Ninety nine最新文献

{"title":"Playing Through the Pain: Ken Caminiti and the Steroids Confession that Changed Baseball Forever by Dan Good (review)","authors":"Willie Steele","doi":"10.1353/nin.2023.a903332","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/nin.2023.a903332","url":null,"abstract":"Reviewed by: Playing Through the Pain: Ken Caminiti and the Steroids Confession that Changed Baseball Forever by Dan Good Willie Steele Dan Good. Playing Through the Pain: Ken Caminiti and the Steroids Confession that Changed Baseball Forever. New York, NY: Abrams Press, 2022. 378 pp. Cloth, $27.00. Oftentimes, when starting a sports biography, readers find themselves identifying with a character and hoping for a positive ending for a heroic figure. Baseball fans from the late 1980s to the early 2000s will immediately remember Ken Caminiti, but his story is one of immense physical talent, legendary competitiveness, and demons that haunted him for years. Rather than finding a happy ending to this story, fans are instead taken on a journey that they already know will end tragically, a story made even sadder when they see the third baseman's career end and his life spiral downward. When reading Dan Good's biography of the tortured Caminiti, most often identified with the Houston Astros and the San Diego Padres, these fans might already know the story of the player's work ethic that made him a legend at Leigh High School in San Jose, California. Though in his early years he \"was a pint-sized boy stuck in his brother's shadow\" (18), by his sophomore year, \"his athletic talent couldn't be ignored\" (19). That talent, combined with his legendary workout regimen, were showcased against a backdrop of drug and alcohol use, something that \"was ingrained in the region's DNA\" (21) around San Jose and the Cambrian Park neighborhood where Caminiti lived. By the time he took the field for San Jose City College, despite the team's [End Page 148] success and his own reliable defense on the hot corner and power at the plate, \"his partying became a concern\" for coaches as there were whispers \"that Ken likes to drink . . . Sometimes there were hints about drugs\" (31). Frustrated by the time at City College and pressured by his father to become a switch hitter, Caminiti transferred to San Jose State where, in spite of even more legendary tales of drinking, he played well enough to earn an invitation as one of the thirty-one top college prospects with the hopes of making the 1984 Olympic team, a squad which would play as a demonstration sport before baseball returned to the Olympics as a full-fledged sport four years later. And while he ultimately was left off the final twenty-man roster, it showed him (and everyone who watched him) that he had the skills to lead him to a career in the major leagues. Good masterfully tells a story of a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde: the gifted third baseman who was described by the Columbus Astros manager as \"the next Brooks Robinson\" and the man with \"one of those trapdoor gullets what allowed him to chug\" (69). Relying on interviews with former coaches and teammates and newspaper accounts from his playing career, Good's narrative unfolds as though it's in real time while readers know of the tragic clouds looming on Caminiti's horizon. The d","PeriodicalId":88065,"journal":{"name":"Ninety nine","volume":"38 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135640470","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Last Time Out; Big League Farewells of Baseball's Greats by John Nogoski (review)","authors":"Chad S. Wise","doi":"10.1353/nin.2023.a903328","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/nin.2023.a903328","url":null,"abstract":"Reviewed by: Last Time Out; Big League Farewells of Baseball's Greats by John Nogoski Chad S. Wise John Nogoski. Last Time Out; Big League Farewells of Baseball's Greats. Essex, CT: Lyons Press, 2022, 310 pp. Paperback, $22.95. Attend any Major League Baseball game in any city, and you'll find fans wearing jerseys of not only current stars, but legends as well. Having grown up near Cincinnati, Ohio, I can remember seeing jerseys of the Big Red Machine: Johnny Bench, Pete Rose, Dave Concepcion, and Tony Perez. We put our stars on pedestals, not for their off-field lives, but for the way they played the game. They were as close to being gods as any human could imagine. However, as I look back at some of my Reds heroes, I can recall how their names and fanfare started fading away year after year. They were replaced by younger, faster, and stronger players. In John Nogoski's book, Last Time Out; Big League Farewells of Baseball's Greats, he shares with baseball fans of all ages how the careers of so many great players came to conclusions, some bowing out gracefully, while others were sent packing by an unforgiving media