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Showing posts with the label Art Howe

Brush with greatness: Art Howe

One of the things that I like about baseball is that, for the most part, it is a game played by people of reasonable dimensions. Sure, the vast majority of pitchers are very tall people and players have gotten bigger and bigger over the years. There are some seriously large dudes playing ball now. But when you compare them with a few other sports, baseball players are downright average-sized. I've been in NFL locker rooms. What enormous specimens those guys are. They are nothing like anyone you see walking down the street. The same is true for the NBA. In a way, it's a reason why I don't watch much of those sports. It just seems too unrealistic: look at the freaks do the impossible! It's a circus sideshow, not a game. NHL players seem a little more normal-sized, although they are in incredible shape. The same goes for baseball. But you do see more than your share of tall players in a major league locker room. Most tower over your average reporter. I remember looking f...

Flipping pages, not cards

When I was a kid, I would collect anything -- bottle caps, seashells, rocks, live frogs (don't ask). So when it came to baseball, I didn't collect just cards, but posters, ticket stubs, postcards and yearbooks. Since I lived so far away from my favorite team and couldn't attend Dodger games in person, I would send away for the annual Dodgers yearbook through the mail. I did that every season, and I have each Dodger yearbook from 1974-85. (But my favorite is the one from 1966 -- when Koufax was king). The 1980 yearbook is my second favorite, because it blended card collecting with my favorite team. It was a neat idea, although I'm sure it wasn't original in the realm of yearbooks. The cards on the front cover are from the 1980 Topps set. My only complaint was that the Dodgers didn't issue their own cards in the yearbook, like some other yearbooks had done. Inside, the yearbook featured pictures of various Dodger cards from over the years. On each player...