From a John Lardner column for Newsweek, “The World’s Richest Problem Child”:

The St. Louis Browns have hired a professional pyschologist for the spring training season to currycomb their inferiority complex. The Boston Red Sox, on the other hand, have chosen a simpler way of treating their own pyschological problem, who goes by the name of Theodore S. Williams.

I am taking the word of certain experts for it that Williams has, or is, a psychological problem. Around the American League the pitchers tell you that if anything is wrong with Williams, they can only pray that it’s not catching. Give three or four other batsmen Theodore’s disease and the pitching profession will be totally wrecked.

However, as I say, many students of human mentality (most of them play the same instrument that I do, the typewriter, and have learned psychology by close observation of the bartender at the water hole around the corner from the office) have been saying for years that Mr. Williams has a complex. They watch him with honest pity as he gropes his way through the shadowland between .340 and .406. They agree with a sigh that he is the strongest left-hand-hitting neurotic they have ever seen.

A few weeks ago Thomas A. Yawkey, the Red Sox owner, took cognizance of Ted’s condition and tried the cure I spoke of above. It is a form of shock treatment. The subject is pelted softly but firmly with handfuls of green banknotes in large denominations. The size of the dose varies with the individual. Mr. Yawkey might still be showering his patient with engravings of General Grant had not Williams, rising from the couch when the total reached $125,000, remarked, by way of small talk, that he was satisfied.

Well, this is just too much fun. Joe Pos lists 32-great calls.

I’ve got a nomination for one of the worst calls–Tom Seaver, Howard Cosell, and Keith Jackson botching Reggie’s third dinger.

The fifth and deciding game of the ALDS between the Rangers and the Rays features a fantastic match-up of left-handed twirlers. In fact, it’s been raining lefties in the ALDS, with four Cy Young candidates showing off their stuff. CC Sabathia and Francisco Liriano faced off in the Yankee-Twin opener, and Cliff Lee and David Price go at each other for the second time tonight. Throw in the fine performances of Andy Pettitte and CJ Wilson and left-handed batters have not felt very comfortable since the regular season ended.

I’ll never forget my introduction to the lefty’s breaking ball. For left-handed batters, it’s a rite of passage. Mine came in the ultimate setting, the batting cages near the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, NY. I was eight or nine years old and I had never seen a batting cage that spit out breaking pitches. The cage with the shortest line featured a lefty slide-piece and I jumped in without a clue for what was in store.

The first round was not a happy experience – the bend was just too unsettling. The ball came directly at my front, right shoulder before succumbing to the laws of physics and dropping down and towards the plate. I realized that even though the pitches looked like they were going to hit me, they always broke down and away before impact. I just had to trust it, keep the front shoulder pointed at the machine, and wait for it.

After attention-getting success in the second round (after all this time, I can remember the special feeling of a gathering crowd behind the cage) , the baseball gods decided that this was too much, too fast. Or maybe one of the balls was just worn down too much to generate the proper spin when released from the machine. As it came hurtling toward my front shoulder, I dug in and waited for the break. It never broke. The ball just bore in and in and plowed into my lead arm. It stung badly and I watched, through tears, as the last few pitches sailed over my head. The balls whacked the backstop with that depressing thud. 

I understood something there on the ground. This was the deal you made when facing a lefty. If you want to cover that pitch, you have to give in, trust the break and accept the consequences. That’s how these pitchers keep us from hitting everything they throw. Among other dastardly things, they can move us off the plate; they can drill us in the arm.

Cliff Lee and David Price are both incredibly tough lefties, but that doesn’t mean that facing them is a similar experience. Look at their release points. David Price comes at you from the sling-shot arm slot, like a Randy Johnson-lite. The fastball and the breaking ball sweep across the left-handed batter’s box, but the fastball materializes suddenly on the hands while the breaking ball just keeps slipping down and away. Distinguishing one from the other is the difference between a difficult at bat and an impossible one.

Cliff Lee comes more over the top, which might be preferable for some lefties. But because of the expert way Lee hides the ball, and the movement he generates on all his pitches, he replaces the sweeping motion of Price with dart-gun precision and an unpredictability that the sling-shot lefty does not possess.

Both Lee and Price have success at limiting left-handed batters, but in two of the last three years, Lee actually had better numbers against righties. Price displayed the more traditional platoon advantage this year. Small sample sizes are in play for both, but I can believe that Price’s sweeping approach makes things more difficult for lefties but is slightly easier to track from the right-handed batter’s box. Meanwhile, Cliff Lee’s overhand style sacrifices some advantage versus lefties to better contend with the righties.

