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Tag Archives: Literature
Major League Baseball to Play the West End (Figuratively Speaking)
The Boston Herald reports the Boston Red Sox and the New York Yankees plan to resume their classic rivalry via a series in London—in 2018.* This follows the recent agreement reached by MLB, and is a further example of professional … Continue reading
A Memoir of Teenage Obsession and Terrible Cricket
A mere 48 hours away at this writing is the 75th anniversary of the start of Joe DiMaggio’s 56-game hitting streak. How the Yankee Clipper came to accomplish it puzzles the will. I have no intention of soliloquizing: What more … Continue reading
Getting All Political, but Not What You May Think
For several dozen reasons, President Obama’s historic visit to Cuba on the first day of spring 2016 is historic. We at Right off the Bat have covered everything from baseball in Iran to (probably somewhere in this blog, certainly in … Continue reading
Ed Reulbach: Pioneering Jewish Baseball Star (to which I, Evander, add a *)
In the history of MLB, only one pitcher has thrown shutouts in both ends of a doubleheader. (For cricket fans and the many baseball fans too young to remember or know, the regularly scheduled doubleheader means two games in one … Continue reading
Posted in Baseball, Right Off the Bat Website
Tagged Brooklyn Dodgers, Brooklyn Superbas, Chicago Cubs, doubleheader, Edward Reulbach, Federal League, Frank Chance, Joe Tinker, Johnny Evers, Literature, Major League Baseball, Mordecai (Three Fingers) Brown, National Baseball Hall of Fame, National League, National League pennant winners, Sandy Koufax, St. Louis Cardinals, Twi-night Doubleheader, World Series
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Dazzy Vance and W. C. Fields
In 1926 W. C. Fields filmed It’s the Old Army Game. The silent—minus shell-game patter (if only via intertitles)—movie has something to do with Florida real-estate scams, including elements Fields would re-create in his masterful It’s a Gift. But Army … Continue reading
Cricket Comes to Citi Field Revisited
Early November settles in Citi Field. The World Series is over, tho there are still faded signs stenciled outside the first-and-third-base lines proclaiming it. The mound has been flattened and covered, and there is a mostly dirt pitch carved in … Continue reading
Posted in Australia, Cricket, England, India, Pakistan, Right Off the Bat Book, Right Off the Bat Website, South Africa, Sri Lanka, T20 Cricket, West Indies
Tagged Babe Ruth, Citi Field, Gil Hodges, Literature, Lou Gehrig, Muttiah Muralitharan, Ricky Ponting, rounders, Sachin Tendulkar, Shaun Pollock, sir curtly ambrose, Tom Seaver, World Series
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Fathers and Sons (and Baseball of Course)
I (Evander) promised myself a few years ago to read more Russian literature. After all, the culture (technically Ukrainian and also probably Lithuanian) represents three-eighths of my heritage. And I remembered Hemingway saying that he fought Ivan Turgenev to a … Continue reading
Priceless
As the 2015 baseball season winds down, with many of the final-season playoff spots secured or all but, the North American Baseball World gathered yesterday in New Jersey to bid farewell to Yogi Berra. They were all there, the ones … Continue reading
Pure Products of America
Babe Ruth and Elvis Presley died the same day: August 16. Think about this. Their deaths occurred fewer than thirty years apart. Each revolutionized and exported American culture while barely stepping foot outside North America. Elvis never performed away from … Continue reading
England Subside Again . . . and Again
It is a truth universally acknowledged that when England win a Test match against opposition against whom they are “meant” to have lost, there will be much talk of “new beginnings” and “resurgence.” What is less universally acknowledged is that, a few … Continue reading
Posted in Australia, Cricket, England, New Zealand, Test Cricket, West Indies
Tagged Literature, The Ashes
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