and fanbase. Nogoski's book covers forty-five baseball players from the last century, describing the stories behind each of their final farewells. Some, like Ted Williams retired at the top of their game. In a career that spanned twenty-one years, Williams wasn't without controversy. His relationship with the media was certainly strained. However, his talking was done on the field. He hit 521 total home runs (putting him in third place at the time, behind Babe Ruth and Jimmie Foxx, and good for twentieth place on the home run list as of today), hit nearly 2,000 runs batted in, and had nearly 2,700 hits. He also lost some of his prime playing years while serving as fighter pilot in World War II and Korea. The most amazing statistic for Williams involves his home runs. In his final year of 1960, he started the season with a home run. By the last game of the year, to a small crowd of just about 10,000 people at Fenway Park that held three times as many fans, he did the unthinkable. At the age of forty-two, he hit a home run in his last at bat as a player. As he entered the dugout after his final home run, the fans and players cheered him out of the dugout for a \"curtain call.\" That was not, however, how Williams played the game. He simply looked at Jack Fisher, pitcher for the Baltimore Orioles, and motioned for him to pitch to the next batter. To even casual fans of baseball, Game Six of the 1975 World Series between Boston and Cincinnati seemed like it happened yesterday. Who hasn't seen the video of Boston's catcher, Carlton Fisk, motioning his arms at the ball he hit to stay fair? The ball did stay fair, and the Red Sox went on to win the [End Page 140] game and force a seventh game. The home run Fisk hit was probably his single most memorable event in a career that lasted twenty-four years, catching 2,226 games and hitting 351 home ","PeriodicalId":88065,"journal":{"name":"Ninety nine","volume":"16 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135640155","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The 1880 Natick Boarding House Nine","authors":"Woody Eckard","doi":"10.1353/nin.2023.a903316","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/nin.2023.a903316","url":null,"abstract":"The 1880 Natick Boarding House Nine Woody Eckard (bio) In mid-June 1880, a small hotel in the town of Natick, Massachusetts had nine \"base ballists\" living there as boarders. They were all members of the Natick Base Ball Club, a minor professional team active May through July. No fewer than seven of these men also played Major League Baseball, as did two others on the team earlier and later that year. One member has been honored by the Baseball Hall of Fame, though not for his Natick exploits. This article introduces the players, then explains the unusual circumstance of an entire team staying at the same boarding house. Next, the article describes the Natick's 1880 season and the careers of the major leaguers, providing a window to the operation of \"minor league\" teams and player career paths. The individual details in an 1880 US Census document, including full name, age, and state or country of birth, allow accurate player identification and linkage to major league profiles on baseball-reference.com. Last, we present evidence of an apparent unfortunate outcome of the close quarters living that resonates in our current pandemic age. the natick nine While conducting unrelated research on Ancestry.com, the author happened upon a Natick US Census document from June 18, 1880 describing the persons staying at a small boarding hotel.1 The document lists the proprietor Daniel Sheehan and his family. Next are nine \"boarders\" who all identify their occupation as \"base ballist.\" Table 1 lists the ball players in alphabetical order with related information from the Census document. The document also indicates that a few other persons lived at the hotel. Of course, nine baseball players listed together suggests the possibility that this is an entire team. Figure 1 shows a brief summary of the Natick Club's 1880 season, published in the August 28 New York Clipper, that lists the primary nine players and their stats.2 Eight of the boarding hotel ball players match the Natick players listed in the summary. The missing player, Stephen Dignan, shows up in a June 4 Natick box score from The Boston Globe of June 5. Thus, all nine of [End Page 100] the boarding house \"base ballists\" were members of the Natick Base Ball Club. Click for larger view View full resolution Table 1. The Sheehan boarding hotel \"base ballists\" The Census document indicates that all the players were single, and all but one aged twenty-four years or younger. Seven of the nine Naticks were Irish: one was born in Ireland and six with one or both parents born in Ireland. Of the seven US natives, six were born in Massachusetts and the seventh (Robinson) in Pennsylvania. The Natick Bulletin of May 21 described player origins.3 Cronin, Donovan, McLaughlin, and Shaunessy were from small towns in eastern Massachusetts, and the remainder were mostly \"Boston boys.