Esta entrada cubre aproximadamente de 1900 a 1910, e incluye la formación de la Liga Americana y su integración con la Liga Nacional, culminando con el establecimiento de la Serie Mundial, así como el surgimiento de las primeras grandes estrellas del juego, Christy Mathewson y Honus Wagner, quienes ayudan a limpiar la mala reputación del béisbol como alborotador. juego de peleas. Ty Cobb se discute en profundidad (el título de esta entrada proviene de una de sus muchas citas). Muchas de las citas utilizadas en esta entrada y de las otras primeras entradas están tomadas del best-seller de Lawrence S. Ritter The Glory of Their Times.
Baseball es una miniserie documental de televisión estadounidense de 1994 creada por el documentalista Ken Burns sobre la historia del deporte del béisbol.
Transmitido por primera vez en PBS, este fue el noveno documental de Burns y ganó el Premio Primetime Emmy de 1995 a la Mejor Serie Informativa. Fue financiado en parte por el National Endowment for the Humanities.
El béisbol, al igual que los documentales anteriores de Burns, como The Civil War, utilizó imágenes de archivo y filmaciones mezcladas con entrevistas para la presentación visual. Los actores proporcionan voz en off recitando trabajos escritos (cartas, discursos, etc.) sobre imágenes y videos. Los episodios se intercalan con la música de la época tomada de series anteriores de Burns, música original o grabaciones que van desde Louis Armstrong hasta Elvis Presley. John Chancellor, presentador de NBC Nightly News de 1970 a 1982, narró la serie.
El documental se divide en nueve partes, cada una denominada "entrada", que sigue la división de un juego de béisbol. Cada "entrada" repasa una época, mencionando momentos notables en el mundo y en Estados Unidos mismo, y comienza con un breve prólogo que actúa como una visión del juego durante esa época.
El prólogo termina con la interpretación de "The Star-Spangled Banner" tal como comenzaría un juego de béisbol real, generalmente interpretado por una banda de música, con un par de excepciones: la década de 1920, donde la interpretación es tocada por un piano de la época, y la década de 1960, donde la interpretación es la versión tocada por Jimi Hendrix en Woodstock.
En algunos episodios de "entradas", se usa una versión de época del himno de béisbol "Take Me Out to the Ball Game". Aproximadamente a la mitad de cada "entrada", aparece una tarjeta de título, que dice "Parte inferior de" la entrada, dividiendo el episodio en dos partes de una manera que también recuerda el juego; en la séptima "entrada", el "Fondo" es precedido inmediatamente por el "tramo de la séptima entrada".
Dentro de estas mitades del episodio, hay segmentos más pequeños que también se destacan con una simple tarjeta de título que a menudo destaca varias partes importantes de la historia del béisbol.
#documentales
#españollatino
#historia
#relatos
Baseball es una miniserie documental de televisión estadounidense de 1994 creada por el documentalista Ken Burns sobre la historia del deporte del béisbol.
Transmitido por primera vez en PBS, este fue el noveno documental de Burns y ganó el Premio Primetime Emmy de 1995 a la Mejor Serie Informativa. Fue financiado en parte por el National Endowment for the Humanities.
El béisbol, al igual que los documentales anteriores de Burns, como The Civil War, utilizó imágenes de archivo y filmaciones mezcladas con entrevistas para la presentación visual. Los actores proporcionan voz en off recitando trabajos escritos (cartas, discursos, etc.) sobre imágenes y videos. Los episodios se intercalan con la música de la época tomada de series anteriores de Burns, música original o grabaciones que van desde Louis Armstrong hasta Elvis Presley. John Chancellor, presentador de NBC Nightly News de 1970 a 1982, narró la serie.
El documental se divide en nueve partes, cada una denominada "entrada", que sigue la división de un juego de béisbol. Cada "entrada" repasa una época, mencionando momentos notables en el mundo y en Estados Unidos mismo, y comienza con un breve prólogo que actúa como una visión del juego durante esa época.
El prólogo termina con la interpretación de "The Star-Spangled Banner" tal como comenzaría un juego de béisbol real, generalmente interpretado por una banda de música, con un par de excepciones: la década de 1920, donde la interpretación es tocada por un piano de la época, y la década de 1960, donde la interpretación es la versión tocada por Jimi Hendrix en Woodstock.
