JerseyJohn Posted February 6, 2003 Share Posted February 6, 2003 Liam Yeah, but neither side has an airforce -- I think it's stretching things to ask props to go up against fully developed jets! I love watching those insane History Channel weapons nuts! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Desert Dave Posted February 6, 2003 Share Posted February 6, 2003 Oh my, the... LOWLY... EM, eh? Willie & Joe? where ever did you go? :confused: Hey, here's a thought... an old, old idea, probably updated many myriad times... and just lately, was that Mark Twain? Kurt Vonnegut Jr?... anyway, What you do - You take all the idiot politicians clamoring for a Young One's spirit & blood, And you take ALL the whip-smart, march-about officers, and You put them in this... tiny Arena. Sawdust on the floor. Trap doors closed over tight... well, They'll just have to get used to it, just like the riff-raff & cake-eating hoi polloi, right? No cowardly weapons. No killer Technology. No SMGs or Laser Blades, no propaganda or dearly idiot Crusades. No talk talk talk from the squawking chickenhawks, no, no nothin'... merely some... mouth-muscle and what passes for grit. So. Go! Brave warriors! Go for it! And leave the rest of the plain folks alone. Let these pause, at ease, equipoised, to pare rare flowers... for a delicate Orient vase. Or gather driftwood for a rousing Sea-side fire. Let them make something utterly New... out of the grace of an occasional heart's desire. Let them kiss the Maiden or the Lamb or the lost little darling... or even... the scabrous horn of The Beast... but, Never, never! I say! ...the a**... of the clean-kneed Elites. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JerseyJohn Posted February 6, 2003 Share Posted February 6, 2003 Immer Beuatifully put, as always. It would be a great improvement over the traditional way of solving these things. Except, of course, no matter how much blood is spilled it never remains solved for very long. Do you happen to recall a very, very old TV commercial that had two horribly out of shape men in their late fifties/early sixties duking it out in a field in business suites to decide the course of a war? I can't remember what it was about but it was from the early or mid-70s. I'm a big fan of Vonnegut's views on everything. Particularly as interpreted through Kilgore Trout. [ February 06, 2003, 06:47 PM: Message edited by: JerseyJohn ] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Liam Posted February 7, 2003 Share Posted February 7, 2003 Ahhh, we can glorify the thought of War can't we? If I were in that Political circle I would look for my Katana and slice through the taxplans and Republican/Democratic Idealisms. I would run the country as a pure Empire! We go overseas not for our interests, for MODERN CIVILIZATION for these foreign heathens do not know what is right for them If someone has something to say... Look down the barrel of my 10thousand Nuclear devices! JJ: I gotta love the thought though. I'd love to see old armies perform against modern ones. I believe the Iraqis would just fly to Iran Without an Airforce regardless of improved tanks/small arms and artillery they'd probably still all Run away! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JerseyJohn Posted February 7, 2003 Share Posted February 7, 2003 Liam Pure Empire, help the ignorant Heatherns to a better life . . . isn't that like, sort of, 19th Century Imperialism, The White Man's Burden and all that sort of thing? Yes, armies from different eras being pitted against each other is the same as the 1908 White Sox playing the 1927 Yankees or the 1929 Athletics facing the 1963 Dodgers . . . Jack Johnson or Joe Louis fighting Muhamed Ali in Boxing . . . Bobby Fischer playing Gary Kasparov in Chess . . . Match-ups mixing eras all the more intrigueing because they're actual coming about is forever impossible. And, if it's ever possible to simulate it you start asking how the earlier version adapts to later rules, equipment, etc.. It reminds me of a remark Ted Williams made in the late fifties when a sportswriter asked what he thought Ty Cobb would hit if he were playing today? Without giving it a thought Williams said, .245 .. The sportswriter and several others listening said they thought that was way too low and Williams replied, "Considering the guy's 70, .245 isn't so bad!" Guess that's why battles with mismatched weapons where the underdog triumphs are so interesting; the Isandwana's and Little Big Horns* and several victories of sword weilding Highlanders over British Red Coats. * Some accounts of Custer's fiasco have the Indians armed with repeating Winchesters and the 7th Cavalry making do with one shot carbines. In which case, the Cavalry was the underdog. The official inquiry commison made this claim, which is why I'm skeptical of it. [ February 07, 2003, 09:50 AM: Message edited by: JerseyJohn ] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Desert Dave Posted February 7, 2003 Share Posted February 7, 2003 As originally posted by JerseyJohn: It reminds me of a remark Ted Williams made in the late fifties when a sportswriter asked what he thought Ty Cobb would hit if he were playing