\" Click for larger view View full resolution Fig. 1. Summary of the Natick Club's 1880 season, with player stats, from the New York Clipper, ","PeriodicalId":88065,"journal":{"name":"Ninety nine","volume":"30 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135640471","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Much Ado About Profanity: The 1898 Brush Resolution","authors":"Larry Gerlach","doi":"10.1353/nin.2023.a903312","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/nin.2023.a903312","url":null,"abstract":"Much Ado About ProfanityThe 1898 Brush Resolution Larry Gerlach (bio) The 1890s was by far the most turbulent decade in Major League Baseball history, there being \"scarcely an issue of The Sporting News that did not tell of kicking and wrangling with umpires, fights among players, indecent language, and incidents of rowdyism in general.\"1 By 1895, things were out of hand, National League President Nick Young admitting the \"disgraceful scenes\" were \"worse than ever before known in League history\"; esteemed sportswriter Henry Chadwick thought \"painfully conspicuous Hoodlumism\" and \"blackguard language\" were responsible for \"the decided falling off in the attendance of the best class of patrons.\"2 Instructing umpires to eject instead of fining players did not curtail the rowdy play and billingsgate, so in 1897, club owners, faced with increasing criticism from the press as well as declining attendance, appointed an umpire supervisor, abolished the contentious postseason Temple Cup series, adopted the double umpire system, and resolved to curtail kicking and profanity. Subsequent enactment of the Brush Resolution to cleanse the field of the offensive language used by players against each other, spectators, and umpires proved controversial, laying bare league political discord as well as an unseemly aspect of the game at the turn of the twentieth century. Language on ballfields had devolved appreciably since 1845 when Ebenezer Dupignac Jr. was fined six cents for saying \"s—t.\" Players in the nineteenth century were known for coarse language, but the increase in profane (culturally offensive), obscene (sexually abhorrent), vulgar (coarse or crude), foul (offensive), and indecent (offensive to standards) language had reached the point that \"ladies were obliged to select back seats in order not to hear the abuse heaped on the umpire.\" Cincinnati owner John T. Brush decided to do something about the vile vituperation and crude language when told that a Reds player responded to a spectator's pregame inquiry about the day's pitcher with \"Oh, go fuck yourself.\" 3 [End Page 34] At the league's meeting in November, Brush proposed creating an independent board authorized to permanently expel anyone using \"foul, indecent and obscene\" language from organized baseball. The intent was not to eliminate cursing and swearing—common currency on the field—but the \"vulgar and profane language which shocks the average man\" and has \"a tendency to keep women and respectable men away from the game.\" After hearing examples of inappropriate language \"not fit for publication,\" all agreed that something had to be done about \"the rapidly-growing evil\" of embarrassing language, save for Andrew Freedman, whose New York Giants were noted for contentious behavior. But the prospect of lifetime suspension was troubling. Wily old Cap Anson was not alone in thinking suspension of thirty to sixty days without pay would be a better penalty since it would take \"a very flagrant offense\" to \"","PeriodicalId":88065,"journal":{"name":"Ninety nine","volume":"15 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135640473","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The Umpire is Out: Calling the Game and Living My True Self by Dale Scott (review)","authors":"Tim Wiles","doi":"10.1353/nin.2023.a903320","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/nin.2023.a903320","url":null,"abstract":"Reviewed by: The Umpire is Out: Calling the Game and Living My True Self by Dale Scott Tim Wiles Dale Scott with Rob Neyer. The Umpire is Out: Calling the Game and Living My True Self. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 2022. 