|
< Earlier Kibitzing · PAGE 241 OF 914 ·
Later Kibitzing> |
| Mar-18-11 | | playground player: <Phony Benoni> Setting aside the union issue for the time being, I don't see how baseball can prosper by: a)Charging the equivalent of a month's rent or mortgage payment, or more, for a day at the ballpark. b)Causing the game to take 4 hours to play.
c)Forcing fans to listen to Justin Bieber before they can see the game. I could go on, but you're probably bored already. |
|
Mar-18-11
 | | Phony Benoni: Instead of being upset about Justin Bieber, count your blessings. I assure you the Next Teen Sensation will be even worse. |
|
| Mar-19-11 | | playground player: <Phony Benoni> I can hardly wait. |
|
| Mar-19-11 | | Jim Bartle: "a)Charging the equivalent of a month's rent or mortgage payment, or more, for a day at the ballpark. b)Causing the game to take 4 hours to play.
c)Forcing fans to listen to Justin Bieber before they can see the game." a) ...except that attendance is still really high with the outrageous prices today. b) That may start driving people away. When you're at the game (not watching on TV) the time between half innings seems endless. c) Who's Justin Bieber? |
|
Mar-19-11
| | Phony Benoni: <JB> Every generation has seen some prepubescent teenybopper who made the girls swoon in sheer ecstasy once the TV cameras showed up. Who did you have in your day? Wayne Newton? Donny Osmond? Sammy Reshevsky? |
|
| Mar-19-11 | | Jim Bartle: I'll have to think about it. I remember there were stars appealing to young teens like Fabian, Bobby Vinton, Frankie Avalon, etc. Later there was Bobby Sherman, but I'm drawing a blank on actual teen stars in the late 50s and 60s, at least until the Jackson 5 in 1969. Maybe Annette Funnicello, and I guess Ricky Nelson qualifies since he was on "Ozzie and Harriet" and had hits when he was only 17 or so. But a lot of his music was really quite good. And Hayley Mills had hits when she was 12 or 13, but she was mainly an actress. |
|
| Mar-20-11 | | playground player: <Jim Bartle> I was mostly unaware of who the teen heart-throbs were in the 1950s. Afraid I was much more interested in Willie Mays, Sam Jones, Frank Lary, Gus Triandos... All right! Who's gonna be the first to say, "Gus who?" |
|
| Mar-20-11 | | Deus Ex Alekhina: In the 1940's it was Frank Sinatra driving the bobbysoxers wild. I think there was a riot outside one of his venues (tickets sold out?). |
|
| Mar-20-11 | | Jim Bartle: But I think phony benoni's question was, who were the teenage pop stars of the 50s and 60s, not who the teenagers idolized. The only names I can come up with are still Ricky Nelson, Annette Funnicello, Fabian and maybe Hayley Mills. I had a college music professor who said he had played in the orchestra recording songs with Fabian. He said Fabian could not even carry a tune, that they had to do about fifty takes and then the producers spliced different takes together to get an acceptable version to put on record. |
|
| Mar-20-11 | | technical draw: The biggest teenage star of the 50's and 60's was the Beaver. |
|
Mar-21-11
| | Phony Benoni: I remember Gus Triandos. Don't know if he stole the hearts of many teenage girls, but he did have a 100% success rate at stealing bases. <JB> The question was half in jest, but was meant for the teenage heartthrobs of your era, which I assume was the 50s-60s. |
|
| Mar-23-11 | | Jim Bartle: Everybody knows who Gus Triandos was. He's the guy who caught Billy O'Dell and tried to catch Hoyt Wilhelm. Hit a lot of home runs, too. |
|
| Mar-23-11 | | hms123: You might remember this discussion:
<hms123: I used to watch Gus Triandos play in Baltimore. He was the slowest baseball player ever. I once saw him get thrown out at home by a mile (after tagging at third base) on a fly ball to the wall in centerfield.
