The Highest of High Culture: The Appraisal of Photographs of Willie McGee

In my halcyon days as a vagabond traveling scholar, I engaged in various studies. I dabbled intensely to refine my understanding of economics, history, voodoo, and many other fields of advanced thought. Yet the subject that always fascinated me most, was one I came across while studying at a small university in Montpellier, France roughly ten years ago. A professor by the monicker of Lebrante Lavoisier introduced me to a most curious and captivating subject which widened my mental horizons infinitely. 

Lebrante was an appraiser of antique artworks and handicrafts, the man was the proprietor of massive collections of vases, urns, paintings, and crafts of immense historical significance. His seminars at the university taught inquiring minds how to identify which pieces of art held within them the most historical significance.

On the eve of the last morrow prior to graduation day, Lebrante brought his class to his estate in lower Burgundy to showcase his students his vast collections of relics and dusty chachkies. I witnessed first hand, pieces of significance from as far back as 1976 and even as long ago as 1974.

Celadon urns, wood cut plaques, brocade tapestries, vinyl records, stone carvings, bodkin heads...his collection was utterly breath taking. He narrated as he showcased the pieces of his personal collection using the most refined of language whilst doing so,

L’art est une activité humaine, le produit de cette activité ou l'idée que l'on s'en fait, s'adressant délibérément aux sens, aux émotions et à l'intellect. On peut dire que l'art est le propre de l'homme, ce qui le distingue au sein de la nature, et que cette activité n'a pas de fonctions clairement définies.

-Lebrante Lavoisier

Following the exhibition the professor served mild cognac, and we began discussing art (as such). I asked him which piece in his vast collection was truly his favorite and he responded that choosing a favorite amongst his many chachkies would be like a father choosing which of his children was his favorite. Yet after he consumed more and more cognac and opened up a little more he took the liberty of hunkering down and confessing which of his pieces was his preferred favorite. Lebrante took out an old leather satchel from under his desk and slowly opened it. He said, that the artwork contained in this satchel was the most honest art he had ever appraised and considered it the most meaningful, deep, beautiful, wonderful, and historically significant art that the art world had ever produced. He unwrapped a small book from the leather satchel and held it up high in the air and stated as if to the heavens,

Ceci, mes cher amis, proche de mon coeur .....
sont des photograhs de Willie McGee

Inside this book was photographs of former St. Louis Cardinals outfielder Willie McGee. Lebrante explained that unlike every other baseball photograph where the "joueur" is depicted heroically, poised, proud, and confident...photos of Willie McGee presented a contrast so great that they themselves are within themselves the truest definition of the human condition.

Now without further ado (or even further aplomb) we shall attempt to appraise the value and significance of photographs of Willie McGee...

Upper Deck circa 1990

One can only wonder what was going through the photographer's mind as he/she directed his/her subject's pose in this photograph.

Willie was probably standing all tough, posing in a batting stance that looked pretty normal, cliche, and cool...but the photographer stopped him and said something along the lines of,

"No Willie, drop the bat, it's too cliche...I want you to try and look as bored, lackadaisical, lethargic, bemused, and all around distant as you possibly can. Ok great, yeah put your hands on your waist, stop smiling please, get a thousand-yard stare going, and curl one of your nostrils up a bit...ok there it is...beautiful...and..."

*SNAP*

 Final Appraisal

Facade: A+
Facial Expression: B+
Palette: C
Contrast: D
Saturation: C-
Placement: B 
Historical Significance: B-
Human Value: C+

Overall Median Auction Price: ~ $ 1,400,000


Cardinals Media Yearbook Circa 1989

Stopping time in its tracks to capture happiness in its entirety is every artist's raison d'etre...here the artist has stopped time in an orderly yet sophisticated fashion to truly represent happiness in its purest form. He/she has sliced off a moment in the time frame of continual life to represent one passed yet preserved moment. A moment in which its subject was brimming with human happiness. It is akin to a hunter catching an elusive alligator, or a treasure hunter coming across buried gold. An artiste slicing off a piece of happiness from the winding tapestries of human existence is the call of the minaret in the journey of an artist.

Lebrante has coined this piece..."Happy Willie" and it is his favorite amongst his collection (but not mine).



Final Appraisal

Facade: C+
Facial Expression:B
Palette: B
Contrast: C
Saturation: B
Placement: B+ 
Historical Significance: A
Human Value: A

Overall Median Auction Price: ~ $ 1,750,000 


Donruss Diamond Kings Circa 1985

Ah yes, the famed oil on canvas painting of Willie McGee which once hung in the Deutsche Guggenheim Museum of Berlin.

This piece is more famous for its many thefts and counterfeit scandals than for its humanistic value. It was thought destroyed in 1996 when Bundeskanzler Helmut Kohl ordered all art which was not post-neo-nihilistic to be burned in Germany. It was counterfeited and attempted to be re-created dozens of times but each counterfeit could not compare to the lost original.

The painter of the original piece, Stanisław Szukalski, fully captured the distance of Willie's eyes as well as the curl of his upper lip in such a fashion that appraisers can almost assume Szukalski was one with his subject before even beginning to paint him. The flare in the right nostril of Willie is as close to perfection and reality as one can possibly come. A true masterpiece in every sense of the word.

Szukalski attempted to recreate the piece after it was burned, yet he never even came close to re-capturing his original creation. A pity if there ever was one...

Final Appraisal

Facade: A
Facial Expression: A+
Palette: A
Contrast: B
Saturation: B
Placement: A 
Historical Significance: A+
Human Value: D

Overall Median Auction Price: Unapplicable  (due to untimely destruction)


Topps "Charter Member" Circa 1991

Here, Wiilie on the surface is taking practice swings for the photographer...yet the photographer has managed to burrow deep beneath the surface to uncover the truth in the human condition. Willie's body may be taking practice swings yet his facial expression shows us a weary and unamused man...distantly staring at the past.

His eyes represent sturggle,
His nostrils symbolize cohesiveness
His gangly uninvolved hand represents Life.

This is the haute culture of everyone's midwest.

This picture...is.

Is.


Final Appraisal

Facade: A+
Facial Expression: B+
Palette: A
Contrast: A
Saturation: A
Placement: F 
Historical Significance: D+
Human Value: A

Overall Median Auction Price: ~ $ 1,175,000

Topps Circa 1986

Oh Willie, where art thou Willie...and what are you thinking of?