En algunos episodios de "entradas", se usa una versión de época del himno de béisbol "Take Me Out to the Ball Game". Aproximadamente a la mitad de cada "entrada", aparece una tarjeta de título, que dice "Parte inferior de" la entrada, dividiendo el episodio en dos partes de una manera que también recuerda el juego; en la séptima "entrada", el "Fondo" es precedido inmediatamente por el "tramo de la séptima entrada".
Dentro de estas mitades del episodio, hay segmentos más pequeños que también se destacan con una simple tarjeta de título que a menudo destaca varias partes importantes de la historia del béisbol.
#documentales
#españollatino
#historia
#relatos
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DeportesTranscripción
01:29Between 1900 and 1910, there were revolutions in China and Central America, and war between
01:37Russia and Japan. Pablo Picasso shattered the art world, and Sigmund Freud published
01:44the interpretation of dreams. In America, Orville and Wilbur Wright flew at Kitty Hawk. Henry
01:52Ford began turning out Model T's, and D.W. Griffith began making motion pictures. Geronimo and
02:02Susan B. Anthony and Henry Chadwick died. Charles Lindbergh and Louis Armstrong and Lou Gehrig
02:10were born.
02:16It was the progressive era, a time when America's faith and the inevitability of progress was
02:24as boundless as the continent itself.
02:30But the American frontier was closing. American cities were filling with tenements. And racism
02:37and fear of foreigners was setting Americans against Americans.
02:45Major League Baseball entered the twentieth century in trouble, beset by declining attendance, rowdyism,
02:53unhappy players, and feuding, greedy club owners. But then divided itself in two, cleaned itself up, and succeeded beyond anyone's wildest dreams.
03:06The World Series began. And season after season, more than five million fans filled stadiums to see their heroes play. And countless millions more, who had never been lucky enough to watch them in person, followed their every move in the sports pages.
03:29At the turn of the century, Major League veterans often refused even to speak to new players. Once, early in his career, a shy young outfielder dared compliment a New York Giant for hitting a home run.
03:57Nice hit, he said. The veteran answered, go to hell.
04:02The young player was Johannes Peter Wagner, Honus Wagner, on his way to becoming the greatest player in the National League.
04:11If a man with a voice loud enough to make himself heard all over the United States should stand on top of Pike's feet and ask, who is the greatest ball player?
04:26Untold millions of Americans would shout, Wagner.
04:31Wagner, U.S. Fullerton, American Magazine.
04:35No one ever saw anything graceful or picturesque about Wagner on the diamond. His movements have been likened to the gambles of a caracalling elephant. He's so ungainly and so bow-legged that when he runs, his limbs seem to be moving in a circle after the fashion of a propeller.
04:57Well, he can run like the wind. New York American.
05:07A Pennsylvania coal miner who had once hoped to become a barber, Wagner became a star in the Iron and Oil League.
05:16And in 1900 joined the Pittsburgh Pirates, where he played shortstop for 18 years.
05:24He hit better than 315 seasons in a row, stealing 722 bases, setting league records for at-bats and number of games played that stood for four decades.
05:42And it turned out that old Holness was the best third baseman in the league. He was also the best first baseman, the best second baseman, the best shortstop and the best outfielder.
05:52That was infielding. And since he led the league in batting eight times between 1900 and 1911, you know that he was the best hitter too, as well as the best baserunner, Tommy Leach.
06:05He had a powerful build. His 5 foot 11 inch, 200 pound frame, it was said, featured a massive chest that might have come from a barrel maker's shop, and shoulders broad enough to serve dinner on.
06:20His legs were badly bowed, but he had huge hands and arms so long, opposing players swore he could tie his shoes without bending over.
06:33Nothing seemed to get past him, and he threw so hard to first base that pebbles, scooped up as he fielded grounders, were said to arrive along with the ball.
06:45February 1901. If we had waited for the National League to do something for us, we would have remained a minor league forever.
07:06The American League will be the principal organization of the country within a very short time.
07:13Mark my prediction.
07:15Ban Johnson.
07:25Byron Bancroft Ban Johnson was a big man, with even bigger ambitions.
07:31A professor's son, Johnson became a sports writer for the Cincinnati Commercial Gazette.
