"Everything comes to him who hustles while he waits." — Tommy Edison
Author: fartheroffthewall
Tom Hoffarth is a sports journalist in Los Angeles, born and raised (reared is the correct phrase, but it just sounds wrong) and specializing in the sports media business. A USC graduate from the School of Journalism (it still exists, somewhat) in 1984, he is also available for service at https://www.linkedin.com/in/tomhoffarth/
Time is all we heard about during the off season, into spring training, and leading up to this moment in, well, time.
Amendments to some of the key rules are something that could be described as a) hand-wringing, as pointed out in a swell piece by Joe Posnanski in Esquire and followed up on his outstanding Substack blog posts, or b) compared to the way bread is sliced, as laid out by political commentator Scott Jennings.
(By the way: This nifty gif was part of a New York Times story that came with the headline: “Baseball’s Too Slow. Here’s How to Fix It.” From 2017. So last decade, man.)
It seems no matter how you cut, toast or butter it up, we’ve also got a time-stamp on this new edict that every team has to play every team for the first time, which adds more flight time for a lot of teams.
It leads us to wonder: Is there enough time any more to do this annual baseball book review project?
Our 2023 list is in well-enough order. Launching it and delivering on a consistent basis will have its own time-related challenges.
Among the books we’re looking forward to taking our time with dissecting:
= “Daybreak at Chavez Ravine: Fernandomania and the Remaking of the Los Angeles Dodgers,” by Erik Sherman (out officially on May 1)
= “A Damn Near Perfect Game: Reclaiming America’s Pastime,” by former Dodgers relief pitcher Joe Kelly (released last February)
= “Cooperstown at the Crossroads: The Checkered History (and Uncertain Future) of Baseball’s Hall of Fame,” by G. Thomas Scott (released last October)
= “The Tao of the Backup Catcher: Playing Baseball for the Love of the Game,” by Tim Brown (due in July)
This may also be the right time to announce (if you’ve made it this far) that we are deep into the process of writing our own book – a tribute to/appreciation of Vin Scully, and the life lessons he’s left us with. University of Nebraska Press has signed on. The target date is spring, 2024. More details to come.
Timing is everything. We’ve asked a few dozen people to contribute essays to this project, adding to our own prose. It’s hurry up and wait as the clock ticks.
Meantime, as we ponder why the Dodgers’ regular-season schedule includes playing the Diamondbacks of Arizona in eight of their first 10 games, we’ve also been reading up as a prep to this season:
== The usual breeze through Bill James’ 2023 Handbook (ACTA Publications, $32.95), which this time includes a farewell essay to Scully.
== Catching up on major titles that came out during the winter, that we didn’t feel like we had the time to add to this new spring, ’23 list, but missed a cutout for ’22. They include: = “America’s Classic Ballparks: Celebrating Parks Past and Present,” by James Buckley (Becker & Mayer Books, 208 pages, released Sept., 2022) = “28: A Photographic Tribute to Buster Posey,” by Brad Mangin (Harry N. Abrams Publishing, $28.99, released Aug., 2022, www.busterbook.com) = “The Book of Joe: Trying Not to Suck at Baseball and Life,” by Joe Maddon and Tom Verducci (Twelve Publishing, $30, released Oct. 2022, with this excerpt; plus an exceptional Q&A by Kelly Candaele for his CapitalAndMain.com site) = “The Grandest Stage: A History of the World Series,” by Tyler Kepner (Penguin Random House, $30, released Oct. 2022).
== Jayson Stark explains the “dramatic” ins and out of the new schedule in The Athletic.
== The L.A. Times’ Patt Morrison (one of our Scully book contributors) has a history lesson for Los Angeles baseball fans. Did you know: The first documented baseball game in town was a high school girls’ match, in 1874. So now you know. And you’ll learn more here than perhaps any Google search you ever attempt. Plus, see her post cards.
== A USA Today list of the 100 MLB names you need to know for 2023 (starting with Orioles infielder Gunnar Henderson at No. 1. The Dodgers have seven on this list — Miguel Vargas (No. 11), Ryan Pepiot (20), James Outman (26), Bobby Miller (43), Michael Grove (53), Michael Busch (63) and Gavin Stone (65). The Angels have one: Chase Silseth at No. 38.
== An ESPN list of the Top 100 players, ranked, in the game today (with two members of the Anaheim Angels of Los Angeles in the slots of Nos. 1 and 2 — and no others on the roster in the rest of the 98 spots; the current AL MVP is listed No. 3 behind these two AL players through no fault of their own abilities. Members of the Dodgers take spots at Nos. 5 and 9, as well as Nos. 46, 47, and 87)
== Ryan McGee, author of “Welcome to the Circus of Baseball: A Story of The Perfect Summer, at the Perfect Ballpark, at the Perfect Time,” which comes out next week (Doubleday, 272 pages, $29), posts his five best baseball bios for The Wall Street Journal and why: = “Dodger Dogs to Fenway Franks,” by Bob Wood, 1988 = “The Teammates,” by David Halberstam, 2003 = “The Big Bam,” by Leigh Montville, 2006 = “Joe DiMaggio,” by Richard Ben Cramer, 2000 = “We Would Have Played Forever,” by Robert Gaunt, 1997 It’s more interesting to read the comments on pieces like this.
== A review copy of a new book by former CNN and Washington Post political analyst Chris Cillizza called “Power Players: Sports, Politics and the American Presidency” (Twelve Publishing/Hachette, 320 pages, $30, coming out April 18), which seems to be equally embraced and accepted by CNN’s Jake Tapper and Don Lemon and ESPN’s Tony Kornheiser. It’s about presidents and the sports they played – which gets straight to George H.W. Bush’s ballplaying days at Yale (as well as White House horseshoes) and his son’s ownership of the Texas Rangers as well as participating in the most meaningful first-pitch ceremony after 9/11 at the 2001 World Series.
