsey
10/7/2014 02:24:50 am
"The Eyes of Laura Mars" also. I think I am a Dunaway fan.
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10/7/2014 06:53:58 am
I came across an interesting bit of baseball history while reading “Indomitable Will: Turning Defeat Into Victory from Pearl Harbor to Midway” by Charles Kupfer.
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George Vecsey
10/7/2014 08:53:27 am
Comment deleted
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bruce
10/7/2014 09:20:41 am
george,
George Vecsey
10/7/2014 10:19:14 am
Alan, thanks for reminding me. I met Charles Kupfer in Harrisburg, PA. The book is great -- terrific details. One of the best -- how Jimmy Doolittle's bombers timed their takeoff, by going when the wave would raise that end of the carrier. ship. Plus, Australians could not believe that Yank service men played baseball on Sunday rather than observe the Christian sabbath. Glad you found the book. GV 10/7/2014 10:48:47 am
I came across Charles Kupfer’s book while preparing a history study group presentation on “Mantle of Command: FDR at War 1941-1942 by Nigal Hamilton. The two books complement each other perfectly and correlate much of what I’ve read about the performance, or lack of, of many of our WWII generals.
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Ed Martin, Section 8 Club, Ebbets Field
10/8/2014 12:57:38 pm
You can't mention Sandy without stirring my memories. Watching the MLB final four, there are many good players. But take a look at the Dodgers 1949 lineup and key stats:
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George Vecsey
10/8/2014 01:35:42 pm
Ed, what was the Section 8 club?
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bruce
10/8/2014 01:49:48 pm
george,
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Ed Martin
10/8/2014 03:53:42 pm
Section 8 was between the pitcher's mound and first base. Behind the box seats and the reserves, there was general admission seating for $1.25. I would arrive early, walking from the Nostrand Ave. LIRR station and line up outside for a couple of hours before the ticket window near that section opened at noon. I soon met others and they told me about the Section 8 club. The early birds would buy tickets for the later arrivals and then there would be a mad dash to get the seats that were not obstructed by the steel pillars holding up the upper deck. The "Club" was made up of all types and ages, some characters mostly there for a good time, but at least one
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George Vecsey
10/9/2014 12:50:16 am
Those were the days, as Archie and Edith sang.
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Measuring Covid Deaths, by David Leonhardt. July 17, 2023. NYT online. The United States has reached a milestone in the long struggle against Covid: The total number of Americans dying each day — from any cause — is no longer historically abnormal…. After three horrific years, in which Covid has killed more than one million Americans and transformed parts of daily life, the virus has turned into an ordinary illness. The progress stems mostly from three factors: First, about three-quarters of U.S. adults have received at least one vaccine shot. Second, more than three-quarters of Americans have been infected with Covid, providing natural immunity from future symptoms. (About 97 percent of adults fall into at least one of those first two categories.) Third, post-infection treatments like Paxlovid, which can reduce the severity of symptoms, became widely available last year. “Nearly every death is preventable,” Dr. Ashish Jha, who was until recently President Biden’s top Covid adviser, told me. “We are at a point where almost everybody who’s up to date on their vaccines and gets treated if they have Covid, they rarely end up in the hospital, they almost never die.” That is also true for most high-risk people, Jha pointed out, including older adults — like his parents, who are in their 80s — and people whose immune systems are compromised. “Even for most — not all but most —immuno-compromised people, vaccines are actually still quite effective at preventing against serious illness,” he said. “There has been a lot of bad information out there that somehow if you’re immuno-compromised that vaccines don’t work.” That excess deaths have fallen close to zero helps make this point: If Covid were still a dire threat to large numbers of people, that would show up in the data. One point of confusion, I think, has been the way that many Americans — including we in the media — have talked about the immuno-compromised. They are a more diverse group than casual discussion often imagines. Most immuno-compromised people are at little additional risk from Covid — even people with serious conditions, such as multiple sclerosis or a history of many cancers. A much smaller group, such as people who have received kidney transplants or are undergoing active chemotherapy, face higher risks. Covid’s toll, to be clear, has not fallen to zero. The C.D.C.’s main Covid webpage estimates that about 80 people per day have been dying from the virus in recent weeks, which is equal to about 1 percent of overall daily deaths. The official number is probably an exaggeration because it includes some people who had virus when they died even though it was not the underlying cause of death. Other C.D.C. data suggests that almost one-third of official recent Covid deaths have fallen into this category. A study published in the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases came to similar conclusions. Dr. Shira Doron, the chief infection control officer at Tufts Medicine in Massachusetts, told me that “age is clearly the most substantial risk factor.” Covid’s victims are both older and disproportionately unvaccinated. Given the politics of vaccination, the recent victims are also disproportionately Republican and white. Each of these deaths is a tragedy. The deaths that were preventable — because somebody had not received available vaccines and treatments — seem particularly tragic. (Here’s a Times guide to help you think about when to get your next booster shot.) *** From the great Maureen Dowd: As I write this, I’m in a deserted newsroom in The Times’s D.C. office. After working at home for two years during Covid, I was elated to get back, so I could wander around and pick up the latest scoop. But in the last year, there has been only a smattering of people whenever I’m here, with row upon row of empty desks. Sometimes a larger group gets lured in for a meeting with a platter of bagels." --- Dowd writes about the lost world of journalists clustered in newsrooms at all hours, smoking, drinking, gossipping, making phone calls, typing, editing. *** "Putting out the paper," we called it. Much more than nostalgia. ---https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/29/opinion/journalism-newsroom.html |