English
Lesson 7
The Modern Era
The Legends
From the end of WW II through the mid 1960’s, baseball was dominated by a handful of extraordinary athletes who in almost every instance remained with the same teams during their entire career: Stan Musial of the Cardinals, Willie Mays of the Giants, Sandy Koufax of the Dodgers, and perhaps the two greatest pure hitters in the history of the game, Ted Williams of the Red Sox and Joe DiMaggio of the Yankees.
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DiMaggio and Koufax
“From coast to coast, that’s all you hear, of Joe the one man show. He’s glorified the horsehide sphere, Jolting Joe DiMaggio” – From Les Brown Listen now to “Joltin’ Joe DiMaggio.”
Sandy Kouxfax was arguably the greatest left handed pitcher in the history of the game, winning three Cy Young awards, throwing four no hitters including a perfect game.
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Teddy Ballgame
From the day he broke in until his last at-bat, Ted Williams was as great a hitter as ever played the game.
In his last at bat in Boston, Williams homered. “Though we thumped, wept, and chanted ‘We want Ted’ for minutes after he hid in the dugout, he did not come back….immortality is nontransferable. The papers said that the other players, and even the umpires on the field, begged him to come out and acknowledge us in some way, but he refused. Gods do not answer letters.”
John Updike, from “Hub Fans Bid Kid Adieu”
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Incredible Moments
1974 – Hank Aaron breaks Babe Ruth’s record.
1975 – Watch the video on the course website as Carlton Fisk hits his historic home run.
1977 – Reggie Jackson becomes Mr. October.
1978 – Bucky Dent breaks Boston’s heart.
1986 – Mookie Wilson and Bill Buckner achieve immortality.
1988 – A hobbled Kirk Gibson hits his historic World Series home run.
2004 – The Red Sox finally win it all.
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Hank Aaron
He did what no one thought possible
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Globalization
Though Calvin Griffith and a handful of owners and general managers recruited a small number of light-skinned Latino players as early as the 1930’s, baseball remained a whites-only sport until Jackie Robinson integrated the game. Since then, however, Latino players, chiefly from the Dominican Republic and Venezuela, have become increasingly prominent throughout Major League Baseball. By the start of 2005, nearly a third of all professional baseball players were of Latino origin.
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The Pioneering Latinos
Aparicio, Marichal, Clemente, Tiant
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A Latino Problem
For many Latinos, there experience in professional baseball is heartbreaking. Like their American counterparts who labor in the minors, few make it to the big leagues. But unlike many American players who come from upper middle class backgrounds and have at least some college, the Latinos who are released from big league clubs often leave penniless and without any meaningful opportunities for employment here or in their native lands.
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Sammy Sosa
The Latino who dazzled baseball with his home run swing and his ebullient personality during the 1990’s was scouted and signed 1984 by Omar Minaya (later the NY Mets General Manager) at the age of 16 for $3,500, the same amount the Dodgers paid Jackie Robinson to play in 1946.
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Cuban Baseball: For Love of the Game?
In light of player and owner greed which has so greatly altered relationships between those who play and run the game of baseball and those who watch it, some writers have suggested that Cuban baseball, despite the repressive atmosphere in which it exists under the dictatorship of Fidel Castro, may be the only place left where those play the game do so simply because they love it. Omar Linares (bottom left) and Antonio Pacheco are two of the best Cuban players who have elected to remain in Cuba rather than accept huge major league contracts.
The Cuban Stars
While the majority of Latino players in Major League baseball now come from the Dominican Republic, Venezuela and Puerto Rico, the history of the game in Latin America owes a great deal to pre-Castro Cuba. Two Cubans, Tony Perez (who did play in the Majors) and Martin Dihigo (bottom left - reputed to be the greatest of all Latino players but whose skin color prohibited him from playing in the U.S. have been elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame. Luis Tiant and Orestes (Minnie) Minoso are Cubans who enjoyed great fan support in America and could well someday be elected to the Hall.
Cuban Baseball: The Defectors
By contrast, great Cuban players like the Hernandez bothers, Livan and Orlando (El Duque), and Rey Ordonez left their native land to accept huge contracts from the Marlins, the Yankees and the Mets respectively. For a fascinating account of Cuban baseball, read The Duke of Havana by Steve Fainaru and Ray Sanchez, and Pitching Around Fidel by S.L. Price.
The Asian Invasion
Though a young Japanese ballplayer named Masanori Murakami played briefly with the San Francisco Giants in 1964, it wasn’t until 1995 and the arrival of Hideo Nomo that Japanese ballplayers began arriving to America in substantial numbers. Professional baseball has existed in Japan since 1936, and many American major leaguers, most in the twilight of their careers, have played on Japanese teams. By 2005, several Japanese players had played prominent roles on American big league teams. For more information on Japanese baseball, see Robert Whiting’s “The Samurai Way of Baseball.” Listen to Mikhail Horowitz
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Japanese Stars
Ichiro, Hedeki Matsui and Hideo Nomo
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Kenichi Zenimura
Dean of the Diamond
A little known aspect of baseball concerns the participation of Japanese-Americans in leagues all across the Western United States. Inspired by a 5” tall Nisei named Kenichi Zenimura, Japanese-Americans played the game even when interned in detention camps (shown below at Gila River, Arizona) during World War II. “Zeni” even played against Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig when they barnstormed on the West Coast during the mid-1930’s.
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The Game Today
Baseball today is a billion dollar business. Television revenues, merchandizing, and astronomical player contracts have changed the game forever. Even the Boston Red Sox ended the so-called Curse of the Bambino by winning the 2004 World Series.
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Myth and Reality
In the popular press, the 2004 Red Sox defeated the “Curse of the Bambino.” In reality, Sox finally overcame almost a century of misjudgment, mismanagement, and racism. “Although Boston may have been a hotbed to abolitionist sentiment….it’s American League franchise was….a hotbed of racial hate. You can’t build a shining contender on a hill when you’re standing in a hole”
Stephen Goldman, “The Banality of Incompetence”
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