== It reminds us: We’ve been trying to land a review copy of “Sports and the American Presidency: From Theodore Roosevelt to Donald Trump (New Perspectives on the American Presidency),” edited by Adam Burns and Rivers Gambrell. It’s from Edinburg University Press, published in November, 2022, with a hardback (and ebook) markup price of $120. Must be an incredible shipping cost. There is some overlap with Cillizza’s assessment, but in this one, there seems to be more on how Bill Clinton tried to save baseball from the 1994-95 strike, Babe Ruth’s celebrity endorsements for the 1928 presidential campaign and Jackie Robinson’s odd alignments with various presidents in the 1960s and ‘70s. This book must be so well regarded that Amazon.com has a payment plan of $10 a month for 12 months to purchase it if you wish.
Sooner or later, we’ll let the first review drop (we’ve powered through a few this winter to get traction) and see how the flow goes. So as Scully might say, pull up a chair with a reading lamp.
That’s today. Quit reading at this point and apparently you’re all good. Read on, and you’ve resolved to do some good.
“Quitters Day,” we’re told, marks the moment when all those stooges who proclaimed a list of New Year’s Resolutions at the start of the calendar year are likely to give up. About 80 percent, studies say, tap out less than two weeks in.
Sketchy research leads us to believe that it was the Babyloians who ions ago babied themselves into using the vernal equinox as an excuse to lean into their two-faced Roman god, Janus. He could hopefully show them a methodology to look back on what happened for historical reference and then gaze at the future to lay the foundation for a new beginning.
Face it, this can all be a self-imposed sanctimonious shitshow.
Above: On January 1, 1943, folk music legend Woody Guthrie jotted in his journal a list of 33 “New Years Rulin’s.” The expectation to “write a song a day” may have been as easy for him to accomplish as his goal to “change socks” and “love everybody.”
If there’s modern science behind the resolution strategy, we can reference Rolling Stone explaining how it’s about having an organizer with weekly planning pages mapped out as check points for weeks and month ahead. Personal health is an important foundation to achieving anything, too. And then start with just drinking more water. A CNN story suggests making it fun instead of punitive, and don’t hammer yourself too much if you get tripped up once and awhile.
Then drink more water. Because that’s a good thing.
One can also focus on “resolutions of the soul” since, again, our human shell isn’t always cooperative. That means find places of quiet, tune out all the news chatter, and enhance your social network. This also folds into a New York Times’ recent presentation of a “7 Day Happiness Challenge,” which we admit has been somewhat productive to this point.
While waiting for right moment to skidoo into ’23, we’ve been focused on the idea of having one-word resolutions, also called “nudge words,” that keep us pointed somewhere productive.
Peace, love, mercy, balance. When a decision arises — sleep or make coffee, read or run a marathon — we can size it up against those tentposts and have some context as to how this could enhance, or detract, from the journey of perfection.
The bottom line here is it seems like bad karma to up and quit anything on a Friday the 13th. We’ll pivot and take this a new launching point. Our focus on four simple things for the newish-’23, considering it an odd-numbered year that follows up a couple of years that left many us feeling uneven, simplifies the target.
See if there’s anything here worth fighting for as we stay hydrated:
2023 Resolution No. 1: Challenge the Circle of Strife
Above: We launched ourselves into the Los Alamitos Traffic Circle a couple days ago. In the rain. The choice of music on the radio in the background is pure coincidence. Hope there is no copyright issues with that.
In a roundabout way, we face daily challenges and take a win when we can get it. Driving through a roundabout conjures a whole other circular argument of what success, failure and just entering a hamster wheel means.
Corollas to the left of me, Jaguars to the right, here I am, stuck in the middle.
More cowbell?
These traffic devices are increasingly popular based on the belief that, when two more major highways meet, eliminate all the traffic signals and give everyone the right away. What could possibly go wrong?
It makes sense if you’ve been sitting at a red light for three minutes and there’s no other cross traffic. Just you. There. Alone. Not wanting to risk a ticket or hit a right-of-way squirrel.
In a passive-aggressive way, these counterintuitive contraptions have been secretively wedged into our local neighborhood street grid. They’re cute. Like a mini-Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride. Like this one here near Miramar Park in Redondo Beach/Torrance.
The intent is noble. Results may vary. Side effects include nausea, anxiety and a will to just keep turning left until dizziness subsides. They put one of them near a friend’s house in Redondo Beach, and eventually took it out. The neighbors found it to be too random for their routine of simply stopping and looking both ways at the intersection for the last 40 years.
In some circles, these things are called traffic circles, because their breadth and depth is less intimidating. They can act as the training wheels before one gets up the nerve to circumnavigate an officially sanctioned roundabout. That’s a real experience in nerve damage.
We often encounter the Keep It Weird Windward Circle that exists in Venice, leading into the main entrance signage, gateway to the equally insane boardwalk. That seems appropriate as paying homage to traffic circles in Europe. Main Street, Windward Avenue and Grand Avenue all feed into, and out of it with five challenging crosswalks marked for those inclined to traverse it without a car.
But locally, the grandmother of them all in Southern California is known as the Los Alamitos Circle, a hub on the Google Map in Long Beach where Pacific Coast Highway meets Lakewood Boulevard meets the Los Coyotes Diagonal, with Ximeno Avenue getting in the way.
On paper, it may look like a fine geometric design for a Spirograph. In real life, it has the feel as if it was schemed by a group of evil engineers who took Dante’s “Inferno” to heart with concentric circles of torment.
At 470 feet in diameter, handling some 6,000 vehicles funneling in and out of it per hours, the suggested rate of 30 miles per hour is what one must know going in.
Go slower, or faster, and you become the problem. It’s like your heart – this is a circulation issue. If you stop, you’re dead.
It’s a heart attack waiting to happen, basically.
The U.S. Department of Transportation put out a 26-page report verifying its usefulness. It all comes down to math. There are 32 conflict points when accidents can occur in a normal signaled intersection. In a roundabout, there are eight. That’s a 75 percent reduction.