Come to think of it, Walt Dropo wasn't very fast either.> The Kibitzer's Café |
|
| Mar-23-11 | | playground player: <hms 123> All-Star catcher Gus Triandos deserved better than to wind up as Clay Dalrymple's backup on the 1964 Folderoo Phillies... A dear friend of mine, recently deceased, grew up in Idaho and watched Triandos play for the local minor league team. He also learned checkers and chess from the old men at the local barber shop (Frank Capra, are you listening?), but that's another story. Almost 60 years later he was still rhapsodizing about Triandos' performance in the minors. Didn't say anything about Gus stealing bases, though. |
|
| Mar-23-11 | | Jim Bartle: What is Clay Dalrymple's claim to fame with respect to the SF Giants? Why do Giants fans despise him? Here's the answer for those who can't stand the suspense: http://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/... Honor system for anybody who claims to know why without looking. |
|
Mar-23-11
| | Phony Benoni: What were the SF fans angry about? On any given day, Marichal was more like to throw a no-hitter than Dalrymple was to get a hit. |
|
| Mar-23-11 | | Jim Bartle: Ha! That was Marichal's debut with the Giants, at least as a starter, and Dalrymple got a single in the eighth to break up the no-hitter. I remember listening to the game in the car and thinking it was McCormick pitching and my parents correcting me. Announcer Lon Simmons said, "This Marichal seems to do a good job of keeping the ball low, even with the leg kick." Stuck in my mind. |
|
| Mar-26-11 | | playground player: <Esteemed colleagues> Thinking about Gus Triandos (you should see how many times I have to type that relatively simple name before it comes out right!) led me to reminiscences of Thurman Munson, and to wonder why he isn't in the Hall of Fame. As a Yankee fan, back in the days when the games were affordable and most of them were aired on free TV, I saw an awful lot of Thurman Munson--and he was great. Did he suffer by comparison to Johnny Bench? Yeah, probably. To Carlton Fisk? That depended on which papers you read in the 1970s. Did the sportswriters, as a class, like him and enjoy his personality? N-O! Was he better than some catchers who are in the Hall of Fame? You bet! |
|
Mar-26-11
| | Phony Benoni: <playground player>: The Hall-of-Fame voting for Thurmon Munsan can be found here: http://www.baseball-reference.com/p.... 15.5% his first year of eligibility, did not go reach double digits afterward. Probably the short career (11 years) hurt him, and since the voting is done by sportswriters he probably didn't get a lot of the sympathy votes a tragic death usually engenders. But being a .300 hitter with some pop and a leader on a championship team should have merited a bit more consideration. It seems easier for a rich man to go to heaven than for a catcher to enter the Hall of Fame. Here's the complete list: http://www.baseball-almanac.com/hof... Since World War II there have been five: Bench, Berra, Campanella, Carter, Fisk. Carter is probably the most arguable. Campanella's stats aren't as good as I thought, but he won 3 MVPs in a ten-year career. Yes, I'd say there's a definite argument for Munson, though the fact that his highest salary was only $250,000 weighs heavily against him. I was also surprised to learn that Steve Garvey isn't in the Hall. Guess they couldn't find anyone to throw the election. |
|
| Mar-26-11 | | cormier: Potkin vs L Pantsulaia, 2011 |
|
| Mar-26-11 | | Jim Bartle: Sorry, I don't see Munson as a Hall of Fame catcher, even if he's better than some of the pre-WWII catchers who are in. I guess Ivan Rodriguez will get in sometime, though probably not on the first ballot. Any others? (Craig Biggio doesn't count.) He's the subject of a Hall of Fame quote from Sparky Lyle, though: "They say Thurman is moody, but that's wrong. Moody means you're happy some of the time." Campanella is an odd case. He had great years and got MVPs for them, but also had some really terrible years, at least as a hitter. |
|
| Mar-26-11 | | technical draw: I have a theory. If you have to debate if some player is worthy of the Hall of Fame then he probably is not. And the greater the debate the less worthy he becomes. Just a theory. |
|
| Mar-26-11 | | Jim Bartle: Ted Williams? Warren Spahn? In the Hall of Fame? You've got to be kidding me! |
|
| Mar-26-11 | | technical draw: <Jim> I mean a REAL debate! |
|
Mar-26-11
| | Phony Benoni: Oh, great. Now we're going to have a debate about what a real debate is. |
|
 |
|
|
< Earlier Kibitzing · PAGE 241 OF 914 ·
Later Kibitzing> |
Kibitzing
