What production delays are being considered?

[JerseyJohn]

Desert Dave

So let me get this staight, Joe DiMaggio made battleships?

I heard an old song (it would have to be, of course considering the subjet) that went like this.

"Joltin Joe,

DiMaggio,

We want you on,

Ou--rr si--de."

Having gone this far off topic I may as well go all the way with a few notes concerning baseball in the United States during WWII.

Sports figures, like movie stars, were used as morale raisers. Many, like Hank Greenberg and Clark Gable, wanted to actually be used in combat but were generally kept out of danger. Gable eventually became disgusted (he was a major in the Army Air Force), resigned his commission and returned to civilian life. Greenberg was sent to some areas close to the front in the Pacific -- as the greatest Jewish baseball star his value if captured by the Nazis so he was sent to the other front. I'm fuzzy on what he actually did but I do know he had a real military job. I believe he was a captain in the USAAF.

Ted Williams joined the Marines and was a pilot instructor. His life wasn't risked by the Navy Dept during WWII but he flew in cobat years later in Korea, when he shouldn't have been used at all, and he was nearly killed in that one.

Joe DiMaggio joined the Army but I don't think he was allowed to do anything other than go on tours and play in exhibition games. Which makes sense, the loss of so popular a figure would have been extremely bad for morale.

Major League Baseball was shut down for a year during the First World War but remained functiong throughout WWII. Things were so altered by ballplayers going into the military that the consistently mediocre St Louis Browns won their only pennant in 1944 incorporating a one armed outfielder. It was also the only Saint Louis subway world series.

The one armed outfielder helped to integrate baseball because he symbolized how bigotted the oweners were, in that they chose a one armed white man over all the really great black baseball players who were readily available. Two seasons after the war ended the game was integrated.

Okay, so this whole post is off-topic. I lost it in the sun -- it took a bad bounce!

[ September 14, 2004, 05:51 PM: Message edited by: JerseyJohn ]

[Desert Dave]

Okay, so this whole post is off-topic. I lost it in the sun -- it took a bad bounce!

LOL!

Ah, Mr J John, ... isn't that JUST

The way of it.

Yep, them old time ball-players WERE indeed

All-around Americans.

Here comes a 98 MPH mustard seed?

Well, you toe the dirt,

And you bow the neck,

And you stay right in there,

And... you hit it.

War times?

You volunteer... to do SOMETHING, somehow.

Hmmmmmm,

How did the Sports Heroes behave

In... Vietnam era?

Fair question, I'd think.

Or... now.

BIG difference, those old time ball-players

And these new... whatever they are.

I suppose... they COULD throw a folding chair

INTO the stands and injure... a female fan?

That'd be... SOOOOOO COOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOL!

[JerseyJohn]

Ah Mr D. Dave,

I never quite thought about it that way but you're right. That generation had an entirely different mindset from it's successors. Hank Greenberg enslisted with a simple request, "I want to fight the Nazis." Not knowing the closest he'd get to them was Southeast Asia.

Probably my own disillusionment with Major League baseball started with a White Sox (?) catcher refused to play for the All Star Team because he wanted to spend those days having fun.

The All Star Game wasn't fun apparently and a guy who has five months off and the other seven playing a game needed to screw around for a few days rather participate in what was supposed to be an honor. He wasn't much more than a flash-in-the pan anyway and I doubt he was ever selected for another All Star Team.

I wonder if, looking back on it all, this guy now in his fifties shakes his head when he thinks about the self-centered young fool he was at the time? Probably not. Most likely he's matured into a self-centered middle aged fool.

Not that he was, or is, typical, but somehow his action and remarks about it, put baseball in a different light for me. Today, of course it's all money and showbiz. I think that's the part I can't stand. The games have a commercial atmosphere.

I used to like going to a game and being able to watch it quetly, other than the truly spontaneous crowd noises. Today a giant scoreboard tells people when to cheer, when to get up for a wave, shows commercials etc & etc -- remember the days when people went to a baseball park to get away from things like that?

[SeaMonkey]

See that's just it, used to be we could all get behind the cause, put our collective energy in focus and get the job done. Seems like that's all changed, too much second guessing, Sunday morning quarterbacking, if a frog had wings he wouldn't bump his ass every time he jumped. I won't mention the alternative motivation which is all to prevalent. Maybe we (Americans) should just pull all our resources back to our own borders, take our ball and go home. Ok, leave the ball and bring our people home, but alas the 20th century taught us that doesn't work. But just maybe this time...we shut the borders and throw all the foreigners out...yeah that's the ticket...ought OH that means all of us (Americans) get thrown out, cause we're all foreigners. Sooo what am I trying to say here...the point escapes. Well I just hope if some bad guys start beating up on me and my family right out in my front yard with all my neighbors looking on, that some of my dear neighbors will provide something more then just some lip service to save us (if the shoe is on the other foot I will save them with whatever action is necessary). Cause if they don't it'll be their turn next and I won't be around.