In ’93, the Los Alamitos Circle was modified, modernized and reclassified from traffic circle to roundabout by Caltrans. That means, in 2023, it will mark 30 years since the official conversion.
How can we properly mark the occasion and conquer this beautifully beastly design? What is the best way to honor this thing without literally running circles around it?
We’ve been inspired by recent news.
The San Francisco Chronicle reports that a 21-year-old fellow named Tate Dobson, feeling restless one day, ran clockwise around a 460-foot-in-circumfrence roundabout in downtown Healdsburg, which funnels in Highway 101 as part of its arteries. His Strava app showed he logged 415 laps, converting to 36 miles.
We landed on a story from 2015 that claimed a 64-year-old software developer in Indiana “set a world record” by driving around a roundabout in a 1987 VW Cabriolet. He went for more than three hours, 34 minutes, covering more than 65 miles. Something called RecordSetter.com decided this was a worthy achievement. In 2019, the same guy got two more of his pals to join in and used the same car to drive the roundabout over a 24-hour period. The World Record Academy acknowledged this.
Doing this in a car while wasting valuable gas seems extremely counterproductive. But the bottom line is there seems to be a record waiting to be set at the this site. Walking, biking or skateboarding seem more appropriate. Or finding a way to the grass area in the nucleus and firing up a BBQ is more like it. Until local authorities try to shut it down.
Circle the date on a calendar and we’ll figure out what’s best to try something useful. Suggestions?
OK: One more loop on the Los Alamitos Circle, with a different sound track, just to show we’re still trying to stay out of trouble:
2023 Resolution No. 2: Find Comfort in Country Music
You picked a fine time to leave me, Garth.
For the last 50 years, we’ve managed to resist the existence of country music, and we’ve thanked our lucky stars for that. That us, until we were worn down with an appreciation of what was playing on Sirius XM Channel 55, which had been known as the Garth Brooks Channel.
But it is no more. We now realize were we just being strung along to sell tickets to his concerts since 2016.
We became hooked by his eclectic selection of songs and recording artists that played into his own tunes. There was a mesh of history and borrowing and sampling we found entertaining and educational.
Now that it’s gone, what can replace it and continue this teachable moment? Dwight Yoakum’s Bakersfield Beat Channel SXM Channel 349 works. Fiddle de de.
Bakersfield is not just a three-hour drive north of us, but it’s kinda newsworthy. Aside from the U.S. congressmen representing the 20th district of California – that’s the Southern Central Valley that includes parts of Bakersfield – finally begging his way in as Speaker of the House (there’s got to be an approrpriate country song for that), two of his constituents were in the news when they accidentally set themselves on fire trying to burn down an immigration center in Bakersfield. Surveillance cameras caught it all. Damn technology.
Bakersfield is the place we think of when when mentally filing through the catalogue of the Rolling Stones. “Far Away Eyes” off the “Some Girls” album begins:
“I was driving home early Sunday morning through Bakersfield Listening to gospel music on the colored radio station And the preacher said, you know you always have the Lord by your side And I was so pleased to be informed of this that I ran Twenty red lights in his honor Thank you Jesus, thank you Lord”
Imagine listening to that on the radio while in a roundabout with no red lights to run.
Channeling Dwight Yocum, you’ll get the marketing phrase: “From the dust bowl to the Hollywood Bowl.” Merle Haggard, Roy Orbison, Glen Campbell and Ricky Nelson, sure. But the Bakersfield Beat is also the Everly Brothers trying to sing Little Richard’s “Lucille,” to Linda Ronstandt powering through Tom Petty’s “The Waiting.” Eddie Cochran doing “Sittin’ In the Balcony,” followed by the Flying Burrito Brothers’ “Image of Me.” It’s a string of songs that can start with Neil Young’s “Cowgirl In The Sand,” Fuzzy Owen doing “Arkie’s Got Her Shoes On,” the Monkey’s “I’m A Believer,” the Byrds doing “Time Between,” Buddy Holly’s “That’ll be the Day,” to Dave Alvin and the Blasters screaming out “I’m Shakin’.” And then Yocum coming on to connect the dots and even trying to pull off his own version of “Act Naturally” (almost better than Ringo Starr) or “Suspicious Minds” (not even close to Elvis). They are all songs you can imagine Bruce Springsteen singing in concert because they struck a chord with him.
All things considered, it wouldn’t be a surprise to hear something by Tiny Tim or the Butthole Surfers connected somehow on this channel.
Maybe it was a recent trip to Nashville, and heading into the Country Music Hall of Fame building if only to escape the taxing July humidity, when our appreciation took another step forward. A couple nights walking past honky tonks showed an authentic appreciation of all sorts of music genres merging together to hear one big glorious party.
I’m a believer. Can I get another glass of water to go with that PBR and hot chicken sandwich?
2023 Resolution No. 3: Reel in “Moby-Dick”
No more dickin’ around. Just lifting all 600-plus pager with its 136 chapters for weight training isn’t enough.
The artwork alone on the covers this book has had since its 1851 publishing by Harper Brothers is quite impressive enough.
One of them is Herman Melville’s “Moby-Dick.” The review goes: “Like many young adults, Ishmael, the narrator of Melville’s grand adventure of the body and mind, is feeling restless and has little money in his purse. The only solution, as far as he’s concerned, is to go to sea and experience a life away from shore. The ship he chooses sets sail on Christmas, but he’s eager: ‘Spite of this frigid winter night in the boisterous Atlantic, spite of my wet feet and wetter jacket, there was yet, it then seemed to me, many a pleasant haven in store.’ Although Moby-Dick is eventful (seafaring is no picnic), it’s also an exploration of the mind of one man as he throws himself into the unknown. Ishmael’s captain, Ahab, is driven by a single desire: catching the whale that bit off part of his leg. Ishmael, in contrast, is curious and open-minded, eager to learn and experience all that he can.
