The White Sox commemorated Phil Humber’s perfect game with this poster. All fans who attended Humber’s next start after the perfecto were given this poster. Note the beauty of the scorecard – 27 up, 27 down. Congratulations to a classy guy.
You guy HAVE to check out this animated Baseball Graphic Novel that Ryan Woodward is creating. It’s gorgeous!
“A game of great charm, in the adoption of mathematical measurements to the timing of human movements, the exactitudes and adjustments of physical ability to hazardous chance. The speed of the legs, the dexterity of the body, the grace of the swing, the elusiveness of the slide — these are the features that make Americans everywhere forget the last syllable of a man’s last name or the pigmentation of his skin.”
– Branch Rickey
“Nothing in our daily life offers more of the comfort of continuity, the generational connection of belonging to a vast and complicated American family, the powerful sense of home, the freedom from time’s constraints, and the great gift of accumulated memory than does our National Pastime.”
– Ken Burns
Few things are as truly American as baseball. More than any other sport it has permeated our culture. It is intertwined with our history. It celebrates what’s great about our country. Countless books and articles have been written about the beauty of our game. But it’s not often that we get to hear the perspective of immigrants who have come to this county about our
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There was a time that baseball players promoted tobacco products. Stanford University School of Medicine has assembled the images and the stories behind them in a unique research project. The gallery alone is amazing to look at.
Hat tip: Baseball Think Factory
One of the main features of any ballpark is its scoreboard. It’s a focal point for the spectator and provides a wealth of information to the fans. Most scoreboards are electronic. However, in the two oldest ballparks in use (and by far the best parks to see a game) Fenway Park in Boston and Wrigley Field in Chicago there is a more antiquated method for keeping score: the manual scoreboard. This year marks 75 years that Wrigley has had their scoreboard and it has a fascinating history as this Chicago Sun Times article explains.
Hat tip: Baseball Think Factory
Unlike any other sport, baseball has a connection to the people that cover the game. Vin Scully has had that job longer than any other announcer. He’s entering his 62nd year and shows no signs of slowing down. He’s had the opportunity to witness more history than any other announcer. In this GQ profile, Scully recalls some of his most vivid memories and demonstrates why he is one the greatest announcers the game has ever known.
Hat tip: Steven Hayward
A very cool collection of spring training photos courtesy of Sports Illustrated.
Hat tip: Grant Brisbee
Chicago Tribune urging restraint. This feature is an occasional comic that lists rules for sports fans. It always ends with a ‘Don’t Be That Guy’ frame. I fear that this time, I might be that guy, as I suspect many of the Eephus League faithful are. Score on, ladies and gentlemen, score on.
It’s not the obvious answer, tradition. Actually if you look back at history there are very practical reasons that managers wear uniforms. Mental Floss has the whole story.
Updates!!!!
1. I removed the little circle next to the diamond to allow for more space for people to keep score they way they want.
2. I brought back the Home and visiting MVP awards.
3. I added icons for indoor games and for watching at home.
4. I rearranged the pitching stats to follow traditional box scores.
As pitchers and catchers get ready to report, enjoy this lovely poem by Jack Buck.
A one-woman operation making a series of clever, creative, faux-primitivist postcard packs full of puns and fun factoid riffs on some of our favorite ballplayers.
Baseball has an interesting and albeit complicated history when it comes to cheating. For example, Pete Rose had more hits than any other player in baseball but is excluded from baseball because of his gambling on baseball games. But Gaylord Perry who was renowned as the most proficient spitball pitcher of his day (which was of course by that time illegal) is in the Hall of Fame and revered as one of the heroes of the game. And Perry is not alone among Hall of Fame indcutees that were practitioners of baseball doctoring during their careers.
Jonah Keri has a fascinating history of the lost art of doctoring pitches. Defacing a baseball was one a necessary skill to be an effective pitcher. But it wasn’t rule changes that ultimately made the spitball and its illegal cousins extinct. Check out the article…
I am moving forward with plans for a larger scorebook! The plan is for it to be spiral/ring bound, fit 100 games, and be about the height and width of an ipad or a larger moleskin (7.5×9.75 inches). I’d love for you guys to take a look at what I’ve got mapped out and critique it. I know a lot of people wanted more innings, an RBI column, more sub spots and more pitcher stats, so those are included as well as spaces to jot down the umpires. The grid itself is larger as well. Do you guys prefer the diamond graphic inside each square to be big or small? Would you guys want to see the foldout references for scorekeeping included in this, or should it be straight to the point, no frills?