07:38Then took over a struggling minor league circuit called the Western League in 1894, and made it a financial success.
07:48In 1900, he changed its name to the American League, and began to talk of moving east, to challenge the big city monopoly of Albert Goodwill Spalding's troubled National League.
08:01He promised honest baseball, cheaper ticket prices, and a wholesome family atmosphere.
08:08At first, the National League owners simply ignored him.
08:13When he asked to address their annual meeting, they kept him waiting in the hall, then adjourned without even giving him a hearing.
08:21It was a major miscalculation.
08:24Johnson was humorless and dictatorial.
08:27He looked, one reporter said, as if he had been weaned on an icicle.
08:31But he was also able, resourceful, and determined.
08:38When the National League dropped four of its less profitable teams, Johnson saw his chance.
08:45He established new clubs in Boston, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Washington.
08:51Snapped up newly unemployed players.
08:54Then began raiding active National League rosters.
08:59Lured by an average of $500 more per season,
09:03111 National League players jumped to ban Johnson's brand new American League.
09:09Including the great pitchers Cy Young and Rube Waddell,
09:14and the notorious John McGraw.
09:17By the end of the 1902 season, even Spalding's Guide to Baseball admitted
09:29that the American League has more star players,
09:32and can furnish a better article of baseball than the National League.
09:36The National League owners complained, threatened, mounted lawsuits, quarreled among themselves.
09:45But they could do nothing.
09:48Van Johnson was not going to go away.
09:52What's the matter with these National League magnates?
09:57What a shame it is that the greatest of sports should be in the hands of such a malodorous gang,
10:04as these magnates have proven themselves to be on more than one occasion.
10:09League meetings are characterized by mudslinging, brawling, corruption,
10:14breaches of confidence, dishonorable conspiracies, and threats of personal violence.
10:21In 1903, weakened by their own squabbling, the National League owners sued for peace.
10:30Van Johnson had won.
10:33A new national agreement was negotiated.
10:36Now there would be two major leagues, separate but equal, honoring one another's contracts,
10:43both retaining the reserve clause that kept players bound to their owners for life.
10:49A three-man national commission was appointed to settle disputes and see that the regulations were enforced.
10:56Power was supposed to be shared equally, but Van Johnson saw to it that he was really in charge.
11:05The players were not represented.
11:08Just outside the old Huntington Avenue ballpark, home of the Boston Pilgrims of the New American League,
11:22stood the third base saloon, so called because it was the fans' last stop on the way home.
11:29Its owner was the bartender, Mike McGreevey, known as Nuff Said, because he was the final arbiter of all barroom disputes.
11:42His customers, Irish immigrants mostly, called themselves the Royal Rooters,
11:47and considered themselves the most loyal of all Boston fans,
11:51though their loyalty was actually comparatively new.
11:55They had been National League fans until the National Leaguers raised ticket prices two years earlier.
12:02At eleven o'clock, four hours before the game began,
12:24a crowd of nearly a thousand was clamoring for admission.
12:28With the opening of the gate at twelve o'clock, there began a steady rush which grew into a surging mass.
12:36The long lane leading to the ticket office was completely choked with excited fans.
12:41And in the offices, there was a veritable din caused by the merry ring of the coins.
12:47Boston Globe.
12:49On October 1st, 1903, Nuff Said, McGreevey and his Royal Rooters were among the first to pass through the turnstiles
12:59to see the Boston Pilgrims take on the Pittsburgh Pirates in the very first championship series between the two leagues.
13:06It would be a best-of-nine game contest.
13:13Realizing that this was a golden opportunity to prove the superiority of his new league,
13:18Van Johnson ordered the Boston owner to beat Pittsburgh.
13:23Pittsburgh had been favored to win, but Boston was aided by a series of disasters that undercut the Pirates.
13:31One pitcher had been injured. Their star shortstop, Honus Wagner, was playing hurt.
13:37And just as the series got underway, Ed Doheny, another pitcher, suffered a mental breakdown and was sent to an asylum.
13:46That was probably the wildest series ever played.
13:51Arguing all the time between the teams, between the players and the umpires, and especially between the players and the fans.
13:58That's the truth.
14:00The fans were part of the game in those days.
14:03They'd pour right out onto the field and argue with the players and the umpires.