It also points out that in recent years, Moby-Dick’s fandom has expanded, “perhaps because the book provides both an escape from the world and a deep immersion in it, whales and all.” So it has that going for it.
(That link above to what’s “expanded” was a regular post of book excerpts on Twitter. As that link indicates, it has now migrated over to Mastodon. We’ve dumped Twitter as well, but aren’t sure yet where else we may find cyber-camaraderie. Any suggestions?)
We committed to this whale blubbering only because of a training-wheels entry point with another book, “Why Read Moby-Dick?” by Nathaniel Philbrick (Viking, 2011, 144 pages). Philbrick admits he was named after Nathaniel Hawthorne, who became friends with Melville, and it’s one of the 28 chapters he includes as to why this book should be not just read, but enjoyed.
We’re up to page 63 at the moment, to Chapter 12. We’ve enjoyed the story about how Ishmael came to meet Queequeg, and can appreciate the line: “Better sleep with a sober cannibal than a drunken Christian.”
Proactively drinking water also helps avoid any hangover, no matter what your disposition.
2023 Resolution No. 4: Go Awesome
We often cringe hearing misuse of the word “awesome.” It has always been our belief, as we were taught, that something “awesome” is to be in awe of a God-related circumstance. The sunrise. The sunset. The Grand Canyon. The birth of a child.
The Bible uses the word “awesome” more than three dozen times, and almost all of them refer to God, and all but one of them is in the Old Testament. The Hebrew word means, among other things, to show reverence, to honor, to respect, to inspire reverence or godly fear or awe.
“God is clothed with awesome majesty.” (Job 37:22). “Come and see what God has done: he isawesome in his deeds toward the children of man.” (Ps 66:5)
In his new book that we are reading, “Awe: The New Science of Everyday Wonder and How It Can Transform Your Life,” UC Berkeley professor of psychology and meaningful life expert Dacher Keltner takes a deeper dive into why things that awe us are important on so many levels. From nature, to art, to even sports.
He connects with Steve Kerr, the current coach of the Golden State Warriors, who talks about “the visceral awe” he remembers being at a UCLA basketball game when he was a teenager in 1973: The No. 1 Bruins, amidst an 88-game win streak, held on to beat No. 2 Maryland by one point. With only four seconds left, the Bruins’ Dave Meyers stole the ball from Maryland’s John Lucas and UCLA’s streak was preserved.
“Steve recalls the visceral awe he felt at the game,” Keltner writes. “The pulsing sound of the brass band. The cheerleaders moving in unisoin leading throngs of fans in waves of cheers. The astonishing size and grace of the UCLA players. The students and fans signing the school song, chanting, clapping and roaring in harmony with the game. And amid this moving in unison, collective feeling and shared attention, Steve saw a golden wave of light that moved across the tubas, trumpets and trombones in the UCLA band.”
We’ve been to enough sporting events, live and in person, immersed in the pageantry, to forget to look for those things.
Awe is also supposed to improve your health. Awe wasn’t one of the six basic emotions —anger, surprise, disgust, enjoyment, fear and sadness — once identified back in 1972, Dr. Keltner said. But new research shows that awe “is its own thing,” he said.
That resonated while sitting quietly sitting in church this past Christmas morning. The sun coming out of the south stained-glass window cast a light pattern onto the wall next to the altar and the statue of Jesus Christ, with his arms extended, cast a shadow onto it, as if leading us by hand through the rainbow.
It would only last a couple of minutes because the sun would move, or a cloud would some by, and it was gone. I raised my phone and took the picture quickly so as to not interrupt anyone’s moment, and capture this one for me.
We’ve yet to see the Grand Canyon up close and personal and fear my time is running out to do so. Don’t want to call it a “bucket list” thing, because that intimates it’s something just to be checked off. We want to set aside the time and commitment, knowing we may have to just do this trip alone some weekend because no one else in my traffic circle seems to have the same urgency anymore to go there.
Until then, I’ll watch the 1991 movie “Grand Canyon” again and pretend.
Lifetime members of the Vin Scully Marching and Chowder Society might appreciate this: The Dodgers’ late broadcasting icon would have celebrated his 95th birthday today.
We were grateful for a recent post-Thanksgiving Day ritual, breaking up baseball’s annual dreadful post-World Series, pre-spring training pause, when we could reconnect with him on the phone to mark the occasion, as well as reflect on the past, catch up on the present and ponder the future.
There may continue to be pangs of sadness about his passing last August, but far more gratitude for the moments shared. If anything, the time after his retirement from the broadcast booth in 2016 – following a record 67 seasons – has probably helped us, and the city, through any kind of prolonged grieving process. In fact, a column we did before the ’17 season that tried to help Angelinos possibly identify and cope with our “Scully Separation Anxiety” could still be effective. We also think about how Scully told audiences who saw him during appearances in a Distinguished Speakers Series after his retirement: “It’s better to be gone and not forgotten than to be forgotten but not gone.”
The Voice of Vin, the Sound of Scully, is comforting these days as we process whatever other curve balls life throws at us. It may be with some irony we remember him more for his actions speaking louder than his Hall of Fame-worthy words.
Upon his passing, we did an appreciation column for Angelus News, the local Catholic-based news organization, that tried to frame his character based on his foundation of profound belief through many personal tragedies. A friend of ours created a beautiful blue-toned cover to go with it.
There was even a reason to do an essay that broached the idea: For his impact on the City of Angels, why isn’t there a path to canonization for Vin Scully? As former Dodgers GM Ned Colletti tweeted out on the day of Scully’s funeral: “He showed us every day what true goodness looks like.”
Our connection to Scully starting as a journalist covering the team and the sports media in the 1990s evolved into conversations about history lessons, shared family experiences, and even faith-related topics. He’d offer to call my mother on her birthday, knowing she was such a big fan of the team and of his work through the decades. She even met him once in the Dodger Stadium press box for a photo op and a hug.
We gladly returned the favor to him every November 29.
He talked about how as a kid, he didn’t really want to expect too much on his birthday.
