E-Verse Radio Bad Book Cover of the Week, Freddy and the Baseball Team from Mars:  

http://www.uta.edu/english/tim/baseball/juv/images/freddy.jpg 

Top Five Minor League Mascots

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Check out a literary magazine entirely devoted to baseball, Elysian Fields Quarterly:   http://www.efqreview.com/

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Listen to this episode at: www.everseradio.com/audio

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E-Verse tip of the week, the difference between "forbear" and "forebear":

"Forbear" means to refrain from, or to hold back from. The accent falls on the second syllable, making it useful to poets as an iambic foot.

"Forebear" means an ancestor, usually one from fairly far back in the mists of time. In other words, you wouldn't call your mom and pop your forebears. But Lord Dunstan III, who won the battle of Bloody Knob Hill in 1608, could appropriately be considered a forebear of your current family. The accent falls on the first syllable, thus making this useful to poets as a spondee, also known as a choree or choreus.

Top Five Individual Plays in World Series History

E-Verse Radio town you really have to visit:

There have been only two geniuses in the world. Willie Mays and Willie Shakespeare."- Tallulah Bankhead

Top Five Baseball Nicknames:

E-Verse Radio collective noun of the week:

Hilbertian Sonnet of the Week:

Guide to the Modern Man (Beach Issue!)
Ernest Hilbert

Despite valiant headlines to such effect,
What the hell could GQ, Stuff, or Esquire
Know of big topics like "The Modern Man"?
Do they know, really, that he needs respect,
Real-life models to which he might aspire?
A man needs more than watches and sedans.
Skim their pages when you want to know
About cufflinks, dates, and trouser pleats, stag
Nights and sit-ups, cures for back hair and plaque.
We may splash, sport, and flirt in the shallows,
But it is in the depths, off the cold drag
Of continental shelves dropped into black,
Where we are forced, finally, to survive,
Drift, flow and struggle, kick, sink, and then dive.

Baseball is a ballet without music. Drama without words."- Ernie Harwell, "The Game for All America," 1955

Top five Baseball Parks:

5. Oriole Park at Camden Yards, Baltimore, MD (1989 - present)
4. Ponce de Leon Park, Atlanta, GA (1907 - 1965
3. Fenway Park, Boston, MA (1912 - present)
2. Rickwood Field, Brimingham, AL (1910 - present)
1. Wrigley Field, Chicago, IL (1914 - present)
 

Reports from the E-Verse Universe:

E-Verser J. S. Renau writes a short essay on the Philadelphia Phillies' 10,000th Loss [he accompanied Paul and me to the Phillies game the preceding day, Saturday, July 14]

Back in 1962, the expansion New York Metropolitans were worse than bad, finishing their first year of existence with a paltry 40-120 record, the worst of any team in the modern era of Major League Baseball. Field manager Casey Stengel was once asked to comment upon the performance of his ace pitcher (a relative term when applied to the 1962 Mets) Roger Craig after Craig dropped his 20th decision of the season. With his characteristic wit and aplomb, Stengel replied, "You have to be pretty good to lose 20 games."

You might scratch your head and dismiss the response as a typical Stengelism, but Casey was right in his way -- truly awful pitchers aren't given the opportunity to lose that many games; instead, they're consigned to places like Terre Haute and Boise until they improve (or don't, in which case, it's off to the gas station or post office for a "real" job).

I view the Philadelphia Phillies' recent ignominy of being the first professional sports franchise to post 10,000 losses in much the same manner. You have to be a pretty good franchise to stick around long enough in order to lose that many times.

After all, the Phillies have been losing baseball games since 1883, and what is more remarkable, they have been doing it in the same city for the entire time. Most unsuccessful baseball franchises -- at least, those that survive -- have picked up stakes and tried their luck in a different city. Take, for instance, the laughing stock of the American League, the St. Louis Browns. The Browns were synonymous with losing for nearly the entire span of the team's existence, winning but one pennant (1944), and needing a World War Two-depleted American League in order to accomplish that. In St. Louis, they always played second fiddle to the perennially strong Cardinals franchise of the National League. Rather than stick around and continue their losing ways, the Browns decided that enough was enough, and in 1954, the St. Louis Browns became the Baltimore Orioles, and about ten years later, the Orioles supplanted the New York Yankees as the team to beat in the American League and were more or less the class of the AL for nearly two decades, winning six pennants and three world championships during that span.

The Phillies know what it's like to play second fiddle in your own hometown. For the first half of the twentieth century, the Phillies shared Philadelphia with Connie Mack's Athletics franchise. Although once considered the young upstart (the Athletics began play in 1901), the A's quickly became the toast of Philadelphia, winning six of the first 14 American League pennants and three World Series. The A's, particularly during the glory years, always seemed to have star power, with ace pitchers Eddie Plank, Rube Waddell, and Chief Bender, while the Phillies, with a few exceptions here and there, were largely composed of cast-offs and wannabes.

And then, of course, there were the legendary A's teams of 1929-1931, which collected three consecutive world championships . . .and did so during the height of the New York Yankees' rise to prominence. Those A's teams are routinely mentioned when old salts try to answer the eternally vexing question of which team was the best of all time. As for the Phillies, during that three-year span of A's excellence, they managed to lose 282 games, lowlighted by 1930's last-place ball club that lost 102 games.

As with so many things in history, the turning point for the Phillies had less to do with the Phillies franchise itself and more to do with outside factors, in this case the temperament of Connie Mack, the owner and field manager of the cross-town Athletics. After winning his third consecutive World Series in 1931, Mack grew tired of escalating salaries and egos and put nearly his entire team on the chopping block. Legendary pitcher Lefty Grove -- perhaps the greatest left-handed pitcher ever -- was sent packing to the Boston Red Sox, along with fellow pitcher Rube Walberg. And over time, Mack continued to dismantle his championship team, a team that was loaded with future Hall of Famers. What followed was arguably the longest stretch of excrementally bad baseball ever witnessed from one franchise. From 1935 to 1954, the Athletics finished in last place 11 times and finished in next to last place an additional three times. The A's lost 100-plus games in six of those seasons and finished no closer to first place than 12½ games. In most seasons during this span, the A's were history before Memorial Day.

Amid such losing, even the Phillies looked competent, and by the end of this period, the Phillies actually were competent. In 1950, the "Whiz Kids" captured the Phillies' first pennant since 1915, and Philadelphians, tired of Connie Mack's parsimony and almost masochistic desire to field last-place clubs, began switching allegiances to the once-neglected Phillies. The result: the A's were sold and eventually moved, first to Kansas City, and then to Oakland.

Yes, the Phillies have lost 10,000 games, but in the course of doing so have displayed an almost cockroach-like resiliency, and like the cockroach, the Phillies are hard to love, but they should garner a little grudging respect. You do indeed have to be good, on some level, to lose 10,000 games.

Next week's episode: Vodka Episode, with real drinks!