275 pp. Cloth, $34.95. Nutcutter, polebender, banger, wacker, honeymoon series, strapping it on, and working the stick. Shit series, cockshot, caught the edge, shithouse. Dale Scott's autobiography begins with an entertaining chapter that functions as a preparatory glossary for the rest of the book, which is told in a breezy, entertaining way as though the author is seated with you in a restaurant booth telling (mostly) baseball stories. It is entertaining and readable while also giving you an authentic and revealing tour of life as a major league umpire and as a closeted (until 2014) gay man in American sports. Dale Scott is the first major league umpire to come out as gay during his career and one of only two MLB on-field figures to do so—the other being Billy Bean, who contributes a poignant foreword to this book. Scott gets right to the subject of being gay, mentioning it on page two. Overall, however, this reviewer found the book to be more of a baseball book that a gay memoir. It is both, but Scott and Neyer focus on the game and its rules, personalities, and the details of an umpire's life much more than on Scott's personal life. The book follows the standard chronological structure of an autobiographical memoir. It begins with a chapter about his family and youth in Eugene, Oregon including his early professional development as a local sports official and radio disc jockey. We have umpire school, the minors, winter ball in the Dominican Republic, and his relatively swift rise to the American major leagues. Without ever bogging down in technical detail, the book offers a great glimpse into the hows and whys of umpiring, as in this passage from umpire school, which Scott attended after five years of local umpiring: [End Page 122] Once I got there, I realized I knew nothing. It's so detailed and specific. You're taught everything known to man about the two-man system. You learn to communicate, really communicate, with your partner. You're taught not only the rules inside and out but also why the rule is in the book. In many instances that will help you understand how, coupled with good judgment and common sense, you enforce rules either by the letter of the law or within the context of how the game is played. (26) We keep learning new lingo throughout the book, such as the \"mechanic,\" an umpire's style of physically calling a strike. We learn that \"work\" and \"working\" are used to describe umpiring the plate for a given pitcher, such as Jack Morris or Nolan Ryan. In the case of Morris, we learn that he practices \"surveying,\" the process of staring down umpires when he questions their pitch calls. We learn about \"umpire slumps,\" \"umpire luck,\" and the Priesmeyer trunk, an interesting, huge piece of luggage that is","PeriodicalId":88065,"journal":{"name":"Ninety nine","volume":"27 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135640469","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The Sovereign's Orb: Baseball as Metaphor in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine","authors":"Robert Gorman","doi":"10.1353/nin.2023.a903313","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/nin.2023.a903313","url":null,"abstract":"The Sovereign's OrbBaseball as Metaphor in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Robert Gorman (bio) The year is 2369 and baseball as it once existed is no more. The major leagues are gone, taking with them the minors. In fact, there is no professional baseball of any kind back on Earth. The last World Series was played in 2042 with only 300 spectators in attendance. The London Kings emerged victorious due to a game-winning homerun blasted by baseball's last superstar, Harmon \"Buck\" Bokai. He, too, slipped into obscurity. Enter Benjamin Sisko (Avery Brooks), a Starfleet officer who is assigned command—against his wishes—of the Cardassian-built ore-mining space station Deep Space Nine (the station hereafter referred to as DS9) located in the farthest reaches of the Alpha Quadrant, lightyears from Earth. The Cardassians, a race of empire-building, reptilian-like humanoids, abandoned the station as part of a ceasefire agreement with Bajor, the nearby planet they occupied for six decades until Bajoran freedom fighters overthrew their conquerors. Sisko's task is to assist the Bajoran people as they rebuild their society with the eventual goal of Bajor becoming a member of the United Federation of Planets. The Bajorans are a deeply religious people who worship long-departed gods they refer to as the Prophets. Although there is a nonsectarian civilian government that runs the day-to-day operations of the planet, the real power lies in the hands of their religious leader, the Kai, who interprets the ancient religious texts that foretell the return of the Prophets and the restoration of Bajor's golden age. Soon after his arrival on the station, Sisko discovers a stable wormhole—the only one in the Alpha Quadrant of our galaxy—that leads directly to the adjacent Gamma Quadrant. It turns out, though, that noncorporeal beings reside in the wormhole and Sisko is the first to make contact with them. The Bajorans are convinced these entities are the Prophets they have long sought; the wormhole is their Celestial Temple, and Sisko, as the first to engage with them, is their Emissary, the individual who speaks to and for the Prophets. [End Page 48] Sisko, as a nonbeliever, initially resists that title and instead refers to the wraith-like beings as \"wormhole aliens.