How does an aritist capture a facial expression which doesn't exist? How can you convey an emotion which doesn't belong? Why do the fish swim and the birds fly around in V formations in the sky?

Here the impossible has been done, the artist has captured an expression that has yet been defined by culture.

Willie has seen a funny looking dog and is thinking to himself,

"Geeee, that's a funny looking dog over there."

We don't need to see the dog to know it is funny looking because Willie's face explains it to us vicariously. Willie's expression is the explanation...

Final Appraisal

Facade: C
Facial Expression: A+
Palette: B
Contrast: C
Saturation: D
Placement: C- 
Historical Significance: D
Human Value: A-

Overall Median Auction Price: ~ $ 3,650,000


Cardinals Pre-Season Program Promotional Magazine Circa 1987

Bwaaaaaaaah ahahahahahahaha ahahahahahahaha hahahahahahahah ahahahahaha hahahahahahahahahah ahahahahahahahaha hahaha hahahah ahahaha hahahahahahah ahahahahah ahahahahah ahahahahah ahahahahah woooooo oooooo oooooooooooooooooooooo oh hoooo ooooooo hooooo baaaahhh hhhhhhhahahaha haahahahah!!!!

Oh come on now Willie, who takes a fucking picture like this? You know this is a promo photo, you have plenty of time to conjure up a semi-normal presentable expression. Why? Why would you make this face for? You're not even trying to be photogenic here.  You're giving ZERO effort.

Hahahaaaaaa aaaaahahahahahahahah ahahahahaha haha! 

Final Appraisal

Facade: A+
Facial Expression: A+++ (+) (+)
Palette: A+
Contrast:A+
Saturation: A+
Placement: A+
Historical Significance: A+
Human Value: A+

Overall Median Auction Price: ~ Over Nine Thousand Billon Dollars!!1!!!


Donruss Circa 1984

What the fuck are you looking at in this one? Was there really something so important going on to your peripheral right that you had to not look at the camera while they were taking your baseball card photo?

Willie, you look like you haven't slept in years.

Drink a cup of coffee before baseball card photo day next time, jeez Willie.

Maybe it was an inside joke on the Cardinals roster that whenever Willie was getting photographed someone would yell "Hey Willie!" and he'd look over and go "Wut?" or maybe there really was funny looking dogs walking around the park everytime Willie had to get his baseball card photo taken.


Final Appraisal

Facade: 88.6
Facial Expression: AAA
Palette: 44.87
Contrast: AAA
Saturation: FF
Placement: S+
Historical Significance: ***
Human Value: AAA

Overall Median Auction Price: Lotsa Monies!


...and thus concludes our appraisal of photographs of former St. Louis Cardinals outfielder Willie McGee. Thank you and good night.

Stayin' Up All Night? Oh, That's All Right....

The great ham radio enthusiast Jean Shepherd once said,

"night is the time people truly become individuals because all the familiar things are dark and done; all the restrictions on freedom are removed." -Shepherd, J.

Jean hosted a radio show late at night where he said whatever he felt like saying and developed a following of other "night people" who listened and called in to the program. I think I happen to agree with his assessment on "night people" because it it really does seem to be the case.

I think there's a lot of people who finish their daily trials and tasks in the heavily constrained hierarchical red-taped "outside world" and then come home to their little corners they have carved out in this crazy place. The little corners that are the only place on this earth which is all to themselves with no distractions. It's in these secret little corners that these night people read quietly and think about stuff.


I Like to Stay Up All Night Myself...

For as long as I can remember, I have been a night style person. I've been thinking hard to try and remember my first self-aware "all-nighter" and I think I got it.

It still works to this very day...

When I was 3 and a half years old back in 1986, my paternal grandfather (who referred to himself by the self-monickered title "Paw Jack") gave me an Atari 2600 and it was the hands-down highlight moment of my third year on this world.

I had some cool games for it like a baseball one (I threw a no-hitter to my next door neighbor once in this one), one where some bear collected precious gemstones, and this one where a little white triangle shot little dots at different colored shapes which exploded into smaller different colored shapes.

The Legend: Scott Safran

It was the little white triangle game that kept me up all night for the first time in my life. This game (if you haven't guessed yet) was called Asteroids and it was as addictive as all heck. How addictive was that silly game? Well, for example, according to the internet a guy once played Asteroids for 3 straight days and racked up an unheard of 41,336,440 points. This man's name was Scott Safran and this name will forever be remembered through the ages. Sadly, Safran passed away in 1989 while trying to save his cat Samson from a third story ledge. Safran is a hero in every sense of the word. RIP Scott...

Anyway, I got pretty good at Asteroids myself back in 1986, certainly nowhere near the level Safran played at, but for my age I wasn't too shabby. I clearly remember going to the basement to play it while everyone was asleep and playing it all night long. When my mom woke up the next morning and came down to find me already awake and playing Atari 2600, I totally straight up lied to her and said I just woke up fifteen minutes ago. Not only did I successfully stay up all night, but I didn't even get in trouble for it thanks to my expert 3-year old lying skills.

By 1991, I was doing it regularly. There were two cartoons I wanted to watch saturday mornings, Fantastic Max and Mr Bogus to be exact, and they started at 4:30am and 5:00am respectively. I noticed I was having trouble waking up at 4:30am on Saturday and was missing the opening end of the cartoons...so my idea was to stay up all friday night and that way there was no way I'd miss Fantastic Max and Mr. Bogus.

I used to play videos game all night long when I was a kid. I developed good cover up techniques to get away with it too. I remember later on in the Super Nintendo era it became a problem because there were games that needed to be "saved" before you could shut it off. One technique I developed was to have a pillow near by to put over the blaringly bright and very noticeable red power light that shone when the SNES was on. I certainly didn't want to lose my progress by shutting off the machine before I shut off the TV, and jumped onto the couch to feign sleep. The pillow (or sock sometimes) kept the red light hidden in the dark and the SNES powered up so no progress was ever lost.