Outside of Ben Zobrist, none of the Rays did much with Cliff Lee in the first game. And then the righty-heavy lineup did even less with CJ Wilson in Game Two. I wonder if Joe Maddon will be tempted to start some of the lefties tonight, since the offense finally put runs on the board in Texas. Ron Washington has a much easier decision. His right-handed sluggers damaged Price the first time around and he can feel confident in trotting the same team out there again.

I expect Cliff Lee to be excellent, and I expect David Price to be much better than last time. But I don’t think he will be good enough. I expect the Rangers will win a low-scoring affair, 3-1. But no matter the outcome, Yankee fans can look forward to seeing a tough lefty in Yankee Stadium in Game 3 of the ALCS.

This topic seems to get brought up every season at some point, but nothing ever comes of it. I was reminded of it again during last night’s NLDS game, when I kept trying to root for the Braves. Whenever I started to feel a little enthusiasm, the crowd would start up with the Tomahawk Chop, and it was quickly snuffed out.

Look: I know it’s a tradition; I know the vast majority of people who do that chant, or wear caricatured Cleveland Indians mascot gear, are not racist and have no actual problem with Native Americans. But it’s well past time for those fans, and those teams, to demonstrate that by knocking this stuff off. Even if no great harm is being done now, these are the vestigial remains of a very real racism which has done plenty of harm, and I don’t understand why anyone would want to associate themselves with it. Does the pleasure of tradition really outweigh the ickiness of taking part, however briefly, in that kind of creaky, ugly, outdated world view?

The usual response to this argument is “lighten up,” and sure, there are bigger problems in the world today. But words have power, and so does iconography, and the argument “I just like doing this chant” simply doesn’t outweigh the negatives of perpetuating trite racist stereotypes.  I know a lot of great Braves fans, and none of them are enthusiastic Tomahawk Choppers; I know a few Indians fans, and none of them are comfortable with Chief Wahoo. This doesn’t seem to negatively impact their enjoyment of (or, more recently, hair-pulling frustration with) their team.

Imagine that a team had a Jewish caricature for a mascot. And that their traditional chant involved counting money. It’s actually not easy to picture because it would never, ever fly today, and I’m not sure why this is considered all that different. Last night I made the mistake of looking for a Jewish caricature to illustrate this point, and I came across a couple. One is part of a clever series at a website called Honor Indians, which along with imaginary team logos for “The Cincinnati Rednecks” and “The L.A. Wetbacks” is making an argument against the use of Indian mascots:

The other image I found is not making a satirical point. It’s from a cesspool of a white supremacist site which, for obvious reasons, I’m not going to link to:

Morbid curiosity got the better of me and I couldn’t help reading a few posts – about Jews ruining the Aryan Nation, “muds,” “wetbacks,” and a lot worse; how seeing white women with black men made the writer want to castrate the men and chop off the women’s heads; honoring the anniversary of Hitler’s coup; debating the feasibility of ethnic cleansing in America today.

To be clear, this is the site of a fringe sociopath and, OBVIOUSLY, in no way reflects the views of Braves or Indians fans. And it’s exactly because that kind of thinking – the kind that represents a race of people as an ugly little cartoon, or takes the centuries-old reduction of Native Americans into scalping warriors and turns it into a cheer – in no way reflects the views of fans that we should distance ourselves from it whenever we have the chance. No matter how innocent it might have become over the years, that’s just not a tradition worth carrying on.

Time to get creative, Braves fans – and well past time to ditch the Chop.

From the New York Magazine archives, here’s a 1969 piece on Joe Namath by Jimmy Breslin:

In the world of Joe Willie Namath, location and time really don’t matter. They are trying to call this immensely likeable 25-year-old by the name of Broadway Joe. But Broadway as a street has been a busted-out whorehouse with orange juice stands for as long as I can recall, and now, as an expression, it is tired and represents nothing to me. And it certainly represents nothing to Joe Willie Namath’s people. His people are on First and Second Avenues, where young girls spill out of the buildings and into the bars crowded with guys and the world is made of long hair and tape cartridges and swirling color and military overcoats and the girls go home with guys or the guys go home with girls and nobody is too worried about any of it because life moves, it doesn’t stand still and whisper about what happened last night. It is out of these bars and apartment buildings and the life of them that Joe Willie Namath comes. He comes with a Scotch in his hand at night and a football in the daytime and last season he gave New York the only lift the city has had in so many years it is hard to think of a comparison.