\"1 While the wormhole becomes a major trading route between the quadrants, it also brings the Federation, along with the Klingons, the Vulcans, the Romulans, the Cardassians, and the other planetary systems in the Alpha Quadrant into conflict with a race known as Changelings—shape shifters who have established a far-reaching empire in the Gamma Quadrant they call the Dominion. Open warfare eventually breaks out between the quadrants, with the forces of the Dominion invading the Alpha Quadrant in an attempt to conquer it. Deep Space Nine is different from the other Star Trek series in a number of important ways. For one thing, it is much darker and edgier in tone than the others. Jonathan West, director of photogr","PeriodicalId":88065,"journal":{"name":"Ninety nine","volume":"44 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135640484","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Bat Kid by Inoue Kazuo (review)","authors":"Germeen Tanas","doi":"10.1353/nin.2023.a903331","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/nin.2023.a903331","url":null,"abstract":"Reviewed by: Bat Kid by Inoue Kazuo Germeen Tanas Inoue Kazuo. Bat Kid Translated by Ryan Holmberg. Richmond, VA: Bubbles Zine Publications, 2021. 104 pp. Paperback, $14.99. When first opening Bat Kid, readers will immediately be captivated by the drawing on the first page. Nagai Batto jumps off the page and holds hands with two kids who look just as animated as he appears. Above this sketch is a note from the original author, Inoue Kazuo, declaring that he has \"put [his] heart and soul into drawing the manga you hold in your hands\" and he hopes that \"you and bat kid become the best of friends!\" (1). Via this playful, vibrant, and lighthearted manga, Kazuo brings to life Batto's short yet positively delightful story, and it's indeed difficult not to get invested in his journey. Although the story is focused on the bat kid's growth as a baseball player, the manga is a great learning experience for baseball fans and curious people alike. However, it's Ryan Holmberg's attached essay that gives this baseball story value to the layperson. In a little over forty-five pages, Holmberg, an historian and the book's translator, offers indispensable historical context on the origins, impact, and development of the Japanese baseball manga as well as extensively describes Inoue Kazuo's career and character. Holmberg's version of the manga is translated and condensed from the original, which was published in the monthly Manga Shonen in January 1948. It's important to keep in mind that Holmberg's translation only offers a segment of the original manga, with the original totaling \"fifteen chapters and nearly seventy pages\" (xxxvi). The manga itself indeed holds allegiance to Japanese traditions of \"yoiko\" (\"good kid\"). Yoiko comics were \"good-natured,\" conservative, and fun stories which were precisely what parents and teachers thought should be administered to little kids. The bat kid is a middle school student who is obedient to his parents, hardworking, and learns to rely on himself rather than the power he thought he received from a red bat. On page fifty-eight, Nagai says to his bat, \"I'm countin' on you, red,\" but eventually he finds solace in his own capability [End Page 146] and earns himself a spot on the team. In another instance, when Nagai encounters a thief, the thief asks why Nagai doesn't turn him in to the police. The bat kid replies, \"Why would I? You're just a kid\" (23). As the plot develops, Nagai develops this same empathy and compassion for himself. However, according to Holmberg, Bat Kid's success is surprising from a historical perspective because it reaffirmed ideas from the Imperial past and celebrated an American sport, yet somehow captured the imagination of children who had suffered from the chaos of World War II. Set in the early post World War II era, Bat Kid gives readers a rare opportunity to learn about the effects of WWII on Japanese baseball and the game's reconciliatory power during a very sundering time. Holmberg describes Bat","PeriodicalId":88065,"journal":{"name":"Ninety nine","volume":"4 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135640491","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Loved It: Ball Four","authors":"Paul Hensler","doi":"10.1353/nin.2023.a903309","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/nin.2023.a903309","url":null,"abstract":"Loved It:Ball Four Paul Hensler (bio) The 1968 publication of Jerry Kramer's Instant Reply opened the door to the locker room of one of most storied teams in sports history, and the portrait he painted furnished fans with a view to what became the concluding