14:07It was sort of hard to keep the game going sometimes, to say the least.
14:10Tommy Leach.
14:12The Pirates took an early 3-1 lead in the series, thanks to Deacon Philippe, who pitched and won every one of Pittsburgh's three victories.
14:26Beating the great Cy Young twice.
14:29But spurred on by the zeal of Nuff Said McGreevy and his royal rooters, Boston roared back, winning the next three games.
14:45I think those Boston fans actually won that series for the Pilgrims.
14:50We beat them three out of the first four games, and then they'd start singing that damn Tessie song.
14:55You could hardly play ball, they were singing Tessie so damn loud.
14:59Only instead of singing Tessie, I love you madly, they'd sing special lyrics.
15:04Like when Honus Wagner came to Beth, they'd sing, Honus, why do you hit so badly?
15:09Sorta got on your nerves after a while.
15:12And before we knew what had happened, we lost the series.
15:15Tommy Leach.
15:17Tommy Leach.
15:21In the eighth and final game, Boston shut out Pittsburgh, 3-0.
15:28By defeating the National League champions from Pittsburgh at the Huntington Avenue grounds yesterday,
15:36the Boston Americans made it five victories out of eight games played,
15:41which gives them a clear title to the highest honor ever achieved in baseball, Boston Globe.
15:50The games proved so popular that the two leagues decided to hold a championship series every year.
15:58Boston manager Jimmy Collins raised the very first championship flag over the Huntington Avenue grounds.
16:08A team from Boston had beaten a team from Pittsburgh just 650 miles away,
16:14but the owners insisted on calling it the World Series.
16:19The Pilgrims would soon change their name to the Red Sox and would go on to win the World Series four times in the next 15 years.
16:33Philadelphia is the home of the Declaration of Independence, the number eight pretzel, and the translucent ham sandwich,
16:45all of which are served at the ball orchard.
16:48A slice of boiled ham, through which an eclipse of the sun could be observed with comfort,
16:54is stretched to cover the area of a baker's bun.
16:57The sustenance derived from the ham is equal to that of a similar portion of a red toy balloon.
17:04Inflated. Sporting news.
17:08Bad food and overpriced drink had been sold at ballparks since the 1850s,
17:22but it took one very ambitious British-born caterer to turn concessions into an empire.
17:34Harry M. Stevens had begun his career hawking scorecards in the 1880s,
17:40all the while regaling the crowds with quotes from Byron and Shakespeare.
17:46By 1901, he was peddling hard-boiled eggs, ham sandwiches, ice cream and slices of pie,
17:53in stadiums from New York to Ohio.
17:57Then, one cold afternoon, when ice cream sales slowed at the polo grounds,
18:03he sent out for German sausages, which he put in long buns so fans could hold and eat them.
18:10He had made his greatest contribution to the game, introducing hot dogs to the ballpark.
18:18In 1900, the Giants had taken a huge risk and traded their greatest pitcher, Amos Rusi, for a 19-year-old rookie.
18:35Rusi had 245 wins behind him, and as it turned out, none ahead of him.
18:43The Hoosier Thunderbolt went back to digging ditches in Indiana.
18:54The rookie had no Major League wins when he joined the team, but he had 373 ahead of him.
19:03His name was Christy Mathewson.
19:08Matty was without a peer.
19:10He had a greater variety of stuff than any pitcher I ever knew or handled.
19:15His fastball was the equal of Walter Johnson's, or Amos Rusi's.
19:21He had the fadeaway down to perfection, and he utilized his knowledge of batsmen with greater effect than any twirler in the game.
19:29He possessed wonderful control, remarkable fielding ability, and was one of the finest sportsmen the game has ever known.
19:39John McGraw.
19:40John McGraw.
19:45John McGraw may have championed the old brawling brand of baseball, but his greatest star was Christy Mathewson,
19:52a pitcher with a record for clean play so spotless that his wife once felt she had to defend him by saying that while he was a good man, he was no goody-goody.
20:02Christy Mathewson was Frank Marowell in the flesh.
20:05Christy Mathewson was Frank Marowell in the flesh.
20:08He was so virtuous, he would not give interviews to sports writers who he heard cheated on their wives.
20:15Small boys had admired other players.
20:22They worshipped Christy Mathewson.