My parents constantly developed and deployed anti-stayin'-up-all-night-counter-tactics against my stealth procedures and eventually they succeeded in thwarting my endeavors roughly around 1994. Subsequently, the year 1995 was probably the only year in my life that I was ever on a "get up in the mornin' and go to bed at night" style regimen.

Then in 1996 I got right back into stayin' up all night. During a holiday from school, I managed to stay up and catch an episode of a show called Late Night with Conan O'Brien and there was a cliffhanger going down on this show that implored me to see the conclusion of it. The next day was once again a school day but I had to stay up to 12:35 in the morning to see if Conan and Andy had resolved this issue that captivated my attention the night before.

What implored me to once again become a night person? What could possibly have been so edge-of-yer-seat exciting that I had no choice but to develop new stayin' up late stealth methods?

The search for Grady Wilson....




Yes, call me insane, odd, or even dumb but I gradually regressed into not sleeping again because I had come down with an extreme case of the Grady Fever.

Conan had many old obscure celebrities on his show like Abe Vigoda and Nipsey Russell. It seems he wanted to get Grady on his show too but to his dismay, no one knew where Grady was. Was he okay? Was he dead? What happened to Grady? It was too much for me to handle, I had to know where Grady was. I had to stay up each night and follow the Search for Grady. The search for Grady went on for 47 days, and I managed to stay up (despite all efforts to stop me) for each of those 47 nights.

The show ended at 1:35 in the morning, so then I thought, "hey now, I hafta be up for school in like 5 hours, what the hell is the point of going to sleep for 5 hours?" Naturally, the sanest thing to do was just to stay up all night long. After Conan, I'd switch to the cable channel 18 who had the GREATEST all night programming I'd ever seen to this day...

1:30 am to 2:00 am: Rocky and Bullwinkle (this show had class)
2:00 am to 2:30 am: The Young Ones (starring Rik Mayall and Adrian Edmonson)
2:30 am to 3:00 am: Bottom (also starring Rik Mayall and Adrian Edmonson)
3:00 am to 3:30 am: Speed Racer (oh man, this song was so catchy!!!)
3:30 am to 4:30 am: The Super Mario Bros. Super Show (with Captain Lou Albano!)
4:30 am to 5:00 am: Muppet Babies (shit's tight yo...)

Shhhh be quiet...Toshiro is sleeping.

Then I'd go to school and sleep with my eyes open in class. I heard of that technique in a late night movie once where Toshiro Mifune and Charles Bronson were walking through a desert. Mifune said he can sleep while he walks...so I figured if he can do it while he walks, it shouldn't be too hard for me to sleep while faking to pay attention in class.

When I was sixteen years old, the first job I got was an 11pm to 7am shift at my local greasy shitty Tim Whoretons donut shop. I liked that shift because I was the only one in the store and I could do my duties myself and my way without any other people or "managers" around.

Slowly I started to notice that the world was full of night people and they all seemed to hang out in bars, drink, and have fun. Staying out late and getting into zany adventures around town with other "night people" is a nice break from quietly absorbing data from time to time.

Hey, it's like Neil on the Young Ones once said...

"Listen, man. Sleep gives you cancer. Everyone knows that." -Neil (Young Ones - Oil...(listen here))

Why Would Night People Do This?

I dunno, maybe it's like that movie Lawnmower Man and we're just trying to absorb as much data as possible into our brains with books, tv, radio, and internet and become really smart or something. Or maybe there's something more to it than that.

I mean life is pretty short, why would you want to waste time sleeping? It seems like a bit of a waste, no? That guy from the film Roadhouse put it best when he said,

"I got plenty of time to sleep when I'm dead..." -Guy from Roadhouse (hear it: here)

Patrick Swayze's bouncing mentor from Roadhouse is dead on with that statement. You will have more than enough time to do sleeping when you are dead in the cold ground, so what's the big rush to do sleeping while you are alive?

End

Grady...

Dogs. Are they in Revo, Evo, or Devo?

I've been looking into a rather odd subject over the last 12 years or so. I've been carefully looking into the possibilities of dogs achieving total evolution and cognitive skills on par with humans. Doggie-volution, you'd call it...I guess.

I became interested in this field of study in the year 2000, after coming across a song called Where are Your Dogs? Show us Your Ugly on the internet. Well, maybe it is not exactly a "song" but more like an audio story tune, or an audio story dirge...or something.

It's an audio story tune about this dog who escapes from a plastic surgery test lab on Christmas Day (and is thus referred to as The Santa Dog). While he was in the lab, the Santa Dog got injected with human growth hormone and soon after his escape he began walking around town on his hind legs...and the "ugly humans start staying home in record numbers" in fear of the Santa Dog.

This whole concept of dogs evolving was something I found really interesting, and after being introduced to the concept, I naturally began a thorough investigation soon afterward.

From Wolves to Dogs: The Birth of the Dog

Dogs back in the day...used to be feral, vicious, ravaging beasts who traveled in packs who killed and ate all kinds of birds and deers. No one called them "doggies" back then, they were called "wolves" and everyone was dirt scared of them. You had to be scared of wolves because a pack of wolves would fuck you up back then.

It is theorized that humans thousands of years ago, in different spots of the globe, came upon wolf packs where the all the old wolves were dead and the only survivors were wolf cubs who could not fend for themselves. Humans adopted these wolf cubs and raised them and the wolves grew up to consider humans as friends and not food. Soon the wolves bred more baby wolves and the humans kept the friendliest ones in the human tribe and kicked out the ones who were too violent and feral. Basically, thanks to human influence, only the friendliest and least violent wolves got to breed and pass on their genes. Scientists call this phenomenon artificial selection.

After humans and doggies became fast and bestest friends, humans began to breed doggies more methodically. They got the dogs with the maddest skills (like hunting, smelling, running, seeing, etc.) and mated them with other dogs who displayed the maddest of skills in hopes that the puppies would be born with even madder skills. Often the puppies were indeed born with the sought after mad skills (as such).

Now we have huntin' dogs, seein' eye dogs, smellin' dogs (bloodhounds), racing dogs (greyhounds), and all kinds of skilled dogs. We even have funky dogs and nasty dogs and Dogs...woooooo!

These bad boys were being selectively pushed by humans to get better and better and in only about 100 years of breeding (1750-1850) dogs were gaining skills at alarmingly bad ass rates. In fact, with human help dogs were evolving super fast. You might go as far to say that dogs were not going through evolution...but revolution. 