When you live in fires and funerals and strikes and rats and crowds and people screaming in the night, sports is the only thing that makes any sense. And there is only one sport anymore that can change the tone of a city and there is only one player who can do it. His name is Joe Willie Namath and when he beat the Baltimore Colts he gave New York the kind of light, meaningless, dippy and lovely few days we had all but forgotten. Once, Babe Ruth used to be able to do it for New York, I guess. Don’t try to tell Namath’s people on First Avenue about Babe Ruth because they don’t even know the name. In fact, with the young, you can forget all of baseball. The sport is gone. But if you ever have seen Ruth, and then you see Namath, you know there is very little difference. I saw Ruth once when he came off the golf course and walked into the bar at the old Bayside course in Queens. He was saying how f’n hot it was and how f’n thirsty he was and he ordered a Tom Collins and the bartender made it in a mixing glass full of chopped ice and then handed the mixing glass to Ruth and the Babe said that was fine, kid, and he opened his mouth and brought up the mixing glass and there went everything. In one shot, he swallowed the mixing glass, ice chunks and everything else. He slapped the mixing glass down and said, give me another one of these f’n things, kid. I still never have seen anybody who could drink like that. After that day, I believed all the stories they told about Ruth.

It is the same thing when you stand at the bar with Joe Namath.

I think David Price and the Rays will find a way to beat Cliff Lee and the Rangers tomorrow night. Either way, neither Lee or Price is likely to start Game One of the ALCS against the Yankees. Over at the Pinstriped Bible, Steve Goldman takes a look at the possible pitching rotation for the New Yorkers:

Now, we know that the Rangers are reluctant to use Lee on short rest, but perhaps young Price won’t be subject to the same limitations. Yet, moving up Price, or Lee for that matter, doesn’t change anything. Whether they pitch Saturday (three days) or Monday (five days), they’re getting two starts in the seven games. If they pitch on regular rest on Monday, they have the benefit of their usual recovery time, and the manager retains the option of asking them to come back on short rest for Game 6 or regular rest for Game 7.

After the first four games, determining the matchups becomes difficult and depressing. Given Andy Pettitte’s fragile physical state, it seems spectacularly unlikely he would pitch on short rest for Game 5. That means A.J. Burnett or Ivan Nova or Waite Hoyt or someone who wouldn’t ideally start is going if Game 5 is necessary. One alternative, and it’s probably not a good idea or even a realistic one, is Hughes pitching Game 2 . This would open up the possibility of shis tarting Game 5 on three day’s rest. Then Pettitte would pitch Game 3 and would line up to pitch in the seventh game if, for some reason, Sabathia couldn’t make another short-rest start.

Well, kids, get your Rays gear on, because if this series goes five games, that means no Cliff Lee or David Price in Game 1 of the ALCS. Which we can now talk about freely without jinxing anything! (Again, not that I believe in any of that jinx stuff, of course).

Anyway, they’ll always be the Devil Rays to me; I was so annoyed when their silly name change actually worked. But I’ll be pulling for ’em today.

Roy Halladay has thrown a no-hitter in Game 1 of the NLDS against the Reds. The bum walked a batter in fifth inning.

Oh, Doctor!

[Picture by Bags]

As another postseason begins, today’s events serve as a reminder that it’s time for our annual public safety announcement:

BEWARE OF MOLINAS.

Molinas are extremely common this time of year. Always keep in mind that, even if they do not appear to be a threat, Molinas are very dangerous and can strike without warning. Almost every fall they claim at least one victim, tragedies that could likely have been avoided by taking a bit more care.

So, please, remember to remain on your guard when in the presence of Molinas throughout October and early November. If you come across one, do not attack or threaten it, do not approach its young, and do not hang any curveballs. Back slowly away and overpower it with your fastball. If all else fails, Molinas can generally be outrun.

Observing these simple safety tips will help ensure that you have a happy, healthy, and pleasant fall season.

-Your Friends at Bronx Banter

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Photo of Molinas in their natural habitat by Iscan via Flickr

I’m going to enjoy watching the Rays and Rangers series. Consider this a game thread.

