Wow - I hadn't realized that the Hall of Fame was a political organization.

While I am essentially a pacifist, and I go around with a No War button on my jacket and firmly believe that it is NOT the role of the US to serve as self appointed judge, jury and executioner for the world, I have several friends who believe very strongly that the war is justified and necessary. And we can have rational discussions about it - they recognize and accept that there are opposing views to their own. What really irks me is when pro-war folks go on and on about the justification of the war in the name of "freedom" and how great it is to live in a country where a person has the right of free speech and then turn around and sharply criticize, even punish, someone who exercises that right on an issue they don't agree with. Ugh.

Bull Durham - I've always wondered, why isn't it called Durham Bulls?

Catcher with the minor league home run record - Would such a player really have been stuck toiling away in minors for (almost) his entire career?

I saw the movie for the first time last week. It was my wife's suggestion (God bless her). Wonderful movie. What are other great baseball movies worth renting?

Having studied American law & society a fair bit, I have a good many thoughts on this issue. If I were to summarize my take in one short sentence, I would say this: what the Hall of Fame is doing is perfectly legal, and perfectly stupid.

What really gets me is that the Hall's president, a Republican who worked for 3 years as Reagan's assistant press secretary, is cancelling this celebration in fears of what Sarandan & Robbins *might* say. Just why would they express anti-war views at the Hall, if they didn't speak up at the Academy Awards with a much larger audience watching? Ridiculous.

I don't know about the Postman but Ray Kinsella wouldn't stand for this. He'd do something great and everyone would laugh at him for it but in the end there would be peace and reverie. And corn.

Seriously, this is insane. I know the HOF is a private institution but Dale Petrosky is blatently abusing his position. What possible good can come from the HOF "stand[ing] behind our President and our troops in this conflict"?

The lifeguard needs to blow his whistle and get all of the hardcore Republicans out of the baseball institution pool. The whole reaction to this war can only drive fans away. Can't MLB just be like the NBA and provide an uncaring stance?

Catcher with the minor league home run record - Would such a player really have been stuck toiling away in minors for (almost) his entire career?

Hey, somebody has to have the record. Think of him as Rob Deer behind the plate.

What are other great baseball movies worth renting?

61* was quite good. It was an HBO production but you can rent it at most places. The baseball related parts of For The Love of the Game are pretty entertaining and you'd get another dose of Costner. Field of Dreams is a good movie if you're the sappy type but the baseball itself is laughable. I always have had a soft spot for The Natural but again, the baseball in it is terrible. Ditto for Eight Men Out, which is the story of the Black Sox scandal.

Summer Catch is a surpisingly well done peek at the Cape Cod League but it's sprinkled liberally with doses of cheesy teen love story.

What really irks me is when pro-war folks go on and on about the justification of the war

Careful with that axe of generalization, Eugene.

I hadn't realized that the Hall of Fame was a political organization.


Lest we forget, Bill James' book about the HOF was called "The Politics of Glory," and don't think for a minute the phrase only applies to who gets in and who gets left out. And lest we also forget (lestest?), "who gets in and who gets out" of the entire game was political until 1947.

Speaking of politics, let's talk about the politics of language. When "anti-war" people refer to "pro-war" people it's a false dichotomy. NOBODY (or such a small percentage as to round to zero) is "pro-war." It's like the pro-life camp of the abortion debate calling the opposition "anti-life" or "pro-abortion" whereas that side refers to itself as "pro-choice" and dichotomizes to "anti-choice" for the opposition. Similarly, back to the war language, does anyone seriously believe "anti-war" means the same thing as "anti-America" or "anti-patriotic" or somesuch?

To further the point, let me say that I have very, very strong feelings about both debates referenced in the graph above, have done everything I can to disguise those feelings, but I guarantee that someone reading this will conclude "Well, he's obviously pro-something (or anti-something) because of the order he listed those things" or "You can tell from his tone ..." etc.

And frankly, that's what this HOF issue comes down to. Language. The HOF is scared to death of looking bad, so they don't (A) hold the event for fear of looking like they support Sarandon's and Robbins' "side" but rather they (B) cancel it because if nothing is said by anybody nobody can be mad.

Last night's South Park episode should be required viewing in American Civics classes or in American Politics classes held in other countries. Dead on. We want to have it both ways and the safest way to do that is not do anything, but be very proactive in your inertia.

What are other great baseball movies worth renting?

Whenever this question is asked, A League of Their Own gets left out of the discussion, and I don't know why; I thought it was great. Major League is amusing; I don't know about its sequels. Little Big League is a kid's movie, but not bad even so.

Cobb. Oh, and Bang the Drum Slowly.

Bang the Drum Slowly.

I'd love to see this and Pride of the Yankees but both are nearly impossible to find. Does anyone own either?

The two Yankee movies, especially the former, I found to be glacially slow and thus greatly overrated. My two cents.

I can't watch Bang the Drum any more. Too much exposure to ADA Ben Stone in Law & Order.

Old movie; hilarious: It Happens Every Spring.

I'll second the recommendation of A League Of Their Own, which is also a great half-of-a-double-feature-date-on-the-couch movie.

Eight Men Out
Fear Strikes Out
It Happens Every Spring
The Natural
Field of Dreams
The Bad News Bears

are all recommendable to almost anyone.