Once I get the design nailed…
News recently came out of Cleveland that the city will spend $5 million dollars to refurbish League Park, the famed field where the Indians played from 1900-1946, Babe Ruth hit his 500th HR, Joe DiMaggio hit is last hit in his 56-game hitting streak, and Bill Wambsganss pulled off an unassisted triple-play in the 1920 world series (just to name a few).
Here is the full story and a short video on the Park.
Poet and author Shel Silverstein spent some time at the White Sox spring training in 1962.
Baseball is a human enterprise. Therefore, by definition it’s imperfect. It’s flawed. It doesn’t embody perfectly everything that is worthwhile about our country or our culture. But it comes closer than most things in American life.
- Bob Costas, from Baseball: A Film by Ken Burns, Inning Four
Growing up during the 70′s & 80′s, these portraits are mini tributes to the players I more or less considered at the time to be my superheroes.
Just thought you guys might be interested in this. I’m an artist (always cringe-inducing to say, but there you have it), and one of my recent pieces features a very familiar scorebook.
It’s called one short (a day without a no-hitter in Detroit). Acrylic and ink on illustration board, 16 x 20″, 2011. July 31, 2011, Justin Verlander took a no-hitter into the 8th inning. I have never seen a no-hitter in person, and to lose one so close– with a pitcher so likely to do it– was intense. Much more intense than, rationally, it should have been.
The piece deals with issues of obsession and perfection, and where those themes break apart and fail; it deals with art-making and information-gathering, where those practices intersect and diverge. It deals, of course, with crazy baseball…
For years, LIFE magazine has been known for extraordinary photography. Here is a collection of their best baseball photos. Plus, if you search the site you’ll find many more pictures worth viewing.
Hat tip: Grant Brisbee
The Preview is online! The magazine is coming along great, and I’ve received more content to expand upon this as well. I wanted to show you guys what I had and put out a call for additional content and ideas. I’d love to flesh this thing out some more and make it nice and meaty. There aren’t any beautiful baseball magazines out there right now and I want to change that.
Right now, planned features include:
Baseball haikus
An interview with Brian Lindstrom
Tales of misery from baseball fans
Unique Baseball Patents
Spotlighted Baseball vocabulary
This day in Baseball
A tribute to the research of James K. Skipper
And more!
Scorebooks are an excellent stocking stuffer for the baseball fans in your life. Save a few bucks by buying multiple scorebooks and spread the tradition! This bundle includes 3 scorebooks and saves $7 off the regular price.
Included with each scorebook are:
The scorebook, which contains 20 scoresheets and has space for scoring 11 innings, pitching statistics and game totals.
A scorekeeping reference card which has common abbreviations used when keeping score and a diagram in case you forget that the shortstop is “6″ and the third baseman is “5″.
Stickers for you to note if the game took place in day or night, and if your team won or lost.
A foldout starter’s guide to keeping score for anyone who is new to the art form.
Autograph pages in the back for collecting player…
Scorebooks are an excellent stocking stuffer for the baseball fans in your life. Save a few bucks by buying multiple scorebooks and spread the tradition! This bundle includes 2 scorebooks and saves $3 off the regular price.
Included with each scorebook are:
The scorebook, which contains 20 scoresheets and has space for scoring 11 innings, pitching statistics and game totals.
A scorekeeping reference card which has common abbreviations used when keeping score and a diagram in case you forget that the shortstop is “6″ and the third baseman is “5″.
Stickers for you to note if the game took place in day or night, and if your team won or lost.
A foldout starter’s guide to keeping score for anyone who is new to the art form.
Autograph pages in the back for collecting player…
The boy involved is Bing Russell, father of actor Kurt Russell and grandfather of Matt Franco. The legend is Lou Gehrig. And the bat (pictured above) was the last bat Gehrug ever hit a home run with. How the bat came to be in Russell’s possession (along with a two other bats) is a must read story over at The Postseason.
Hat tip: Craig Calcaterra
After one of the most dramatic World Series wins ever, St. Louis Cardinals manager Tony LaRussa has decided to call it quits:
Tony La Russa waited until after the championship parade and then called a team meeting with his players.
“We didn’t know what to expect,” said pitcher Chris Carpenter, who won Game 7 of the World Series against Texas on Friday night. “I think we all figured it was just going to be like, ‘Thataway guys. Great year. Way to battle!’ Instead, he dropped that on us. I think everybody was caught off-guard.”
And with that, the 67-year-old La Russa said goodbye to baseball and became the first manager to retire immediately after leading his team to a Series title — the third of his career.
“I think this just feels like it’s time to end
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With 2011 in the books (and a dramatic finish to the World Series) many of us are likely going through baseball withdrawal. Thankfully, Wendy Thurm at Baseball Nation has compiled a great list of suggestions on how to survive the next four months until pitchers and catchers report.