Speaking of Texas, here’s a long piece on Nolan Ryan and the Rangers by Jonathan Mahler for the New York Times Magazine:

In our conversations, Ryan lamented the fate of the modern pitcher, who has had to contend not only with performance-enhanced hitters but with certain changes to the rules of the game. During his playing days, Ryan relied heavily on intimidation; he is particularly annoyed by the empowering of umpires to eject pitchers from games for throwing at batters. “You take an aggressiveness out of the pitchers and put it into the hitters,” he told me in his office, where a pair of large oil paintings of cowboys on the Texas frontier hang above his desk.

Initially drafted in 1965 by the Mets, Ryan won his only World Series ring with New York but still couldn’t wait to leave. After a stint with the Angels, he became a free agent in 1979 and promptly returned home to Texas, pitching nine years in Houston before finishing out his career with the Rangers.

Ryan retired as one of the greatest pitchers ever, but the subsequent ascendance of statistical analysis in baseball has not been especially kind to his legend: the growing appreciation for walks as an offensive weapon has knocked him down more than a few pegs in the pitching pantheon. What remains remarkable about Ryan, though, is not simply his longevity — even in his 40s, his fastball approached 100 miles an hour — but his durability. At age 42, he once threw 166 pitches in a single game.

Ryan was never known as a student of the art of pitching. He was a power pitcher, blessed with an absurdly strong, seemingly indestructible arm. But he now has firmly held convictions about how to handle pitchers, and they stand in direct opposition to baseball’s prevailing orthodoxy — what he calls “the babying” of modern-day pitchers. “Pitch counts drive me nuts,” Ryan said. “You gonna put Steve Carlton or Tom Seaver or Bob Gibson on a pitch limit?”

Dig this interview with me over at Gelf. I’ll be part of the next Varsity Letters Reading Series, this Thursday at 7:30 in Brooklyn.

Joe Pos on Vin Scully:

What Vincent Edward Scully first came to Los Angeles to broadcast Dodgers baseball games in 1958, he worried because he could not find the essence of the city. The center. The heart. He was 30 years old, and he had some clear ideas about what it took to call a baseball game. He thought it was important that the hometown baseball announcer know the hometown. So, he kept looking for this PLACE. That’s was how his mind worked then. There had to be a place. Back in New York, there was always a place.

Vin Scully heard life in New York City rhythms then — well, he had grown up in New York. He went to school in New York. He had worked with Red Barber in New York. And in New York there’s always a place, doesn’t matter if it’s Brooklyn or the Bronx, Harlem or Greenwich Village, Manhattan or Queens. There’s a place you go, where people gather, where decisions are made, where the energy pulses, where everything starts.

“In New York, for me, it was Toots Shor’s,” he says. That was the restaurant, of course, there on 51st street between 5th and 6th Avenues but closer to 6th. That was where things were always going on, where Vin could feel the city’s vibrations, its power. He might see Joe DiMaggio sitting with Marilyn Monroe. He might catch Frank Sinatra talking a little boxing. He might catch a glimpse or Ernest Hemingway or see Jackie Gleason hold court or see Judy Garland sitting in a corner. More than anything, though, he might hear what was happening in his town, what mattered, and Vin Scullly needed to know these things. He felt sure they made him a better baseball announcer.

Rays, Royals tonight out in the heartland…

[Picture by J. Parthum, Fort Greene, BK]

Over at SI.com, our man Cliff takes a look at how the Award season will play out. AL MVP?

1. Miguel Cabrera, 1B, Tigers (1)

Season Stats: .328/.419/.624, 38 HRs, 126 RBIs

September has been Cabrera’s worst month this season by far, but his extraordinary consistency is starting to win out as he has heated back up over the last week and enters Monday night’s action with an active six-game hitting streak during which he has gone 9-for-23 with four home runs. Cabrera doesn’t do much outside of the batter’s box and plays for a team barely keeping its head above .500, but no other American Leaguer has produced at such an elite level so consistently throughout the 2010 season. Cabrera has also started all but six of the Tigers’ games this season.

2. Robinson Cano, 2B, Yankees (3)

Season Stats: .318/.379/.532, 28 HRs, 105 RBIs

Hamilton has far and away the superior rate stats, but due to their disparate playing time, Cano leads the injured Rangers’ outfielder in RBIs, hits, runs, and walks (!), and is just one double and three home runs shy of Hamilton’s season totals. Give Cano additional credit for playing a far more challenging position, striking out fewer times in more than an hundred extra plate appearances, and for simple reliability (he has started all but three of the Yankees’ games this year), and he slips past the former frontrunner in this race.