The Decline of the Dog in the Victorian Era

The British Empire's Victorian Era and its legacy was notoriously bad. The English Royal Family applied all kinds of silly and odd rules to speech, writing, diction, fashion, manner, behavior, and everything else you could possibly think of. For example the measuring system they created (the imperial system) measured a unit of length known as a "rod" in regard to "the length of the left feet of 16 men lined up heel to toe as they emerged from church." It's almost as if the dumbest people in society were running it.

The field of dog breeding had the same silly and odd rules applied to it in the Victoria Era. Dogs stopped being bred in hopes of getting puppies with mad-ass skills, but instead dogs started to be bred in hopes of getting a dog who's teeth were 0.01 "rods" apart, or who's eyes looked really funny, or in hopes of getting a dog who's hair looked retarded. Basically, they bred dogs for novelty and social status reasons. It was really in style to have a dog with little beady eyes who's legs didn't work...it meant you were richer than your friends.

Another huge factor that helped the decline of the dog in the Victorian Era was the notion of "pure breeding" which was big in all of Europe back then. It's not a secret that Royal Families in Europe engaged in incest and brothers, sister, mothers, and fathers all mated with each other (I'm talking about humans now, not dogs by the way). Incest in the British Royal Family is the reason they all have fucked up teeth and are morons.

Charles: a Pure Bred creature.

The current Queen Elizabeth and her husband (Phil) are both descended from Queen Victoria. They have the same blood (source). It is said Royals have to inbreed because their blood is pure and better than commoner's blood but let's be sane for a moment...inbreeding makes fucked up kids.

Take Liz's son Prince Charles for example, that's what "pure breeding" does to offsprings...it makes them look awful and have the intelligence of a peanut.

Pure Breeding when applied to dogs was not a good idea (just like it wasn't a good idea for humans). The Victorian Era bred dogs with their sisters, brothers, mothers, and fathers in order to keep their genetic features "pure" and fashionable and in accordance with the silly rules they invented for dog breeding. Pure bred dogs are dumber, and far less healthy (they have all sorts of genetic problems which lead to health problems and shorter lives) than dogs who were bred for mad skills.

British and other Euro-Trash Royalty stopped the Doggie-volution (which I may remind you was no longer an evolution but a revolution) and turned it backwards. You might even say that the Euro-Royals selectively de-evolved our canines.

Oh shit. Wait a sec, that would mean we have a concrete example that devolution actually is possible and is not just a theory! AHHHHHHH! BOOGIE BOY WAS RIGHT ALL ALONG! IT'S TRUE GENERAL DAD! WE REALLY ARE ALL DEVO!!!! IT'S POSSIBLE FOR EVERYONE TO D-EVOLVE!!! NOOOOOOO!!!!!

OH NOOOOOOO! WE ARE ALL DEVO!!!!!

Poor Doggies...What did we do to em' ?

To sum it up so far, humans put dogs into selective Revo, and then as quickly as we did we snapped them back and put them into selective Devo...and all these poor little puppy wuppies ever really wanted was just to naturally Evo.

100% De-Evolution Completed...

Poor Doggies, now that the Doggie-Volution is over, they have been reduced to pulling our sleds or being fashion accessories for skinny blonde bimbos.

The purse dog (as they are known) is a dog who is 100% de-evolved thanks to selective human breeding. It's sad, it really is. I hate seeing purse dogs, it's so stupid and it really represents the hallmark example of how humans have fucked up our doggie pals.

Dogs had no choice to team up with us. Humans are mean creatures, we would have just killed all the wolves if none of them agreed to befriend us. I wonder, on a hypothetical alternate time line, one which humans didn't survive the ice age and died out...how wolves/dogs would have faired. If humans didn't make it out of the ice age, but if every other animal did...I bet things would have been different for wolves/dogs.

Wolves would have continued hunting, foraging, and ravaging in their ecosystem for aeons and would eventually have evolved naturally with no human aid. They would have lived proud lives as warrior dogs, tailor dogs, doctor dogs, and other noble lives.

My Bias

At this point in the article, I must admit that I have a personal bias in favor or doggies. When I was a young boy, my best friend was a dog named Cubby. Me and him was tight, he was like my little brother, I even nicknamed him "Little Brutha." Me and him used to be together all the time, running all around town pulling all sorts of hoodrat stuff. Me and him played ball together and all those things. I grew up with that dog (I had him from the age of 5 to 19), he was a good dog.

So when I look at what humans are doing to our dog pals, I take it seriously because my best pal as a child unit was a dog.

What if Dogs Manage to Evolve Despite Our Efforts to Stop Them?

What if dogs are just one or two positive random mutations away from hitting a massive evolutionary growth spurt? Walking on their hinds legs, opposable thumbs, vocal chords for speech, brain development. What if dogs who display and excel in those traits manage to breed with each other for a hundred years or so? Wouldn't they gradually keep building on those mad skill sets?

Say by the year 2400, despite human efforts to make them our sled pullers, sheep herders, and purses...doggies still manage to level up a few evolutionary echelons. Would they still be our friends?

Would the dogs look at what we are doing the planet and approve of it? Would they approve of us doing everything in our power to pollute and ruin up our home? Would evolved dogs band together in tribes and launch a rebellion against humans? I dunno, but that would make a really good movie though (anyone readin' this can steal my idea if they want, I don't care).

Should we be living in fear of the inevitable doggie-volution, and their righteous and justified rebellion against human-kind? Should we ugly humans lock ourselves in our homes in record numbers? Is Santa Dog really out there waiting.....biding his/her time....for the Doggie Revolution?

......?

(This dog is walking on its hind legs because she was born without her other two...so, it's not like they can't already figure out how to walk on their hind legs. Maybe it is just a  fleeting and a sleeting scene of snowness and of sleeves. Will dogs have a presence in the future? More importantly will these highly evolved Santa Dogs have presents in the future? I dunno.)

