Arthur D. Hlavaty

Age & Guile

2021-02-26T14:09:34Z

When Satchel Paige pitched to Hank Aaron [MLB]

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The enemy of my enemy

2018-10-21T09:52:35Z

I am too old to hate the Red Sox. That is, I discovered baseball in 1949, when I was almost 7, and I became a Yankee fan because my father was one. The Jesuits are right: What you believe at that age is the way the world is, or at least should be, so the Yankees are supposed to win the World Series every year.

Back then, the Dodgers were the Enemy. We beat them in the World Series, with an occasional break for beating the Phils or the Giants, in the interests of variety. The Red Sox were just another team that we beat during the regular season: Teddy Ballgame and the Eight Dwarfs.

But then Walter O’Malley became the third worst person in the 20th century (revisionists say it was really Robert Moses), and the Dodgers moved to the ass end of the country, which meant they were too far away for a real rivalry. For that and other reasons (attention span), I drifted away from baseball, replacing it with football, which I still follow, despite all the issues. Then came Steinbrenner, and old Yankee fans, like old Communists, compare notes on which abomination drove them away, but insofar as I still noticed baseball, I was pro-Yankee.

The new rivalry was the brave little Red Sox versus the big bad Establishment Yankees, and as John Cheever said, “It can be worth your life in literary circles to be a Yankee fan.” Eventually the inevitable came: Red Sox fans lost their raison d’etre when the team finally won a World Series, but many still persevere.

Now the Sox and the Dodgers are playing for the Big One. One of them’s gotta lose.

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The Umpire Strikes Back

2018-08-08T10:30:18Z

Baseball union wars in the ’80s [Deadspin]

Thanx to Metafilter

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Baseball History

2018-07-27T15:04:13Z

Clemente meets Brosnan [Lithub]

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Good old days

2017-10-18T11:00:52Z

Maybe the world will bring back one of my childhood pleasures: Yankees beat Dodgers

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Player

2016-06-02T10:07:29Z

The sportswriters called him Bobby and mocked his accent (because they spoke one fewer language than he did), and when he died they made him into a plaster saint. This was the real Roberto Clemente.

Thanx to Metafilter

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Crowd-sourced

2015-07-19T09:35:10Z

The perfect baseball game is 19 hours long and has lots of crying.

Thanx to Metafilter

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The man who changed baseball

2012-11-28T11:35:51Z

Charlie Pierce remembers Marvin Miller.

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In the country of baseball

2012-11-16T11:46:38Z

Remembering Dock Ellis

Thanx to onyxlynx

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Babe Ruth shrugged

2011-06-23T17:32:51Z

Indians infielder inspired by Ayn Rand. What will he do when he's ordered to sacrifice?

Thanx to RAW Illumination

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In the tradition

2011-02-22T19:01:44Z

Only Hank Steinbrenner can demonstrate his legitimacy by being a bastard.

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It's what he would have wanted

2010-10-14T17:36:28Z

Yankees act like assholes about George Steinbrenner's letters.

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Witness

2010-01-13T12:08:14Z

Jose Canseco is the new Whittaker Chambers: a loathsome, crawling thing who has the facts right about the controversy he is embroiled in.

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supergee @ 2009-10-19T07:45:00

2009-10-19T11:45:24Z

The Age of Wonder for baseball is even younger than for science fiction, and I'm hoping this year's World Series re-creates one of the great traditions of my childhood: Yanks Beat Dodgers. (Yanks beat Phils is also familiar, but that happened only once.)

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supergee @ 2009-08-26T14:34:00

2009-08-26T18:34:22Z

Yetanother law enforcement excess during the Bush years

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