Over at the Pinstriped Bible, Cliff, Steven and Stephani say Bring on the Rangers. Jay’s like, nah, bring on the Twins.

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Bronx Banter Productions presents

JAVY & THE STRIKE ZONE:

Thin Chalk Line Between Love and Hate

(Rated R for scenes of extreme, graphic violence against baseballs thrown by Javier Vazquez)

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EXT. ROGERS CENTRE, TORONTO, NIGHT.

JAVIER VAZQUEZ [34, fit, haunted eyes] stands on the mound, tossing warm-up pitches, listless. The STRIKE ZONE [ageless, flirty, too beautiful to trust] approaches, stands at home plate. Waits for him to notice. Vazquez looks over, flinches.

STRIKE ZONE: Hi, Javy. Good to see you. It’s been a while.

Long, awkward pause.

STRIKE ZONE: I’ve missed you–

JAVY: Don’t.

Behind the Strike Zone, FRANCISCO CERVELLI busily cleans the plate and pretends not to listen, embarrassed.

STRIKE ZONE: Oh, Javy. We were so good together – you know we were.

JAVY: It hasn’t been good for a long time now.

STRIKE ZONE: If only we hadn’t left the National League… we were happy there.

JAVY: Look, I just, I can’t be with you anymore. I don’t want to get hurt again.

STRIKE ZONE: How many times do I have to tell you that I’m sorry? Give me one more chance.

JAVY: After everything… how can I trust you now?

STRIKE ZONE: Please. Just come back, Javy. It’ll be different this time.

Vazquez looks at his shoes, at Cervelli, at the stands. Trying to control his emotions.

JAVY: Dave Eiland says–

STRIKE ZONE: Dave Eiland doesn’t know me, Javy. Not like you do.

JAVY: I need time to think.

STRIKE ZONE: We don’t have any more time! The playoffs start next week, and if you don’t want to be with me, I know Ivan Nova does.

JAVY: You wouldn’t.

STRIKE ZONE: Just look at yourself, Javy. What are you without me?

Vazquez stares deep into the Strike Zone’s eyes.

STRIKE ZONE: Come here, baby. Touch me.

[Vazquez looks for a long moment… sets, and hurls a fastball right down the middle. TRAVIS SNYDER, JOHN BUCK, and AARON HILL hit home runs. The Yankees lose to the Blue Jays, 8-4.]

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Let’s all hope we don’t see Vazquez pitch in the playoffs, or I may end up writing a full-length horror film.

On the plus side:

-Alex Rodriguez hit his 30th home run – the 14th time he’s done so (tied for most all-time with one Barry Lamar Bonds), and the 13th consecutive season, which is a record.

-There was also a lovely-seeming pregame ceremony honoring outgoing Toronto manager Cito Gaston, who is retiring on his own terms and earned himself an outpouring of affection from Toronto fans. (I say lovely-seeming because YES didn’t show all of it, and I got home too late for most of what they did show). But I was especially pleased to see that many of the Blue Jays players, by way of a tribute, were wearing fake mustaches to honor their skipper — indeed, Travis Snyder was still wearing his when he hit his home run, which might have been a little insult-to-injury, if it wasn’t so awesome.

If Joe Torre had retired, and gotten a proper sendoff, I wonder what the team would’ve done to honor him. Hold cups of green tea? Look inscrutable? Signal to the bullpen for Scott Proctor?

Part One of “The 10th Inning,” Ken Burn’s two-part follow up to “Baseball” aired on PBS last night. “The Bottom of the 10th” is tonight.

I reviewed the show for SI.com. There’s a lot of good stuff in there. The Yankee Dynasty is represented nicely though I’m sure most of you wanted more (and there’s no sugar-coating Ken’s allegiance to the Red Sox, though it should also be noted that co-writer, producer and director, Lynn Novick, is a Yankee fan). The focus is on the ’96 Yanks, not ’98, a fair choice in terms of drama, though they didn’t mention Frank Torre.

There’s a ton on the Sox in “The Bottom of the 10th,” but Burns is never vicious–he doesn’t show the infamous slap play by Alex Rodriguez, for instance. I’d forgotten that David Ortiz won both Games 4 and 5 in ’04, man, totally blacked that out. This was the first time I’ve watched replays. Ortizzle’s name is noticeably missing from a list of stars associated with taking PEDS (Manny’s on it).