Comparison and Contrast of two Baseball Owners: Bill Veeck (the legend) and Bud Selig (the bum)

Veeck as in Wreck (or Cheque)

I've read a lot of books over the years, I like to throw in a baseball biography book every so often. I recently read Bill Veeck's "Veeck as in Wreck." In it, Veeck states that he began reading at a young age and by his teenage years until his late years he read at least five books per week. Judging by his insight, I believe that Veeck did indeed read five books a week throughout his life. This guy was a real renegade and it's too bad that all real renegades brains operate 20 to 50 years ahead of their time.

Backstory on Veeck

Veeck's father (Bill Veeck Sr.) was a sportswriter who in 1919 wrote a critical article of how the owner of the Chicago Cubs (Phil Wrigley Jr.) was operating his club, the article was poignant and sharp-cutting to the bone, enough so, to land him a phone call from Wrigley stating that if Veeck Sr. thought he could do a better job than why doesn't he come down and do it. Veeck Sr. did, and Wrigley hired Veeck Sr. to be president of the Cubs.

Eddie walked on 4 pitches...

Veeck Sr. gave his son (our protagonist Bill Veeck) a job counting tickets. After the years Veeck Jr. was promoted by Phil Wrigley into higher and higher posts with the Cubs. Veeck was in charge of all concession operations at Wrigley. According to Veeck, he was the one who had the idea of putting the now-iconic vines on the Wrigley Field brick outfield wall.

In 1942 (five years prior to the fall of segregation in baseball), Veeck had a great idea, he wanted to gather up some investors and pool up money to purchase the struggling Philadelphia Phillies. The team was horrible, posting only 43 wins and 111 losses in the previous 1941 campaign, and only drawing 231,401 fans for the entire season. Veeck knew he could get the club cheap and had a brilliant idea to turn a last place club drawing only 0.2 million fans into a first place club who could draw 2.0 million fans. What was his brilliant idea? After he purchased the club, he planned on stocking it with superstars from the Negro Leagues (Paige, Doby, Robinson, etc.).

Now, the color line in baseball was never written in any rule books. Black players were playing in baseball leagues with other white players with no problem in the late 1800's. The color barrier arose in 1884, when the premier white star player Cap Anson refused to take the field when his team signed a black catcher named Moses Fleetwood Walker. The league responded to Cap's protest by forming a "gentlemanly agreement" made between all the owners to not sign black players. The owners, being very racist but also men of their word it seems, kept their "gentlemanly agreement" in effect for over 60 years.

So, in 1942 as stated above, Veeck (who was also the midwest promoter for the all-black Harlem Globetrotters basketball club) wanted to buy a Major League Baseball club and load it with superstar black players from the negro leagues. How do you think the stuffy, conservative, old boys club, owners felt about this suggestion?

Charlie "Tokohama"

The only previous attempt to break the "gentlemanly" agreed upon color barrier, was in 1901 (as written about in Robert Peterson's book "Only the Ball was White") when Baltimore manager John McGraw tried to sneak a quick one by baseball's stuffy owners. He wanted to get second baseman Charlie Grant onto the Baltimore roster and his plan was to tell the owners Grant was a Cherokee Native American. Other Native American players were on rosters in that era (including Chief Bender, Bill Phyle, and Louis Sockalexis), only players of African decent were systematically kept out of baseball. McGraw listed Grant on his roster as "Charlie Tokohama" and hoped he could sneak him past the league officials and onto the Orioles. Unfortunately, McGraw's guile didn't slip past the stuffy owners, and his clever ruse ultimately failed.

Larry Doby

The same end met Veeck's attempt to sign black players. Since black Americans were fighting for their country in World War II, Veeck felt that times had changed and the owners wouldn't mind if baseball's 60 year color barrier was broken. He was confident enough to let the cat out of the bag too early, by letting the owners in on his plan. The crusty old commissioner of baseball, Kenesaw Mountain Landis, and the owners took over the Phillies before Veeck could buy the club. The owners jointly owned the club running at a loss until a new interested owner could be found (one who wouldn't sign black players). Eventually they found a stuffy old businessman named William D. Cox to purchase the league owned club and Cox surely did not sign any black dudes.

Max Patkin

Veeck eventually did purchase a team, the Cleveland Indians. After Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier in 1947 with Branch Rickey and the Dodgers, Veeck was able to sign black players and did so by adding hard hitting lefty Larry Doby and 50 year old legend Satchel Paige to the Indians roster.

Veeck went on to stints operating the Browns, and White Sox as well. He did not have an inherited family fortune like all the other owners, he had to keep his clubs afloat the old fashioned way, by giving his customers entertainment and satisfaction. Over the years he sent a midget to pinch hit, he hired colorful ball players like Max Patkin and others to play or coach bases, installed a fire works spouting "exploding" scoreboard, and accidently caused a punk rock riot at Comiskey Park by holding "Disco Demolition Night," where the blowing up of disco records turned a little unruly (as shown in the video below)...

With all due respect, credit for this idea should go to Canada's own punk rock icon Joey "Shithead" Keithley of D.O.A. who one year prior in 1978 held a "Disco Sucks" rally in Vancouver, Canada...

Ahead of his Time

Veeck brought up all kinds of things at owners meetings that were laughed at and scorned at by the stuffy shirted and cranky pantsed owners.

He had the foresight to see that the reserve clause (which kept players as being owned by their team) was not right and wanted to take it out of baseball. He even testified at Curt Flood's Supreme Court hearing when Flood challenged the reserve clause (Flood called the clause similar to slavery).

(newspaper article on Veeck's testimony at Flood's anti-trust suit)

Veeck proposed things from alterations to the minor league system, inter league play, and a slew of other things which were adopted by baseball 20 to 50 years later but at the time he proposed them they were considered as the ridiculous ravings of a jerk.

At the end of Veeck's book, "Veeck as in Wreck", there is a very omnious portion which sheds light on present day problems in baseball. After being out of baseball for years and finally returning as owner of the White Sox in the 70's, Veeck held a press conference in a hotel lobby and let in all the fans to chill and sell wares and whatnot. The new owner of the Milwaukee Brewers (a city where Veeck operated his first club, the minor league Brewers back in the early 40's and laid the ground work for baseball there), one Bud Selig, a young ugly punk, told Veeck that he is ruining baseball and turning it into a "meat market." Veeck knew that baseball may have had some new younger owners, but he realized that they were as stuffy and narrow minded as the old ones.