“We lived in a fifth-floor walk-up apartment in New York, not a tenement, but where if you looked out the window, you’d see another window,” he said. “I knew we didn’t have any money. So I always tried to downplay my birthday so that my parents wouldn’t feel obligated to spend money they really didn’t have. I never thought about the number itself. I just kind of pushed it aside as something personal but not for anyone else to get excited about.”
In 2014, as he was turning 87 and pondering when his last season behind the mic may be, we talked about which of the five senses he was most thankful for.
“For me, the sense of sight has to rank No. 1,” he said. “Not only because there’s this great big world to look at, but when you do what to beat a hasty retreat from it, there’s always a good book you can find to read.”
We had talked about the importance of his eyesight earlier as he was preparing to be the grand marshal of the Pasadena Tournament of Roses Parade in January 2014. We asked if he saw the world now with rose-colored glasses. He laughed and replied that he recently had refractive eye surgery so that he wouldn’t have to keep wearing a pair of large eyeglasses while he worked. But he also asked: Please don’t include that in the story. I don’t want people to worry about me and this surgery.
The surgery came out just fine, and few knew that the procedure even occurred. Except he stopped wearing the glasses.
Upon Scully’s passing, the Los Angeles Daily News worked with Triumph Books in Chicago to publish a tribute book, republishing stories the newspaper had done about him over the years. Of the two dozen or so pieces included, we’re humbled to have a handful of our essays there.
One of them we wish we could update.
In 2016, we created a list of Scully’s Top 10 calls of all time, ranging from the Kirk Gibson 1988 World Series home run to his 1982 NFC Championship game for CBS on the Joe Montana-to-Dwight Clark catch to his ad-libs in the 1999 movie “For Love of the Game” with Kevin Costner. But we were reminded this last October that Scully was on the call for the final innings of the nationally televised broadcast when the New York Yankees’ Don Larsen threw a perfect game in the 1956 World Series against the Brooklyn Dodgers.
A piece in USA Today noted how Scully, 29 at the time and sharing the broadcast as the Dodgers’ broadcaster along with the Yankees’ Mel Allen, set the scene at the end of the eighth inning: “Well, all right, let’s all take a deep breath as we go to the most dramatic ninth inning in the history of baseball.” When Larson struck out pinch-hitter Dale Mitchell to end the game, Scully said: “Got him! The greatest game ever pitched in baseball history by Don Larsen. A no-hitter, a perfect game in a World Series!”
Another story we did on Scully that’s missing from the Daily News collection continues to be front and center in our thinking today.
We’ve endorsed having the Ford C. Frick Award, given annually by the Baseball Hall of Fame to someone whose lifetime of broadcasting merits attention, renamed in Scully’s honor. It was recently brought up again by local media.
Scully won this award in 1982, after his 33rd season in the business. He then ran off another 34 seasons before retirement.
Kinda think he should have received two of these awards, right?
Back in 2016, when we asked the Hall of Fame about this name change possibility, there didn’t seem to be any urgency. We even reached out to John Thorn, the official Major League Baseball historian, who gave us this thought: “I try not to have opinions about other people’s business, but Frick is an odd namesake for the award.”
We could give you 95 reasons why the broadcasters’ lifetime achievement honor, which will be announced on Dec. 8 at the Baseball Winter Meetings in Orlando, Fla., should be rebranded as the Vin Scully Award. He embodies the award’s criteria: “Commitment to excellence, quality of broadcasting abilities, reverence within the game, popularity with fans, and recognition by peers.” Here’s a link to the Hall of Fame Frick 2022 ballot.
We have our own Scully tribute area in our office. We see him daily as the background on our desktop computer screen – an unassuming, peaceful shot we took of him from behind when we walked into the Dodger Stadium broadcast booth prior to the 2011 Opening Day Ceremonies and saw him prepping for the game.
This, again, makes us smile. Happy Birthday, Vin. Instead of blowing out another candle on the cake, we’ll light another one in your memory.
Tom Hoffarth is a past IBWAA president in its former incarnation. He has covered sports in Southern California for more than 40 years. His website is www.fartheroffthewall.com/blogs as well as www.TheDrillLA.com
For years, the holiday lists we would post on sports-related gift suggestions we felt were too cool to keep to ourselves became, if anything, a fun exercise in our resourcefulness and sense of taste.
But it was somewhat unsatisfying. The implication that we’d actually like someone in our gifting circle to read these numbered posts and then realize that’s what we were really hinting at having for ourselves never seemed to connect.
We won’t be so subtle this time. No more dropping hints. Self-serving shall now prevail in our post-COVID lockdown holiday existence.
Consider this Top 10 a way to put into the universe things that, if someone decided we were worth spending the dough on and were willing to put it wrapped nicely under our fresh corkbark fir (look it up) Christmas tree, we’d so, so appreciate the gesture.
Here goes:
Thinking caps:
We embrace the idea that those who embrace the cerebral nature of baseball can be referred to as “seamheads.” At Gary Joseph Cieradkowski’s marvelous website seamheads.com, all of that is dutifully celebrated with unique artwork in baseball card form. But let’s unravel this even further. The MLB Game-Used Baseball Beanie is a creation artist Ward Wallau, who says on his website that he figured out how to use some 130 yards of “authenticated yarn” from three game-used baseballs and weave them on a hand-operated knitting machine by a single craftsman to make these hats. Cooler head are prevailing. The knitting is done in the order of the yarn as they appear inside a baseball: outer gray, white and inner gray. The yarn is then softened and the inside of the hat is lined with alpaca wool yarn. They take four weeks to knit and ship — so pick early and often, and you also decide which team you want the balls connected with. Also take some time to see what else is on the Wallau website — custom desks created out of used basketball courts, or hockey stick blades turned into a beer flight sampler. It even says on the about website how, when the Kings won the 2012 Stanley Cup, he asked for and got a puck from the decisive Game 6 win and used it to create a unique collection of cuff links for the Kings’ players. From then, it was a matter of explaining to the hockey players what cuff links were used for. At Tokens & Icons and Uncommon Goods, $235.