I’ll be spending the offseason daily checking Cubs.com, Bleed Cubbie Blue, and the Chicago Tribune’s Cubs page to see how Theo Epstein remakes my beloved Cubs. Of course, I’ll also be visiting Eephus League frequently to see what other folks have posted.
How will you survive until baseball returns?
Before the internet, radio and television, baseball fans had to rely on other means to follow the games. The Atlantic has a great article on some of the early technology employed to follow games. Be sure to check out all the really cool photos.
Hat tip: Rob Neyer
Hey guys, I’m hoping to share some stories of the pains baseball brings us in the zine (the pain from this year is still very fresh for me). If you’d like to share a particularly crushing moment as a fan, post it in the comments and it should see its way into the issue!
I was sent this wonderful letterpress poster by its creator, Jeremy Reiss, a few days ago, and wanted to share it with you guys. It’s a great illustrative look at some of the more colorful pieces of baseball slang. It’s a letterpressed poster, and you can get one here. It’s always a pleasure to see such beautiful baseball related work, and to see it executed so well is a treat. Great work, Jeremy!
Ok guys, I’ve been lurking for quite some time, and I’m sorry for that. Grad school and work at once is really tough, and I needed to mourn my Braves’ epic collapse. But I have some exciting news! For my next class project, I get to make a 27 page magazine, and I want it to be the Eephus League Zine. Now I have to start gathering content! If anyone wants to see anything specific, please let me know, and if you want to contribute, shoot me an email at bethany [at] eephusleague.com
Current ideas include:
Nickname and jargon highlights
Infographics
Team logo redesigns (If you want your softball logo redone, email me)
Profiles of League members and their scorekeeping tendencies
Book Reviews
Ballpark Food highlights
I found this article while looking for the origins of the phrase “in your kitchen”
There is a great case to be made about Texas Rangers’ President and minority owner Nolan Ryan (who was a darn good pitcher in his playing days) that he could be the perfect owner. An excerpt from a profile in the Wall Street Journal:
Nolan Ryan, now 64-years-old, won’t throw a pitch this postseason (though don’t bet he couldn’t get an out). As the chief executive and a minority owner of the Texas Rangers, he’s doing just about everything else. If you follow him around on a game day, something else becomes clear: There may be no other executive in major North American professional team sports who gives more time and thought to his players—or who has more useful information to give them in the first place.
It was Ryan who demanded the club stop babying young pitchers with
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“Now it is done. Now the story ends. And there is no way to tell it. There art of fiction is dead. Reality has strangled invention. Only the utterly impossible, the inexpressibly fantastic, can ever be plausible again.”
Red Smith
October 4th, 1951
A closer version of my illustration showing the old crown scoreboard and the famous “water spectacular” fountain beyond the outfield wall.
Click HERE to see other views and more of my illustrations.
Here are a few shots from game 2 of the ALDS between the Rays and the Rangers from Arlington, Texas.
An illustration I created showing what Royals Stadium (now Kauffman Stadium) looked like back in 1985 before all of the renovations. Click HERE to see other views and more of my illustrations.
I was in Denver last week and took in a Rockies game. Coor’s Stadium has a section in center field where fans can sit for $4.00. I thought those days were long gone. I enjoyed the game and the ballpark. Go Rockies.
Is this the lowest price ticket in MLB or are others out there? The lowest I’ve found at US Cellular for the White Sox is $10.00 bargain Mondays. The Cubs have some $12 tickets.
Have you ever wanted to see Lou Gehrig, Ty Cobb, or Christy Mathewson in action? You can here. There are quite a few legends to be found on this channel.
And it’s long overdue. The first Negro League statistical database. From the site:
We are creating the first comprehensive statistical encyclopedia of the great black baseball teams and leagues that operated behind the color line in the days of Jim Crow segregation. The database also collects a vast amount of biographical information about these players, much of it previously unpublished.
This should make for great reading.
Hat tip: Hot Corner
October 30, 2001. Game 3 of the World Series between the Arizona Diamondbacks and the New York Yankees. It was the first game of the series to be played in New York. America was reeling from the terrorist attacks of 9/11. Most remarkable, though, was President George Bush throwing out the first pitch. Scott Miller of CBS Sports recalls the moment and how President Bush appeared to be all alone out on the mound.
I heard a radio story about Bobby Douglass, 1970′s quarterback for the Chicago Bears, trying out for the White Sox. I went looking for other Sox who played in 2 or more sports. The Bobby Douglass card actually never happened (see URL).