The baseball stuff is good. Plenty to debate, of course, but that’s fun part. Jonah Keri will be pleased that the ’94 Expos made the cut. I didn’t know from Mike Barnicle before watching the show and enjoyed his talking head interviews, even if they were ham-handed in spots. Then I read up on him and feel guilty for liking him so much.

But something felt off with the filmmaking. The Florentine films style—panning and fading over still photographs–is commonly known as “The Burns Effect.” I was talking to a friend recently who said, “How can you not jump the shark after you become a pre-set on iMovie?” I get his point but the Burns style doesn’t bother me because it works. You don’t look for every artist to be innovator, after all. I wouldn’t want Elmore Leonard to be anything but Elmore Leonard.

But I’m not sure that the Burns style  is ideally suited to journalism. Nothing is more frustating than the music. In “The 8th Inning” and “The 9th Inning,” Burns used period source music as a character in the story. But here, over and over again, I was distracted by the music selections. I thought they got in the way of the story. Most of the tracks aren’t bad pieces of music on their own, but they just don’t have much to do with the topic at hand. And they have nothing to do with what was on the radio at the time.

Burns does use James Brown and Tower of Power. This record from The Incredible Bongo Band opens the show:

P.E. and The Beastie Boys and the White Stripes are used but otherwise, there’s too much smooth jazz and strumming guitars, where songs like “Nothing Shocking,” by Jane’s Addiction or the Red Hot Chili Peppers version of “Higher Ground,” or any number of radio hits would have been interesting choices. There’s cool cuts from the Red Garland Trio and Wynton Marsalis, but Burns misses out on using Metallica’s “Enter Sandman” in the Mariano Rivera segment, an oversight than can only be excused by budget considerations And even when music choices work thematically like with David Bowie’s “Fame,” they are obvious, not to mention dated.

But that’s me. And I expect fireworks from Burns and company every time out. Still, “The 10th Inning” is certainly worth watching.

I’m curious to know what you think. Charlie Pierce weighed in this morning, and here is the Times’ review (which borders on being mean).

Oh, and over at Deadspin, dig this memoir piece I wrote about working for Burns back in the spring of 1994:

Ken got a kick out of turning people on to the things that moved him. When Willie Morris appeared in episode five of Baseball, talking about listening to games on the radio, I asked Ken who he was, and that was my introduction to Morris and his classic memoir, North Toward Home. I found a copy immediately and the book made a lasting impression on me. Ken was an avid music fan and hipped me to Lester Young and Booker T and the M.G.’s. During our car ride north, I tried to get him to dig some rap records — I remember playing him “Passin’ Me By” by the Pharcyde — but he couldn’t get past the lack of melody. Then, he took out a cassette and played what he called the best version of “The Star-Spangled Banner.” It was Marvin Gaye, singing at the 1983 NBA All-Star Game, and Ken was right.

[Photo Credit: J. Parthum]

Check out this lovely tribute to the late Paul Hemphill by Richard Hyatt:

I ended up at the Atlanta Constitution writing sports. A colleague told me about a former pitcher for the town baseball team in LaGrange. He had made Ripley’s Believe Or Not by pitching both games of a doubleheader — tossing a no-hitter in one game and a one-hitter in the other.

By the time I visited him in the old mill village in LaGrange, Scoopie Chappell’s baseball exploits were relegated to aging scrapbooks and stories he told at the beer joint down the hill. I wrote a feature story about him for the Sunday Journal-Constitution.

The article got me a phone call from Paul Hemphill. He wanted Scoopie’s phone number and directions to his house. Hemphill was researching a book about minor league baseball and he figured Scoopie was someone he wanted to visit.

The non-fiction book never materialized but Long Gone did. To me it is the quintessential baseball novel and equally good as an HBO film. It came out in 1987 and you’ll find Bull Durham — as good as it is — is a ripoff of Hemphill’s book.

Scoopie morphed into Stud Cantrell, played on the screen by CSI’s William Petersen. The character of Stud is as good as you’ll find in any work of fiction. In the movie, there’s even a speaking role for Teller — the small mute half of Penn & Teller.

If you haven’t read the book, do. If you haven’t seen the movie, find it.

Amen. William Petersen’s Stud Cantrell is closer to Paul Newman in “Slap Shot” than it is to Costner in “Bull Durham.” The ending of the movie is corny but the rest of it sings. And Hemphill’s novel is a beaut.

The Rays are good, really good. But their park is empty. Ken Belson has the depressing details in the Times.

Josh Wilker on Knucksie. ‘Nuff said. Dig in.