The Baseball Digest Archive

November 1984

One big thing that I’ve noticed when going through these old issues of Baseball Digest is that so many of the discussions and/or arguments that crop up in the sport are perennials. Look no further than the very first article in this issue, which deals with the epidemic of injuries in the game. I don’t recall this being such a big topic of discussion as early as 1984, but apparently it was.

It shouldn’t come as much of a surprise that reading Baseball Digest as a young fan helped stir my interest in the Hall of Fame. The magazine consistently included a number of “who belongs, who doesn’t” stories. This issue came in the wake of Rick Ferrell’s election by the Veterans Committee, which was, to be charitable, not one of their wisest choices. Here a writer made the cases for Arky Vaughan and Ernie Lombardi. Vaughan, in particular, was an egregious omission, and he was in fact finally elected the following year, with Lombardi making it in one year later. Lombardi had passed away by that point (Vaughan had died relatively young years earlier in a drowning accident) but in his later years he often expressed bitterness over the fact that he had not yet been elected. That’s one of the first examples I can remember of the cruelty inherent in the process. Lombardi was one of the greatest hitting catchers of all time, even taking into account that he played in an era of big offensive numbers. He should have been elected in his lifetime.

The cover feature, complete with a Keith Hernandez photo, discusses the first base talent of the time, focusing largely on the young talent at that position. It’s a fairly impressive list of names; as you can see not all of these players would go on to become stars, but the majority of them had significant careers.

This is the article that made me laugh. I realize that old timey writers always love to bemoan something something about the current generation, but this one feels like a bit of a reach. Running off the mound is somehow bad? What was the 1984 equivalent of OK, boomer? Because that’s exactly what this sounds like.

Last note on this issue deals with another talking point that persists to this day, and it comes from an article written by Bob Ryan. He points out that most pitchers that make a splash in the big leagues as teenagers tend to fade out quickly. (This was of course the year after Dwight Gooden’s rookie year.) This was written years before the current focus on pitch counts and innings limits for pitchers that are still developing. The accompanying chart shows a sample of young pitchers that ranges from success stories as well to some players that came down with arm injuries and had shortened careers as a result. Plus ca change…

SNL Recap

This is probably the least interesting tidbit that you will read today - Ramy Youssef is the very first SNL host whose surname begins with the letter “y.” That leaves “x” as the only unused letter. The reason I’m leading with such a banal fact feels appropriate to share in conjunction with this episode; this week the show itself was mundane. I had such high hopes; Youssef is a talented guy, but the material was awfully weak. It was far from being the worst episode of the year, but it was likely the most disappointing.

Beginning as always with the cold open it once again shows the challenge of attempting to satirize the Former Guy. How can any joke top reality? The bit dealt with the fact that this huckster is actually selling Bibles. Yes, the man who never saw a commandment that he could not break, the man who epitomizes each of the seven deadly sins, that guy is hawking Bibles. As good as JAJ’s impression is, there’s only so much one can do with his incoherence and penchant for running off on tangents before it becomes repetitious.

When you have a show with a 49 year old history, it’s inevitable that many sketches will be reminiscent of older ones. The hope is that the new ones don’t suffer too badly in comparison to the predecessors, but no such luck here. The locker room sketch had a goofy enough concept, and Kenan as always made it better than it would have been otherwise, but when watching it all I could think about were the old sketches with Will Forte’s coach trying to motivate his team with an odd dance to a peppy song. Same deal with Sarah’s Update appearance as the widow of Flaco the Owl. I had flashbacks to the old sketch in which Bill Murray interviewed the widow of Mr. Ed. In that one we learned not only that Mr. Ed was great in the hay, but that his final words were “a horse is a corpse, of course of course.” I suppose you can credit Sarah for still finding a way to bust Jost’s chops, even whilst wearing an owl costume. And the Immigrant Dad talk show made me think of the old Amy Poehler/Maya Rudolph Bronx Beat sketches.

Best sketch of the week was a tough decision, as little jumped out. I liked the crime scene sketch, as Andrew’s homicide detective kept trying to channel his inner David Caruso by making a joke about the incident punctuated by donning sunglasses, only to be met with silence from his fellow detectives. But I’ll give a shout-out to this week’s 12:50 sketch, with Youssef leading the band performing on NPR’s Tiny Desk series. The setting forced New Chloe’s cellist to limit herself to playing a milk carton shaker instead. Bowen’s 35 year old intern kept on complaining about the ruckus that the concert was causing, distracting him from his vital work which was eventually revealed to be a podcast that he was recording.

Beyond that there wasn’t much else very interesting this week. I give Youssef credit for making himself as much the butt of the joke as the rest of the guys in this week’s Please Don’t Destroy, with the 4 of them partying with musical guest Travis Scott and looking lame while doing so. Youssef’s monologue was a strong one; he found a way to seamlessly incorporate his plea for peace in Gaza into the monologue. In addition to Flaco’s widow, the other correspond piece in Update came from Chloe as a TikTok personality trying to shame people for their bad Kate Middleton takes, only to suffer the humility of Jost showing her some of her old videos that have aged poorly.

I give the coveted Employee Of the Week award to Andrew. He’s got a knack for portraying undeservedly confident characters, and his homicide detective falls into that category. Next week will be returning alum week, as Kristen Wiig moves one step closer to receiving her 5-timer jacket, coming back for hosting stint #4.