today? Without giving it a thought Williams said, .245 .. The sportswriter and several others listening said they thought that was way too low and Williams replied, "Considering the guy's 70, .245 isn't so bad!" Great story... the thing is, in this Warhol Era of Erstwhile Ersatz Delights, he would ALSO hit 37 homeruns! No matter he is over 70! :cool: Those old guys were wiry & tough and desperate for vittles & rent money, you bet, an Old-Timer would merely reach out across the plate, one-handed and with this little FLICK FLICK - smack that pill over the opposite field fence! Hey, even you and I could play now and hit .239 with 19 cracker-jacks and we'd be hailed as Conquering Heroes! Then, when the Economy goes on the fritz (... or then the owners forget their outlandish grand-standing and decide for fiscal responsibility), we could join our down-trodden Union brothers and claim that the owners are... in COLLUSION! Refusing to pay us 10 Million bucks - or MORE! for our deathless contribution! After our one big breakout season! So. What to do? Sue! Sue the spats right off of them Yankee Capitalists! Sure, we would march to & fro in our Seville Row clothes and DEMAND that the miminum-wage ticket-takers and parking-lot sweeper-uppers JOIN! our Mother Jones Crusade! AH, what a wonderful world... moderne Baseball as only these Aquarian Avatars could play it! and indeed -- Achilles and Hector would arise singing mythic Hosannahs! from out of the blood soaked dust... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JerseyJohn Posted February 7, 2003 Share Posted February 7, 2003 Immer Summed up magnificently! Explains why I can't watch professional baseball these days; a game I've always loved. It's only a quest for money now, nothing more. Not the game where each spring batting champs went to camp thankful they still had a job -- for that week! And with the money quest most of the real fun is out of the game as well. The past ten years or so I've really enjoyed going with my wife to watch twelve year olds play little league games. That seems to be about the only place it's still pursued for the sheer fun of playing. Although it gets a bit strained every so often when a kid swings an aluminum bat and the ball makes a weak clink sound and sails over the fence. But if the homerun isn't quite honest at least the joy of hitting it is. Yes, those are interesting visions of Ty Cobb and Shoeless Joe Jackson and Rogers Hornsby returned from the deadball era to poke this supercharged baseball to all fields, their old doubles, solid linedrives to the gaps, suddenly cashed in as homers! Guys who died destitute resurected and the owners not having enough money to pay them. And then, when they've scraped together enough to pay thos guys, there's Satchel Page*, Josh Gibson and all the others they wouldn't allow in the game back when they were actually breathing! * Satch did get in, but it was a decade past his prime and he was mainly a crowd pleaser. I do believe you're right that given a little time to practice we'd be right in there with those .250 / 30 homerun wonderous millionaires. No doubt we'd both receive a nickname like Squinty or Specs! It reminds me of that quote about my old favorite Moe Berg , the back-up catcher turned spy turned lawyer! "Moe spoke ten languages and couldn't hit in any of them!" As a last thought, what would todays pampered starters think of an age, not that long ago, when they were not just expected to pitch 40 complete games a season, but serve as a short reliever on their days off! Hail Columbia, it was good enough for Lefty Grove and Dizzy Dean but I don't think many of the present crop would get through a season of that. And the contract, give us 30 wins and you'll get a raise -- but win 29 by August and you're next start is next season! [actually done to notorious 1919 Black Sox pitcher Ed Cicotte]. And, of course, if SC were a baseball game there'd be a way of representing all this using the scenario editor. Which is precisely why I love it! [ February 07, 2003, 04:14 PM: Message edited by: JerseyJohn ] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Desert Dave Posted February 8, 2003 Share Posted February 8, 2003 Those were the days! JJ, O holy Luis Aparico, those were the glory-days... Once upon a 60s time, I was sittin' in a bar in Coos Bay, Ore-egon, it was a Tuesday nite I do believe and not much in the way of high-roller delight, and anyway, This guy sez - sittin' right next to me listening to my braggart routine, he says -- I bet! you can't name the en-tire startin' lineup, and best 3 pitchers too! Of the Dee-troit Tigers... oh no! NOT this year... 1957! Well... who used to collect bicylce-spoke ball-cards when e' was the barefoot, ball playing youth? and so... Listen up! brother Tom, the terrible Doubter... Frank House... "Earl of Snohomish" Torgeson scrapin' the dirt out around first... Cool Cat Kuenn... and Ol' "Paw-Paw" Maxwell swattin' butterflies out in the pasture in left... etc, etc, NOT to omit Paul Foytack! smokin' them pennant pretenders with that fast gas... and on & on and sure enough, I got 'em all... the guy wudn't believe, so he got out the book... yep, yep, you got 'em all