Tank toppers:
You’d never see us wearing an NBA (or college basketball) jersey in public.We don’t have the desire or physique for it. But some do make a nice piece of art to put on a hanger and just display in the office. For that, we’re kind of fond of the Clippers’ 2022-’23 Nike City Edition Los Angeles jersey. Especially when put up against what the Lakers did (or didn’t do).
When Los Angeles Times assistant sports editor Chuck Schilken dared to rank the 29 new City Edition jerseys for this season — noting how each was supposed to represent the stories, history and heritage that makes each franchise unique — we agreed right away that the Lakers’ version was dead last and least effective. That jersey was intentionally stripped down to a basic white, with a purple “Los Angeles” moving letters and black numbers. “LOL,” wrote Schilken. “Sounds like someone forgot their art project was due today …” As for the Clippers, it was No. 2 on his list for its rainbow background of the “los angeles” (lower case) script and nods to the Drew League (and its 50th anniversary) and the Watts Towers. By George, he’s correct. In a story posted in The Athletic, Drew League CEO Dino Smiley said he and the Clippers had been “discussing the possibility of a jersey collaboration in early 2020, before the early stages of the coronavirus pandemic. The Clippers were the first of the two L.A. teams to actively reach out … The Lakers, he said, still have not.” Yet, when the Athletic staff ranked the jerseys, it picked the Clippers tied for 14th (still ahead of the Lakers at No. 23) If it’s all a matter of taste, we appreciate the effort as well and history stuffed into this design. Dick’s Sporting Goods, $120.
Our go-to man for this mission is always Anaheim-based artist S. Preston, back to when we did a 2018 piece on him for the Los Angeles Times featuring his MLB stadium collection. These days, we don’t want to minimize the fact that we exist during an historic Southern California moment in the existence of the Rose Bowl and Coliseum – both are hitting the century mark.
The Pasadena landmark opened on October 28, 1922. It was USC breaking the seal as it lost a football game to Cal, 12-0 – the Trojans’ only loss that season. Cal went unbeaten but declined a trip to the Jan. 1, 1923 Rose Bowl. USC went instead and defeated Penn State, 14-3.
In the meantime, USC was awaiting for its own campus-adjacent home to bust loose.
The Coliseum broke ground in December of ’21 and eventually came open in May of ’23 as the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum (in honor of those who fought in World War I). The place had another USC game as its opening event — Oct. 6, ’23, with the Trojans’ 23-7 win over Pomona College. The Coliseum would be the selling point for having the 1932 Summer Olympics arrive amidst the Great Depression, and it still will be a vital centerpiece for the upcoming 2028 Games.
The Rose Bowl has launched a commemorative brick campaign that leads into its Jan. 2, 2023 annual “Granddaddy Of Them All.” There’s also a “Coliseum Forever” campaign going on now that features 100 years of “epic moments” at the place.
We’re apt to take a sweet and simple route, with S. Preston’s minimalist representations of both sites of worship — not just for sporting events, but for all the other things that happened there and are etched in our L.A. collective souls. S. Preston creations of the Rose Bowl and the L.A. Coliseum, $70 medium print; $140 large print. Framing optional.
L.A. History/Documentary film:
Steve DeBro told us recently it’s his intention that fans of the old Olympic Auditorium make the effort to see his new documentary, “18th and Grand,” at one of the various special theater screenings they’ve been able to have from time to time since its debut.
“I tried to make it where you’re carried on a journey that’s almost disorientating, and it should feel like you’re in the Olympic — energetic, fast moving, something that takes you out of yourself,” said the writer, director and producer of the flick. “That’s why in a theater is the best way you don’t get distracted.”
Yeah, well, when there’s a chance to own a copy of the film, you punch your way toward it. This has added features such as extended interviews with some of the key storytellers, like Gene LeBell and Jimmy Lennon. TMC’s Eddie Muller says about it: “ ‘18th & Grand’ resurrects wild and wonderful memories of the Olympic Auditorium, once the beating heart of several vital strains of Los Angeles culture—boxing, wrestling, and punk rock—that weren’t dusted with Hollywood glam and glitter. Looming large is legendary promoter Aileen Eaton, who showed the world how a ballsy broad can mix it up with the big boys.” This is also an opportunity to latch onto some of the equally fresh T-shirts. If only we could call RI.9-5171 to finish this order. www.18thandGrand.com, $20.
For the Bookshelf:
The near-50 titles we worked through for our annual new baseball book titles from March through August is a starting point for fresh ideas in this genre. We gladly steer anyone toward Ron Shelton’s “The Church of Baseball,” Jeff Fletcher’s “Sho-Time,” Dan Good’s “Playing Through the Pain” about Ken Caminiti, Pedro Moura’s “How to Beat a Broken Game: The Rise of the Dodgers in a League on the Brink,” as well as Joe Posnanski’s eternally appreciated “The Baseball 100.”
But wait, there’s more.
David Maraniss’ “Path Lit by Lightning: The Life of Jim Thorpe” is, as Keith Olbermann writes in a New York Times review last August, a true-to-life, forget-the-hyperbole we’ve heard before and “in the last 200 excruciating pages, the Thorpe that Maraniss follows is less the mythological athlete and more a real-life Sisyphus. …Maraniss continually yet gently returns to an affirmation (that) taken as a whole, Jim Thorpe’s story is not one of prejudice, nor the hypocrisy of others, nor even of the superstar who doesn’t fulfill Housman’s ‘To an Athlete Dying Young.’ Whatever life took from him, Thorpe persisted and trained and worked and learned and succeeded to the point that he was the landslide winner of the 1950 Associated Press poll of experts who chose the greatest athlete of the first half of the 20th century. Given the precision with which Maraniss measures the almost unbearable weight of the odds against Thorpe, the reader begins to question if the qualifiers were actually unnecessary, and if Thorpe isn’t simply the greatest athlete — full stop.”