year of coach Vince Lombardi's tenure at the helm of the Green Bay Packers. This send-off, as it were, was climaxed by the team's victory in Super Bowl II, and the diary Kramer maintained details the grueling regimen of life under Lombardi's rule during the 1967 season. Readers of his book gain a full appreciation of how championships were forged in a small city that took on the quaint appellation of \"Titletown\" due to the team's dominant success in that decade. In Kramer's telling, that year's edition of the Packers was fueled by a winning tradition that resulted from the team's ineffable laboring under his coach's stern gaze. \"Nobody knows the tortures you go through, trying to stay on top as champions,\" Lombardi told his charges after a practice in late November.1 And the way in which Green Bay asserted themselves over pro football was mirrored to an even greater degree by the achievements of the New York Yankees, notably from 1947 to 1964, when the Bronx Bombers won the American League pennant every year, save for three seasons. Barely two years after Kramer's opus was published, another book was released that could not have been more diametrically opposed to the chronicling of what turned out to be the last phase of the Lombardi–Packer heyday. This new release, Ball Four, authored by former Yankee pitcher Jim Bouton, found its way into the canon of sports literature, where it remains to this day as deeply rooted as most any other book dealing with any athletic endeavor. In the early 1960s, Bouton was among a crop of newcomers to the Yankee roster—Tom Tresh, Joe Pepitone, and Mel Stottlemyre, along with the \"Bulldog,\" [End Page 1] evinced all-star potential—expected to ward off challengers to the club's accustomed place atop the American League. But a not-so-funny thing happened on the way to perpetuating the ostensibly unending dynasty domiciled at Yankee Stadium, and when this new breed and other prospects failed to provide a smooth transition from aging stars such as Mickey Mantle, Elston Howard, Yogi Berra, and Whitey Ford to fresher talent, while also maintaining the club's accustomed winning tradition, the club's tumble from their pedestal was uglier than most Yankee fans could have imagined. Having a ringside seat to this misfortune, Bouton was hardly an innocent bystander. The promising rookie of 1962 won half of his fourteen decisions and followed this performance with twenty-one victories the next year; he registered eighteen more in 1964 and added a pair in the World Series to seemingly drive a stake in the pitching mound, marking his place in the Yankee rotation. But when he won only nine games over the next four seasons, the evidence was clear: Bouton had damaged his arm beyo","PeriodicalId":88065,"journal":{"name":"Ninety nine","volume":"21 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135640493","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The Cheap Seats: A Note from the Editor","authors":"Willie Steele","doi":"10.1353/nin.2023.a903307","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/nin.2023.a903307","url":null,"abstract":"The Cheap SeatsA Note from the Editor Willie Steele One of the challenges of writing the introduction for each issue is that what I write isn't going to be read for another nine months or so. Such is the struggle when a journal comes out twice a year. So I sit here now, just a few weeks removed from the Houston Astros winning the World Series over the Philadelphia Phillies, trying to anticipate what might happen in the 2023 season. But I'm having a hard time doing that when I'm still wrapping my head around the Dodgers, who led the majors with 111 wins during the regular season, losing in the National League Divisional Series 3–1 to the San Diego Padres. And then there's the fact that the National League Championship Series was played between a fifth seed (Padres) and a sixth seed (Philadelphia Phillies), the latter of which finished the regular season fourteen games back in the National League East. For all the complaining about what Major League Baseball has gotten wrong, specifically commissioner Rob Manfred, few, if any, can deny the excitement of the 2022 playoffs. Baseball somehow survived the ghost runner rule since it started in 2020, and I suspect it'll survive the bigger bases and banning the shift as well. Much has happened off the field since I last wrote an introduction to NINE. Several years longer than it should have taken, the legendary Buck O'Neil was inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York, giving him his long overdue place among baseball's greats. Meanwhile, a new generation of fans was introduced to the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League, thanks to Prime Video's new series, A League of Their Own. And baseball's past will be brought into the present after it was announced that the