Much Ado About (Almost) Nothing

A week after LSU coach Kim Mulkey’s preemptive press conference, the Washington Post article came out, which made a lot of people wonder why she was so up in arms in the first place. At its essence, she doesn’t sound much different from a lot of successful college coaches - she’s driven, a control freak, has had difficult relations with some of her former players, with an equally significant number of her players that remain fiercely loyal to her. She’s thin skinned, and has the memory of an elephant, holding on to all grudges real and perceived.

The thing is, for people who have been following her for years, nothing in the article comes as much of a surprise. It’s been well known that she has had particularly difficult relationships with her LGBTQ players for example, but I’m not sure how many of the newer fans of the women’s game were aware of this. By drawing so much attention to the article before it was even published, it only served to make so many more people eager to dig into the juicy details. Probably not enough to force a renaming of the Streisand Effect, but it’s still a major self-own.

Unless, and this is certainly a possibility, this was a 3-D chess motivational effort. So much attention has been focused on Mulkey all week that it not only deflected pressure away from her players but it also gave them an ideal rallying cry - everyone hates us! Which leads to this irony; on the same day that the Post article dropped there was a column in a different newspaper that Mulkey and LSU over which could have had a much more legitimate gripe.

In a Saturday column in the L.A. Times, Ben Bolch categorized the LSU/UCLA Sweet 16 matchup as a battle of good against evil. It’s not as if something like this is unheard of - remember the old Notre Dame/Miami Catholics vs. Convicts battle? But this article was way over the top and terribly unfair to the LSU players. They have a swagger about them? The horror! If there was an actual hatchet job, this was the one.

After all that, ESPN executives wound up with their greatest dream - a regional final battle between LSU & Iowa tonight that serves as a rematch of last year’s ratings record shattering championship game. That sound you hear is cash registers ringing in Bristol.

Opening Weekend Observations

Small sample size. Small sample size. Small sample size. As much as we are aware of that concept, we can’t help ourselves. Part of being a fan is that we have an innate instinct to bring out the Jump To Conclusions Mat, even at such an early stage of the season. That’s particularly the case when the weekend’s events also include some confirmation bias. For example, take any random star hitter who only has only managed to get one hit so far this year. Of course, we understand that’s meaningless, but to see the Rockies give up a whopping 14 runs in a single inning on Opening Day? That result “proves” that they are exactly as bad as expected. (It also stands out that this epically bad inning was a road game, it didn’t even take place in the high elevation of Denver. BTW, despite that inning the game still clocked in under 3 hours. Thank you, pitch clock.)

Having said that, it was a deflating start to the season for the Twins. A major part of the reason why I picked them to be a surprise team is that I’m so excited to see what Royce Lewis could do with a full season. He hit a home run in his first at bat, but then left the game early with a quad injury. He’ll be out at least a month, probably longer than that. We can’t have nice things. And man, those attendance figures in Oakland. The announced attendance for opening day was only 13,522, but that’s tickets sold, not actual fans in seats. Far fewer than that bothered to show up, and that already minuscule attendance dropped even further in games 2 & 3. It is going to be so dreary in that stadium this year.

In Today’s Episode Of Too Much F***ing Perspective

I don’t recall the exact phrasing, but there’s an old saying which basically states that any man can still fool himself into believing he’s still young as long as he’s younger than the oldest active MLB player. Needless to say, it was a sad day for me when Jamie Moyer finally retired. On the flip side, there’s this:

2004! I have no idea how to react to this. You want perspective? Kenan has been in the SNL cast for Jackson Chourio’s entire lifetime. When Chourio was born, the Red Sox were still in the throes of an 86 year long World Series drought. Chourio was born only a few months before LeBron James was the #1 pick in the NBA Draft. And yes, I do have shirts that are older than he is.

50 Years Ago - Nightmares… And Other Tales From the Vinyl Jungle

The J. Geils Band were one of the more underappreciated artists of their era. They of course attained major pop success near the end of their career with a slick, keyboard driven sound, but that’s not terribly indicative of the music they made in their initial era. Then, they were a fantastic blues band, with a level of grit & grime that was perfect for the early to mid 1970’s. They would not have felt out of place in the dingiest poker den you could picture. This album came out when they were still in the midst of that era. I also feel safe in saying that this is almost certainly the only album I’ll ever write about which includes a contribution from George Jessel.

Aerosmith has often been described as the American Rolling Stones, but I believe it’s a more fit description for the J. Geils Band. Like the Stones, they clearly spent their formative years listening to blues albums and wore those influences on their collective sleeves once they formed a band of their own. Like the Stones, they had a peacock for a lead singer who carefully recreated the moves and stage demeanor of the black vocalists whom he admired. The Geils band didn’t have a Keith doppelgänger, but work with me here.

The best known track from this album is Must Of Got Lost, which became their biggest Hot 100 hit at the time, just falling short of reaching the top 10. It’s an early sign of the more radio friendly sound that they would develop, (I don’t mean this as an insult BTW, it’s a wonderful song) but the album still includes many examples of their classic early vibe. The key musician in the band was harmonica player Magic Dick, and he has multiple spotlights in this collection, beginning right with the leadoff track Detroit Breakdown. My favorite song on the record is Stoop Down #39, it’s got a deep groove and demonstrates what a tight ensemble they were at their best. Stephen Jo Bladd had some real kick to his drumming, and before he got a bit too addicted to electronic keyboards, Seth Justman was a sublime pianist.

In a strange way, they were often emblematic of their time. They were grungy in the 70’s & slick in the 80’s. I did enjoy their music in both of these phases, but for my money this was probably their best album.

Closing Laughs

No April Fools jokes here. May you all have a peaceful day. See you once again on Wednesday.