We also came across a New Yorker list of “The Best Books of 2022 So Far,” updated Nov. 16. They included this intriguing entry for those of us who are in the final quarter of our projected existence:
“The Last Days of Roger Federer: And Other Endings,” by Geoff Dyer (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, released last May). Dyer, who lives in Venice, writes that as he was “dilly-dallying, unsure how to start this book about how things end,” a press conference in 2019 occurred as Andy Murray announced he would retire from tennis as he lost in the Australian Open. “More than moving, it was devastating to watch,” Dyer writes. “The whole thing made for harrowing, and, of course, absolutely absorbing viewing.” Dyer had already had this book in mind watching Roger Federer’s eventual run toward his tennis retirement. There are many more sports-related angles to this as it covers an assortment of people and their heading to the finish line. Maybe it’s something we need to read at this point in our lives. “There are some gorgeous passages” in the book, writes the New York Times’ Jennifer Szalai, “some marvelous bits of criticism, some enthralling descriptions of psychedelics.”
Take a whiff:
When your thoughts drift to what it’s like walking into Dodger Stadium, what smells come to mind?
Maybe right now, there’s a Yellow Brick Road afterglow. But that will end.
From Elton John to Farmer John (and Tommy John in between), we’ve got a good sense to ask that this offering of the “Dodgers Fan Bundle” not try to hard to capture what may be impossible. But we’re willing to give it our two scents worth. Light it up.
It says the Dodgers candle has “top notes” of popcorn, tajin spice and crisp beer, with lesser notes of peanuts, grilled corn, lime, sea salt, fresh grass, red clay and peppercorn. Paired it with the “Los Angeles” candle, which features orange, rose, ylang ylang oil, lemon, jasmine and musk.
(Really, you’re gonna muck this up with musk? Isn’t that asking for trouble?)
“With fireworks as impressive as the A-list fan base, the crowd exits the stadium with a belly full of esquites and a bright blue tongue reminiscent of ice cream and ices,” reads the description. Pure poetry, right? There’s also the option to “make it person” for $15 more, using 130 characters to create a message that will be affixed to the back of the candle. Like: “Did you get that whiff of that Cody Bellinger whiff.” Homesick.com, $77 for the two.
Dining and entertaining:
Kobe Bryant was never accused of coasting when he was on the basketball court. Yet four of his greatest contributions to our memory of him are immortalized on things you’re supposed to put your beverage on to avoid a wet ring on the coffee table.
The coasters feature, in order: His lob to Shaquille O’Neal in the 2000 Western Conference Finals Game 7 (while Rick Fox, Glenn Rice and Robert Horry were all posting up for 3-point opportunities); his 2004 Western Conference Final Game 4 game winner over Phoenix as time ran out; the last points of his 2006 81-point game against Toronto (at the free-throw line with 43 seconds left and an 18-point lead); and his April 2016 final game, called “Mamba Out,” where he dribbled around a Randle screen and hit a jumper with 31 seconds left against Utah to have him finish with 60 points. A toast, to Kobe, and other absent friends. Playbookproducts.com, in leather for $30 or in slate for $40.
Technology:
We’re not expecting much any more when we happen to have six hours to spend on a golf course. The goal is to start and finish without any injuries — physical or psychological — and perhaps lose only a half-dozen balls. Playing quickly — or, at least not painfully slow — is the way to go. It’s never a walk spoiled if done with a purpose.
Here’s a gadget that may not only improve our lies, but also improve the way we don’t have to lie so much on our scorecard. The GPS Audible Golf Range Finder is said to be a first in that it can announce rather than make one read the distance to the pin from your place in the fairway. Consider it a conversation starter. Or a way to mess with the others in your foursome who think you’re just arguing with yourself. It’s compatible with that iPhone or Galaxy/Android that you should have left in the car, but this time there is the usefulness of allowing it to provide a screen to show the distance and pathway in map form (as you upload a variety of courses into the memory bank). The website reviews give it 4.1 out of 5 stars. Among the few one-star reviewers: “This is too techy for me. After reading the instructions, I didn’t even take it out of the box.” Then mail it to me, pal. A five-star reviewer added: “The trick is to keep the speaker volume at maximum in order to hear easily on the remote visor unit.” Point taken. We endorse anything that prevents slow play. Especially if you’re on one of golf’s “Top 18 most dangerous courses,” with two of them not too far away from us. Scholl Canyon in Glendale above the Verdugo Mountain range is just a par 60 track, but it’s laid out on top of an old landfill. They say there’s some issues with grass growing as well other methane bursts. (We’re led to believe the same is true with The Links at Victoria Park in Carson. Read some of these reviews.) The other time you may need to play at a quicker pace is at the Compton Par 3 course (6400 E. Compton Blvd., next to the L.A. River and the 710 Freeway near Dominguez High), which we aren’t sure if it’s reopened after the pandemic. Swing at your own risk. At SharperImages.com, $129.99.
Side note: An initial public sale of gallery and upgraded tickets to the 123rd U.S. Open Championship at Los Angeles Country Club starts Monday Nov. 28 at 9 a.m. Enter the online waiting room at usopen.com up to 30 minutes ahead of the on-sale window if you like (where’s no benefit to entering earlier). There are daily tickets that start at $125 and go up to $1,300 and beyond. You can only get two tickets per day per transaction. One for me and … More info here.
Home Curlers:
We were reading recently with some remorse about how the Southern California Curling Center in Vernon (near downtown L.A.) was getting evicted from its facility. Founder and CEO Peter Dohm had told some media members about how SCCC, which established itself at this place in July 2021, finally built the first and only curling-specific venue in Southern California (4545 Pacific Blvd., Vernon). But it has had issues with its landlord (Dynamic Holdings LLC) over the last year because of L.A. County COVID Rent Moratorium Protections.