alright! One free beer comin' right up! :cool: Sure I was proud as punch and sittin' high & fancy alright, but... it wasn't me went home with the uptown babe that night... no, no, it was... he... :confused: ... too bad, but that's the Saloon ways of West Coast life... saw that same Duke-of-Earl dude a coupla months later, out at the bonfire by tha ocean... O so sorrowful was he, yep, was, and complainin' up a deluge -- O woe-to-me... I got this a-ffliction cast upon me... well, having been around and downtown too, I guessed what it was, and, see that's the nature of classic Tragedy, sure, you just can't esscape yer Fate, nosiree, and it ken be a mighty long fall... And so, I never did tell him -- just got up and wandered off and fetched another stick for the ocean-side fire... but... I gotta come clean, see, I MISSED the starting third-sacker for that Tiger club... shoulda been Bertoia... I'd said Montoya... One free beer, one back-packer cat sad as a little lost forest deer... hey, that's Life! how it goes in Coos Bay Ore-egon an a slow mo Tuesday night... when the lights are lurid low and there ain't many... cheers? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JerseyJohn Posted February 8, 2003 Share Posted February 8, 2003 Great Tale of Woe, Immer! Many morals to be found there -- better to be an avid old time baseball fan than a . . ., well, indiscrete gentleman on the prowl! Back then the teams had rosters that flowed from one year into the next. Even the bad teams had stars who were stuck where they were for life, such as Ernie Banks with those terrible Cubs and their desperation experiments like the rotating coach/manager season! I remember the late 50s Tigers had a great Yankee Killer on their pitching staff. I'm not sure what his name was (Paul Foytack?) but his nickname was taters or something along those lines. It used to be funny to watch the Yanks blow passed Jim Bunning then get stopped dead by this guy with a much worse ERA and won/lost record. I wasn't ten yet and that's all a very distant memory, but I used to love the way one of my uncle's always had appeplexy whenever the Yanks faced that guy. One thing I miss about the old days was once the game actually got under way you were left alone to watch it. No travelling beach ball, no animated screen, no wave, just you and the game. In the larger ballparks the PA system would echo the names of batters and player changes and that was always fun to hear. One game in '63, when everyone in the stands were oozing sympathy for the perrenially injured Mickey Mantle, this one old guy sitting behind me kept things in perspective. He'd be completely quiet till #7 came to the plate, then he'd go off, "This overpayed putz, he couldn't carry Hank Greenberg's bats. He couldn't hand Jimmy Foxx his cap. Why, he couldn't shine Lou Gehrig's shoes . . ." Being a not overly respectful 14 year old surrounded by his buddies, around the fifth inning I started chiming in with him " "Yeah mister, this creep couldn'tve been the batboy in '39 -- He couldn't break in Pete Reiser's glove. He couldn't fold Ernie Lombardi's handkerchief -- He couldn't . . ." The old timer let out this hearty beer barrel laugh, patted my Yankee cap and said, "That's right, you tell'em kid!" sort of putting the joke sqaurly on yours' truly! But you don't don't get any of that these days. At least not a decade ago when I last went to Yankee and Shey Stadiums to spend a couple of games being miserable in overpriced seats with a P/A system that never stopped for a moment. Seventh inning stretch, instead of hearing people talking about the game or the league or the players everthing was drowned out by a Three Stooges short blasting away from the scoreboard. In the sixties it would have been half volume Glen Miller recordings floating rythmically across the infield. So, these days, instead of watching our long legendary Louis Aparicio on the White Sox or Orioles, I watch twelve year olds I don't know while the wife talks with their mothers about more profound topics I can never quite keep track of. But some things remain consistant, even if in a twisted sort of way. When I was their age I'd watch a major league game and wish I were playing there on the field. Now I watch their little league games and once again find myself wishing I were out there, playing on that field -- twelve again, obsessed about the things only seventh graders can be obsessed about. But if we all get only one go around I probably shouldn't bitch about the one they gave me. It was fun and it's memories have been good company over the decades. I get a kick out of the way these forums fizzle out. The What If's stopped abruptly when we got into the subtleties (or lack thereof)of Global Thermo Nuclear War and in this one, our Ode to Ancient Baseball has driven everyone else to the proverbial Greener Pastures! Immer, we may be the Ruth and Gehrig, or perhaps the Koufax and Drysdale, of the Forum Ending League! Which is a good thing as someone has to provide this funtion. [ February 10, 2003, 02:40 AM: Message edited by: JerseyJohn ] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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