(along with Cobb, Soul of the Game, and Bull Durham, these are my "top ten" baseball movies. Bingo Long's Traveling All-Stars is also fun.)

I don't want to work no more.

The Life and Times of Hank Greenberg, in the documentary category, was exceptional! The highlight for me was hearing the Yiddish rendition of Take Me Out to the Ballgame.

Craig: I don't want to work no more.

Oh, I get it ...
You don't want to work (no more)
You just want to bang on de drum (slowly) all day??


Every day when I get home from work
I feel so frustrated
The boss is a jerk
And I get my sticks and go out to the shed
And I pound on that drum like it was the boss's head


On a related note, I always thought "Todd Rundgren" was one of the classic "musicians who has a name that sounds like he should be an athlete" cases. I think he sounds like an offensive-minded defenseman. Just like Stevie Van Zandt was clearly an undersized tailback and Wilson Pickett -- how obvious is this? -- was a fleet wide receiver. Dusty Springfield was a fine pinch-hitter who could play the outfield and a little third base. It's probably cheating to include Jim Morrison who had a fine career as an infielder for the Pirates, ChiSox and Tigers, right?

Believe it or not, Todd Rundgren's son Rex Rundgren is a pretty good prospect in the Marlins system, a shortstop with good size. He's playing for the Jupiter Hammerheads this year. He was a West Division all-star last year in the Midwest League.

Well, I think you all know how I feel about this abomination, so I'll avoid adding tinsel to the wreck free speech is in this country.

On the other hand, I'll give a blistering endorsement to "The Naked Gun." If you get past the fact O.J. Simpson is in it, the baseball scene at the end, particularly the blooper reel on Diamond Vision, is hilarious.

I wouldn't go so far as to call Petrosky's actions an abuse of his position. His job is to promote and protect the interests of the Hall. Nothing more, and nothing less. He is under no obligation to adhere to anyone else's concept of fairness or "free speech."

However, that doesn't make him any less of an idiot.

The political views of Sarandon and Robbins are hardly a secret. In the absence of this war, perhpas they would have used this public forum to express their hatred of the death penalty. Doubtful, but the point is that Petrosky had to have known far in advance that his politics and Sarandon-Robbins' politics don't mesh. To cancel the event now only creates more publicity and makes him look petty and censorial.

If he were truly worried about what they might say, he should've staged the event so as to limit their abiility to make unscripted comments. You know, like one of Bush's press conferences.

Anyway, the flat-out best editorial concerning the war is located here. Click me. Yes, I know it's The Onion, but trust me.

That editorial was priceless! Thanks for bringing it to my attention.

Look, whether you're in favor of the war or against it, we all want the same thing: naked ladies, and lots of them.

No, I'm trying to finish up at work right now, I would find that distracting.

Bull Durham isn't just my favourite baseball movie, it's my favourite movie. The script doesn't have a wasted syllable (heh-heh) and there are too many priceless moments to list. Since I met my Annie Savoy seven years ago, we've watched it at least a dozen times, and it's always perfect.

*61 is very good. Billy Crystal's love of baseball is evident throughout, and the casting of the M & M boys was great. The actors could hit a little too, like Costner and unlike John Goodman.

I'm glad there's so much reasonable discussion in BB, and that even those of us with polarized opinions about non-baseball topics are not using this forum to argue. Regarding Petrosky, I'm with Will Carroll of UTK and Prospectus: this decision makes "Hall of Fame" unusable for me as an adjective. It wasn't just the politics of Susan and Tim that upset Dale; the last straw was finding out that the "Mexican" singer Annie adores was actually French.

For those who don't know, a lot of the 'baseball philosophy' in Bull Durham was lifted directly out of Bill Lee's book The Wrong Stuff, which is the book that made a baseball fan out of me, way back then.

I've heard an interview with Bill Lee in which he said that there was an effort underfoot for Ron Shelton (the guy who made Bull Durham, For the Love of the Game, White Men Can't Jump and Tin Cup) to turn The Wrong Stuff into a movie, with Woody Harrelson playing Lee. Lee said, though, that he was in no hurry, Shelton was in no hurry, and Harrelson was never in a hurry, so we shouldn't hold our breath.

The always-thought-provoking King Kaufman, writing for Salon.com calls for "a regime change in Cooperstown".

An excellent sports-centric companion piece to the Onion editorial Scott referenced.

Coach: The actors could hit a little too, like Costner and unlike John Goodman.

I don't think John Goodman heard too many that'll do pigs during the filming of The Babe. Apparently his lefty swing was so inept that they taped him swinging righty -- which, by the sounds of it, was pretty darned inept in its own right -- and mirror imaged the film.

Under the heading "unlikely swings", Robert Redford's final swing in The Natural, the one that reached the lights, was a level swing off his front foot, more a propos of a soft liner to the second baseman. With a fairy tale movie like that you don't want to pick nits necssarily, but they could have chosen a more plausible swing from the diminuitive actor.

Was Tom Selleck's Mr. Baseball mentioned in this thread? The movie was nothing special, but Selleck at least look plausible as a ball player. Those of old enough on this blog will remember him occasionally taking BP with his hometown Tigers.

http://espn.go.com/page2/s/caple/030411.html
My take.

The Rookie. It's terrific.