SCCC says it lost nearly $100,000 in the process and elected officials were weary to get involved in a civil dispute between landlord and tenant, said Dohm. “I am proud of what SCCC has achieved over the last two and a half years at our location, overcoming 15 months of COVID shutdowns to get opened, hosting over 5,000 curlers of all levels, including the USA Olympic and Paralympic Teams, the 2022 gold medalists from Sweden and many others that have helped make memories here,” said Dohm.
The place shut down in October. Lawsuits are pending. “I have put in 110 percent every day – even if most was behind the scenes – and given all the troubles, I am damn proud of what we achieved,” Dohm said. “I promise to you is that we will curl again on dedicated ice in Southern California at some point.”
We’ve tried curling before. We can’t find the story on any website, but we found a Deadspin.com compilation of all the stupid reporter-tries-curling stories prior to the 2010 Winter Games, and we made it in there. Lucky us. We’re still up to curl. At home. Where we know the landlord will be nice to us. The Hovering Curling Set won’t replace the real thing, but allows you to do that thing you do in ice with air-propelled stones that float across the floor. Do it next to a fireplace if that helps create the right mood. At SharperImage.com, $129.99.
More non-ice time stuff:
We’ve never ridden on a Zamboni but this could be the next-best thing. Of course, not for us. Something to have at the house when the grandson pops by. But we’d likely take it on a test run first. The Panorama City-based ice surfacing company has done all sorts of deals with the NHL, making die-cast toys, Pez dispensers and Monopoly tokens. All worthy of gift gifting. But now, something for kids aged 3-to-8, Kook Karz Playground has a somewhat realistic ride-on version replica ice resurfacer. It’s complete with four rubber tires, horn, LED headlights, and a “snow collection tank” that acts as a storage. It also has a 22-pound rechargeable battery. Best, a sound track of Zamboni noises. Sure, Zamboni drivers usually sit toward the back of the real deal, but now they’re front and center. In case they’re driving it up the driveway and a squirell decided to try to play chicken with it. Trust us, we’ve seen it happen. It may not end well for everyone. More info with this ESPN.com story. At NHL.com, Zamboni.com and KoolKarzPlayground.com, $349.99.
This whole Twitter thing — it was what it was. And now, for us, it isn’t.
Coaxed into the virtual party year ago, engaging on-and-off-and-on because of the enjoyably toxic exchange of ideas, opinions, observations and usable information. Driven out by, who really knows why.
But for better or not-so-worse, and few regrets, we’re dropping the mike.
We can’t say it has nothing to do with all the recent news of its ownership change, employee layoffs, workers distress, policy ideas floated, or the welcoming back of at least one major proponent of abusive-minded posts that push Freedom of Speech to absurd limits. But that’s only an ugly slice of it.
(And by the way: Our deepest respect continues for Dan LeBatard, as he continuously calls out those who allow “dangerous rhetoric” to take place, has an effective continual proper use of the phrase “orange, racist turd,” and eventually has come, like us, to the sad conclusion that he can’t honestly advise anyone thinking of getting into journalism after the way the industry has allowed to be “trashed … How can I advise anybody to choose that as a career path when it feels so unsafe?”)
"This orange, racist turd without a subtlety in his body be able to just crush my industry with 'Fake News, Fake News!' as I see propaganda takeover and misinformation all over the internet." https://t.co/Coyzx9JSjQ
And there we lazily go, using another Tweet to illustrate a point.
When you’re handed a loaded social-media weapon of mass distraction, not always having the discipline to fire without being ready or aiming correctly at nothing in particular, you hope you learn things about your own self. We did.
We have no memorable exchanges in our Twitter chronicles. We doubt we will even take any steps to save whatever we posted. It was there for the moment captured somewhere perhaps in someone’s archives like any conversation you would have with a person. We will remember the best parts and try to learn from the worst all while not getting consumed with trying to save everything we’ve ever sat or posted.
Maybe we pulled an Irish goodbye. We didn’t announce “so long” to anyone. We just left the party as quietly and cautiously as we entered it years ago.
We had our reservations about it before we even joined in, finally coaxed in by a colleague who thought “you’d be really good at this.” Quick, witty opinions. Networking. Linking to stories that carried some weight and otherwise might be missed.
We had already seen some of our friends leave in the past few weeks. One said he was tired of getting a new wave of threats from a community of random followers. Another said the platform just felt like an abusive ex-spouse.
We enjoyed posting things like the view of a sunset from our front porch, date and time stamping it. It would draw a few likes or retweets, but even those became fewer and fewer.
If the simple things you’re trying to share aren’t being accepted, and the quality of the platform continues to crumble, you can either ride it out to an ugly finish, cursing and screaming about it, or politely exit, stage whatever, and embrace exchange services that are more aligned with what you’re trying to accomplish.
Like LinkedIn. Solid, reliable, a place with a purpose.
We recently read (and shared) this piece from The Atlantic — “The Age of Social Media is Ending” — that seemed to explain best to us how and why some got here and there in the first place. It was very complimentary of the LinkedIn mission statement and how it was still staying in that lane of engagement.
We’re all in, the more we use it.
It’s been a couple days now and we’re remembering the line from the movie “Office Space,” where the hired consultants talk to the employee in an interview:
“We hear you’d been missing working lately.”
“Well, I wouldn’t say I’m missing it,” he replies.
We don’t really miss Twitter. The addictive, dopamine nature of it – finding something new to stimulate the brain every three seconds, generating a response, thinking through it before posting, then ultimately deciding whether it may or may not provide some entertainment and information to someone else – actually is a nice thing to avoid.
We’re just in another career-related makeover, and we don’t need anchors around our ankles moving forward. And, in the end, as we pulled the plug last week, Twitter felt just that way.
In the end, our Twitter bio just said two simple words – “Yesterday’s news” – because that’s how we’ve felt about things.
And that has changed.
We’re in the present, moving forward. Twitter is yesterday’s news.
Tom Hoffarth's The Drill: More Farther Off the Wall 