20 to 50 Years Later

Fast forward to the year 1997, and Bud Selig unvails the revolutionary concept of Interleague Play and the orthodox fundamentalist owners faction proclaims him a renegade genius who's "outside the box mousy radical" thinking is saving the game. Gee, I wonder where he got that idea from? 

Selig has been the commissioner for over over twenty years now, and the last twenty years is where baseball has gotten out of control. Salaries are out of control, steroids are out of control, the inequities between small and large markets are out of control, a World Series (1994) was cancelled, and a slew of other nonsense. He is the first owner to be commissioner which is an obvious total conflict of interest. Baseball really is a "meat market" now, but it wasn't Bill Veeck who made it this way, it was that bum Selig.

I think Bill Veeck is still alive somewhere having a beer with Elvis Presley, Andy Kaufman, and Bigfoot. I think he's taking cabs around whatever town he's in, hitting all the local bars, trying to drum up support from investors to buy a club. I hope he's telling them it's all in debentures and they'll get half their returns next quarter and the other half when "they can catch him." 

Who Selig? Yeah, we should jerk the bum.

Here's an ending quote to conclude this article from Mr. Bill Veeck himself,

"And who knows, the status quo of baseball might just look at the track record the next time I push for something like interleague play and say, 'alright let's humor this jerk for once.' And you know something? That's when it's time to start worrying. When they listen to your ravings with indulgence and, heaven help me, affection, you know you've joined the herd". 

-Bill Veeck

How to Turn the Montreal Student Strike Lemons into Montreal Student Strike Lemonade

The face of Education is changing, many US and UK universities make all their curriculum and research available online (a year ago I wrote about this on this blog: https://writingsonsubjects.blogspot.com/2011/05/free-educationget-it-while-it-hot-and.html).

Coupled with BOINC (the combined hive-computer/voltron synthetic super computer), the educational value of the internet trumps traditional universities and may make them extinct in the future. In fact, universities of the old age are nothing more than mere glorified book clubs where snobs mentally masturbate all over each other.

Oh my Gawd! I hate school...I'm going on strike you guyz!

Knowing that, I find it harder and harder to care for these greasy students (who are all liberal art students or other hipsters anyway). They are fighting over an increase of about 400 bucks...and with the tuition credits they'll get on their federal and provincial taxes when they join the real world will absorb those costs anyhow. Do they really have to block all the roads and mess with the metro (subway) over this?

One of the sillier demands of one of the student groups behind the strike is to cut funding to universities research budgets. This is so strange in the fact that Quebec universities have made significant discoveries (including these last year alone: http://www.quebecscience.qc.ca/decouverte2011), and the student groups want to pull the money out of research so every little hipster can go to mental masturbation liberal arts book clubs for free.

The politicians and cops have made matters 1000 times worse by being so violent in their handling of this strike (as stupid as is it) that they have made more members of the public support the students than ever before.

This toy for example, the ARWEN 37mm Less Lethal System, that fires huge hard plastic "batons" at 242 feet per second should not have been used under any circumstances against citizens. Whoever gave the order for the police to use this weapon should be fired. The plastic batons, tear gas, sound cannons, and non-bodily marking torture techniques have only made things worse.


Now, how can you take a lemony situation such as this and make it into a lemonade situation?


...By Creating the Newest and Kewlest Spectator Sport the World has Evar Seeeeen!

This strike has made world wide news, and you know what they say..."all publicity is good publicity." Thus, someone with ingenuity must devise a way to turn this heavily publicized kerfuffle into something that is fun for everyone and a boost for the economy.

The Montreal Canadiens didn't make the playoffs this year, so we have a totally vacant arena with the seating capacity of 21,273. So, all they have to do is, pass an emergency law that states that all protests must be held at the Bell Centre. Then you sell tickets at $20 a pop, hire a bunch of concession and beer vendors and bam you got yourself some lemonade out of this nonsense.

What is the sport you ask? It's called Extreme Evasion and is heavily based off of the greatest TV show of all time, American Gladiators. The police are in essence the American Gladiators and the students are the contestants. If you've never heard of it before, this is a short briefing...

That video displays my man Wesley "Two Scoops" Berry running through the "gauntlet." Now picture a student trying to break through a police kettle formation for cash prizes! It's genius, it really is.

The police will get paid good money for taking part, the students will compete for luxurious prizes (free scholarships for breaking a kettle? How 'bout that?). The public will love this shit because it would be as entertaining as hell, and it would create jobs for vendors, ushers, scalpers, and a whole lot of other folks.

To include the politicians in this too (bums like Jeans Charest, and Pauline Marois), the Extreme Evasion halftime show will feature a dunk tank where a politician will be placed upon a board above a tank of water. Lucky spectators chosen at random will be brought down to the playing grounds and be given three chances to hit a target with a ball...if they connect the politician will fall into the water and get all wet. How's that for entertainment? Am I right or am I right?

Healthy Life Tips: How to Breathe Right! The First Step on the Path to Healthy Livin' !

People ask sometimes, what the necessities of life are. Most would answer: Sleeping, Eating, and Drinking. It seems the most basic of life's necessities, the act of breathing, is never discussed at length. I'd go as far to say that we as a human race are taking breathing for granted, and we shouldn't be doing that.

You can eat right, exercise, and take your vitamins...but you have to ask yourself at some point, "am I breathing correctly?"

Breathing is an art and science that we are only beginning to comprehend. Only by getting down and in-synch with your breathing can you begin to get down with your bad self.

So let's talk about breathing...at length.



What is Breathing?

Breathing is the act of sucking in oxygen and releasing carbon. Oxygen is what keeps our asses alive and without it we suffocate and die. All humans are oxygen junkies, we are so addicted to that shit that if we don't get our oxygen fix for even 10 minutes we will drop dead and die.

Oxygen is such a long stuffy word, it has 3 syllables (which is ridiculous) and has stupid letters in it that nobody likes, I'm talking about "x" and "y" of course, I mean, what, are we plotting a Cartesian plane here? No. So what's with the axis letters? Someone at some point got sick of saying this ugly-ass word and replaced it with the word "Air" which is a nice word.

I love air. Ever since I was a little kid I liked air...I think it was this song in particular that won me over on air:

Air...air...air...air...It is everywhere!