New Jersey Jackals of the Frontier League will play in historic Hinchliffe Stadium in 2023, bringing baseball back to the stadium that was home for the New York Black Yankees and New York Cubans of the Negro Leagues. [End Page ix] I'm often asked what my favorite part of editing this journal is. That's easy. No matter how much I read about baseball, every time I'm sent a new article for consideration, I realize just how much there is that I don't know. Often, I'm made aware of players like Tom Carroll, who, thanks to Anne Keene, I now know was both a former Yankee and an operative for the CIA. I'm also introduced to obscure teams like the Klein Chocolate Company Baseball Team, who more than held their own against major league talent. Thanks to Gerald Huesken, you'll get to know them in this issue. And thanks to writers like Steve Treder and Mark Cryan, you'll learn about the late California League (blame Rob Manfred) and the ways Major League Baseball gutted the minor league system. The intersection of baseball and popular culture is always fun to read about, and Robert Gorman's article on the game and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine is another example of that very thing. Since most baseball fans were introduc","PeriodicalId":88065,"journal":{"name":"Ninety nine","volume":"48 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135640475","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Intentional Balk: Baseball's Thin Line Between Innovation and Cheating by Daniel R. Levitt & Mark Armour (review)","authors":"Ed Edmonds","doi":"10.1353/nin.2023.a903327","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/nin.2023.a903327","url":null,"abstract":"Reviewed by: Intentional Balk: Baseball's Thin Line Between Innovation and Cheating by Daniel R. Levitt & Mark Armour Ed Edmonds Daniel R. Levitt & Mark Armour. Intentional Balk: Baseball's Thin Line Between Innovation and Cheating. Seattle, WA: Clyde Hill Publishing, 2022. 258 pp. Paperback, $24.99. Dan Levitt and Mark Armour, who have previously collaborated on two outstanding books on the building of winning Major League Baseball franchises, have turned their powers of fresh and thoughtful observations, added tremendous research, and combined it with excellent writing to produce an engaging take on an interesting thesis—when does innovation create an opportunity to cheat and gain an advantage over your opponent? Even though the origin of baseball has spawned many theories and explanations, one thing is certain—players [End Page 137] and management have consistently cheated or, at a minimum, pushed beyond the outer limits of the \"rules\" (both official and unwritten) to gain an edge over an opponent. Some \"cheating\" is actually applauded and honored while other \"cheating\" behavior is disliked and even loathed. Levitt and Armour's book explores, in detail, this long history while also investigating the different reactions by players, management, and fans. First and quite importantly, Levitt and Armour set out their thesis and their definition of cheating clearly for their readers—\"We broadly define 'cheating' as an act of breaking agreed-upon rules in order to help your team win. By this reckoning, throwing a World Series or recreational drug use, which do not help your team, are not 'cheating' as defined here\" (x). The authors use an effective concept of naming doctrines after players, managers, or coaches who embody a response to their thesis. The first one is named for Rogers Hornsby—\"Baseball players and others within the game will and should find ways to bend and break the rules. It is the job of the authorities to stop them.\" (ix). This establishes an interesting dichotomy at the heart of the conversation. Players should try anything and everything either on the edge of or clearly outside of the rules. It is the jobs of umpires or league officials to detect such behavior and punish or discipline as appropriate. The initial chapter focuses on deception, typically involving attempts to fool the umpire, e.g., a fielder acting as if he caught the ball when he had trapped it, a batter claiming he was hit by a pitch when he was not, or a catcher's practice of pitch framing where he tries to convince the umpire that a pitch that is a ball is a strike. An early example of this was the rule requiring that pitchers throw underhanded and keep their release point at or below their hip. Pitchers, knowing that an overhand delivery was harder to hit, pushed the definition of underhanded in various ways, and some pitchers resorted to hiking up their pants to fool the umpire and the batter. Ultimately, the rules were simply changed to allow overhand pitchin","PeriodicalId":88065,"journal":{"name":"Ninety nine","volume":"39 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135640479","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}