How to Tell Time by Counting your Breaths

If you can get in-synch with your breathing then you can know exactly how many breaths you take in a day, and that is really useful for you. You can tell exactly what moment of your cyclical day-routine you are currently situated in. Ahem...let me explain:

Breathing is like an inherent time measuring stick. Everyone's time measuring stick is customized to their own life cycle and/or micromanaged routine-cycle. Once you set your base unit for 1 personal breath you take, then you can start stratisfying your mental time units in accordance.

For my personal human routine-cycle, 1 unit of "inhaling of breath" is roughly ~0.556 moments of elapsed "time", and 1 unit of "exhaling of breath" is roughly ~0.661 moments of elapsed "time". Your body has a built in subconscious breath counter that records this, there is no need to literally count breaths (that's cumbersome and mentally crazy, do not count your breaths with words)...therefore...I can know exactly and precisely how many moments of time has elapsed by my breathing and I never ever check clocks or time pieces.
 
In accordance with my base time units, I measure "months" by a 1000 "day" cycles, and "days" are measured on a 10,000 unit cycle which consists of isolated "moments" which are measured in a 100,000 unit cycle of 1.217 fixed quantity per unit (0.661 + 0.556).

If you get down with your breathing, you can do this too!

...But, Don't Get too Down with Your Breathing

Some people take it too far. For instance, the Breatharians, take the idea of getting down with their own breathing, way too far.

Brooks only eats sweet tasty Air.

Similar to how a vegetarian only eats vegetables...a Breatharian only eats breaths. Its founder and lead breath researcher, Mr. Wiley Brooks, teaches that you can live a healthy long-lasting life by casting off food and drink and maintaining sustenance solely through the consumption of air.

The following is a rather insane excerpt from the Breatharian Institute of America:

"Wiley has been a Breatharian for some 30 years and has been giving seminars and teaching his intrinsically learned philosophy for over 20 of those years. A Breatharian is a person who can, under the proper conditions, live with or without eating physical food. Wiley was first introduced to the world back in 1981 when he appeared on the national TV show "THAT'S INCREDIBLE" demonstrating his strength by lifting 1100 lbs of weights, nearly 10 times his own body weight. When in a non-polluted environment (air or electro) he sleeps 1 to 7 hours a week. Althought Wiley is now 74 years old (young) he teaches only Empowered Ascension to a very few pre-qualified applicants.

"EARTH PRIME" OR ''THE NEW EARTH'' IS LOCATED IN THE 5TH DIMENSIONAL WORLD. THE WORLD WITHOUT THE VIBRATIONS OF PAIN AND FEAR. YOU FEEL ONLY INCREDIBLE LOVE, PEACE AND JOY. LOVE AND JOY YOU CAN ONLY DREAM ABOUT IN THE 3rd DIMENSIONAL WORLD YOU LIVE IN AT THIS TIME.

[Wiley's] goal is to populate EARTH PRIME with as many people as possible before March 20, 2013.
 
Wiley Brooks, Breatharian and teacher from the 5th Dimensional worlds

Wiley has had past lives as:

ADAM, ZEUS, ENOCH, JESHUA (JESUS THE CHRIST), JOSHUA, ELIJAH, JOHN THE BAPTIST, ST. FRANCIS OF ASSISI, KUTHUMI, BALTHAZAR (KING OF SYRIA), MUGHAL EMPEROR SHAH JAHAN (Builder of the TaJ Mahal in Agra, India), JOSEPH SMITH AND WILLIAM MULHOLLAND."

(See: http://www.breatharian.com/wileybrooks.html)

The 5th dimensional world of Earth Prime sounds awesome and everything, but I'm not sure I believe Wiley when he talks this gibberish.

Wiley is a nice man, I think he just enjoys breathing a little too much. Movin' on...

Does Air Care?

We humans have a love affair with air, we cannot live or breathe without it. Yet, is this love affair mutual or totally one-sided? Sadly, it's hard to admit but entirely true that air does not love humans back.

Check this shit out....

That's a high pressure air vacuum (or sumthin') that is ripping shit apart like an unstoppable freight train of destruction. Air is not a sentient thoughtful creature like us, it is a mindless killing machine. Air does not care, it just doesn't care about the consequences of its actions.

Conclusion

Humans have a love affair with the air...but air just doesn't care. It's a sad story when you think about it, no?

After 34 years the Serious Heart Attack Fires still Burn Strong...

Mr. Expo

The Spaceman Bill Lee called him "The Moderator of the Conclave," and the leader of the Montreal Expos teams of the glorious era of the late seventies and early eighties. This man in 1979 proclaimed that the Montreal Expos were "for real" and "as serious as a heart attack."

Who is he?

The legend...Warren Cromartie. Who else?

Today on April the 4th of 2012, almost 34 years after proclaiming to the world that the Montreal Expos are for real, he's back to let 'em know that even though they are gone...they are certainly not forgotten and may one day live once more. The Cro came back to Montreal to announce that he is heading a group who's purpose is to revive the Expos.

(press articles: 1. Video from the Gazette.com, 2. TVA Article, 3. TSN article)

Why do I care? Because baseball reminds me of a simpler time. When April came around in the old days it used to mean that I got to play baseball all day, watch Expos games at night, then read the boxscores in the mornings and absorb all those wonderful numbers into my brain. Now, I work all day long and don't have time to play baseball, the Expos are dead, and in the morning there's nothing to look at the in paper except boring political and business articles...no more boxscores. To each his own, you know? It reminds of a simpler time and it gave me something to believe in.

Circa 1979.....for real

Cro stated in his press conference that this has got to start at the "grassroots" and that it's gonna take a "unit" of people with a positive attitude. It's a baby-step but everything has to start somewhere...and if I may say, this baby-step is as serious as a heart attack!

The Montreal Baseball Project will be holding a charity golf tournament on June 15th, 2012 for the Cedar Cancer Institute and the MUHC in memory of the Great Legend Gary Carter who passed away earlier this year from brain cancer. The game will feature many of Carter's teammates of the 1981 Expos (including the Great Legend Tim Raines and the Great Legend Andre Dawson).

My Thoughts

People are saying that Montreal is too accustomed to big league attractions and will never support a minor league team, but I'm not sure about that. I think a minor league team could work here. Personally, I would use some Bill Veeck-ian gimmicks to sell the game. I would keep open 4 of the 25 roster spots for the following:

A) Two Quebec born players in order to have hometown players on the team for the fans to support.

B) Two women players in order to break some ground (this gimmick will get some headlines for sure)

The 21 roster slot system won't fly with the MLB players union, so a triple-A team (or any other MLB affiliated team) is not in the picture. The best idea would be a Can-Am team, where the Quebec Capitales play and thus a rivalry can start between Quebec City and Montreal. With a Can-Am team the 4 reserved roster slots for seat-filling reasons will be able to fly.

Who is the prime candidate to be the female star of the Montreal's hypothetical Can-Am team?

Eri Yoshida

Yoshida is a side-arm knuckleballer from Yokohama, Japan. She has pitched professionally against men on several occasions, including as a member of the Kobe 9 in Japan, and the Chico Outlaws in the U.S of A.

She has trained extensively with knuckleball sages such as Tim Wakefield and seems to have perfected the technique at a very young age. Some claim she has mastered 36 divine deception techniques and 72 earthly ones, giving her more than enough deceptive notes in her pitch sequence to fool almost any batter.

Would Yoshida sign on to pitch for a Cromartie led Montreal minor league franchise? Yes, she would in a heart beat. The Cro is a MUCH BIGGER legend in Japan than he is in North America and is a baseball icon over there.

I think women would flock to see her throw and make men look foolish with her deceptive knuckleball, I think she would be an instant-star in Montreal.

Montreal was where the first black player gained confidence to smash the color barrier in Major League Baseball...could it be the place where the first woman player gains the confidence to strike out men in Major League Baseball? I don't know...I think it would sell tickets though.

I want to catch baseball fever again...

On Civil Disobedience...

Montreal Student Protest

Lots of students filling the streets this week in Montreal to protest tuition hikes. Yes, it's annoying that they are non-violently protesting and blocking streets off...but I can't be mad at them because I know that non-violent civil disobedience is one of the major factors that made Canada what it is today, and although it is a little annoying, I respect the students.

Canada has a long history of non-violent civil disobedience and it's pretty interesting.

History of Canadian Civil Disobedience

This got really big in Canada after World War I, when all the veterans came back bloodied, tired, and broken...to nothing. They were thanked for "Fighting for Freedom" and then forgotten about. Out of the 500,000 (est.) that returned home from WW1 many were disfigured or amputated, and a person with no arms has no chance of finding a job.

"Returning soldiers were angry. They had risked their lives for their country and now were returning to economic chaos. They had great difficulty finding jobs. They sometimes saw them occupied by immigrants. They bristled at annual inflation rates of about forty percent. They heard tales of people who had profited immensely from the war. " 

(http://canadachannel.ca/HCO/index.php/1._Strikes_and_Labour_Disputes_1918-1920)

It's hard to find a job when you have no legs...

People were starting to notice that maybe World War I was more about sending poor people to die off and making rich people more "war-bucks" than it was about "freedom" or some bullshit word...and so they got really really mad.

You can search "Winnipeg General Strike" or "On-to-Ottawa Trek"  for some good examples, or read through the link after the quote mentioned above...but to sum it up, Canadians protested like crazy and won all of the gains we take for granted today. All the social gains we have today were won from the powerful elite class by unions, veterans, and regular folks who practiced civil disobedience in the streets. That is not mentioned very often, in fact, usually when they talk about something we have in Canada they tell us it was given to us from an elite, like a God giving his peons something.

Take medicare for instance, in the interest of the history of medicare, we are told a horribly sappy story about how Tommy Douglas was once treated for free by a doctor and he decided that one day he will give everyone free health care. This is bullshit, Douglas was a crazy Christian preacher who wrote essays in support of eugenics and establishing a "Canadian Master Race." This crazy fool didn't just hand Canadians health care like some sort of God. Real Canadians took to the streets and fought for these gains.

Similarly in the U.S.A. veterans came home to nothing as well, and at some point must have said to themselves "fuck this shit, I went to kill other poor folks over the pond for what? To come home and live in the fucking street? Fuck this."  In 1932, a group of 17,000 veterans (plus their families and supporters, which in turn made the group total about 43,000 people) marched on the White House demanding compensation and a better life. This protest did not sit well with the Americans in power at the time and they ordered the protesters removed, President Herbert Hoover told the guards to use force if necessary and two veterans were shot and killed by police. So basically, two people who went to "die for their country" did indeed die for their country...but in their country and by their country. That's fucked up. (see: "Bonus Army" for details)

Civil Disobedience All-Stars

NVCD Icons of Yesteryear

The two most iconic faces of non-violent civil disobedience are Gandhi, and Martin Luther King Jr.

If you are interested in knowing about these two men and their methods please by all means use the power of the internet and research them. Putting their names into a search engine will give you all you need to know about them...also having King's "I Have a Dream" book in your library (either print or digital) is a must have.

(I might fill this blog out more after, but that's the basic reason I'm not gonna hate on the students for blocking off the roads even if it is annoying. It's good to keep pressure on your government.)

Ammendment (May 27, 2012:)

After 100 days of greasy students and crazy cops fooling around in the streets, it might be time to end this silliness.

Think about this...

As more US and UK universities are making their research and curriculum available for widespread free use online (example: http://webcast.berkeley.edu/)...it looks like the whole face of education is changing.

Michael Geist argues that Canada should catch up to the US and UK on this matter: (http://www.thestar.com/business/article/1177735--is-canada-lagging-behind-in-online-education)

For the record, a full year ago I wrote about free internet education in my blog: (https://writingsonsubjects.blogspot.com/2011/05/free-educationget-it-while-it-hot-and.html) 

Online free education is really good, you can pause the lecture (to open a new tab and search for a term you didn't understand), you can rewind it to see a part over again that you didn't quite get. It's so convienient and free.
 
Right now, for instance, I'm watching lectures on computer programming as presented by the notorious mutha fuckin' Paul N. Hilfinger.

(http://webcast.berkeley.edu/playlist#c,s,All,EE65657BC5C79469)

...and it's FOR FREE! You can do this for any subject! You people are fighting for an ancient educational model that is going extinct fast. It's pointless...