20:25He was the perfect hero for his age.
20:28He seemed to have sprung from the pages of the dime baseball novels American boys now devoured.
20:35Sports writers and fans across the country called him the Christian Gentleman.
20:42No one did more to improve the reputation of the baseball player, and he did it with style.
20:50Matheson would always wait until just about ten minutes before game time.
20:58Then he'd come in from the clubhouse across the field in a long linen duster like auto drivers wore in those days.
21:05And at every step the crowd would yell louder and louder.
21:09He was a commanding presence on the mound, methodically directing the rhythm and pace of each game.
21:19He could throw a ball into a tin cup at pitching range, a player remembered.
21:24And he took a scientific approach to his work, carefully cataloging his pitches.
21:30His fastball could arrive with an inward, an outward, or an upward shoot, he once explained.
21:37He also threw a slow ball, a drop curve, an out curve, a rise ball, a spit ball, and the fall away,
21:45what pitchers later called the screw ball.
21:50The fall away, which I have used, if I may be pardoned for saying so, with greater effectiveness than any other pitcher,
21:57is an exceptionally slow ball and calculated to deceive the greatest batter.
22:02As it rushes toward him it looks like a fast high ball.
22:06Six feet from him when it begins to drop it has the appearance of a slow drop ball.
22:11And then as he swings, it is traveling in two directions at once.
22:16In 1905, John McGraw and his Giants won the National League pennant again.
22:25And this time, when Connie Mack's Philadelphia Athletics took the American League Championship, he agreed to take them on in the World Series.
22:35His decision not to play the year before had cost his players $1,000 each, as much as one half their yearly salaries.
22:44Mathewson, who had won 31 games that season, easily deceived the hitters on the Athletics in the series.
22:53Pitching a record three shutouts in six days, 27 innings, and not a single run.
23:00The greatest pitching performance in World Series history.
23:04The Giants easily beat Philadelphia, four games to one.
23:09The opening day of the new season, the World Champions took a victory lap around the park in a new kind of conveyor.
23:25With Christy Mathewson, New York looked unbeatable.
23:40Mathewson was the greatest pitcher who ever lived.
23:46It was wonderful to watch him pitch.
23:51When he wasn't pitching against you.
23:54Connie Mack.
24:02In 1901, John McGraw had tried to add a black second baseman named Charlie Grant to his roster by renaming him Charlie Takahoma and claiming he was a Cherokee Indian.
24:15Grant played along, but black friends who came out to cheer him on gave him away.
24:22He never got the job.
24:24For African Americans, it remained the worst of times.
24:31858 blacks were lynched during the decade.
24:36Separate but unequal laws held them in virtual bondage in the south and helped drive thousands north to already dangerously crowded cities in search of a better life.
24:49The national pastime, too, had nothing to offer.
24:53Blacks were still barred from playing in organized white baseball.
24:58Back in 1887, Moses Fleetwood Walker, the first black man to play in the major leagues, had been driven from the game.
25:11Now, he became the editor of his own newspaper and published a pamphlet entitled, Our Home Colony.
25:21In it, he urged black Americans to emigrate to Africa.
25:26They could expect nothing in America, he wrote, but failure and disappointment.
25:43I found that you can't play ball in skirts.
25:46I tried and nearly broke my neck.
25:50Finally, I was forced to discard it.
25:53And now I always wear bloomers, but made so wide that the fullness gives a skirt-like effect.
26:00Alta Weiss.
26:10Alta Weiss was a doctor's daughter from Ragersville, Ohio, who began to pitch for boys' teams at the age of 14.
26:19At 17, she joined a men's semi-professional team.
26:23Miss Weiss can easily lay claim to being the only one who can handle the ball from the pitcher's box in such style that some of the best SEBI pros are made to fan the atmosphere.
26:36The Lorraine Times Herald.
26:44Twelve hundred people turned out to see her make her professional debut.
26:48She gave up only four hits and a single run in five innings.
26:57Soon, special trains were being run out from Cleveland whenever she pitched.
27:03And thousands paid to see her play.
27:09In 1908, her father bought her a barnstorming semi-pro team, which he renamed the Weiss All-Stars.
27:16She eventually put herself through medical school with her earnings, practiced as a physician, and spent her last years sitting on her porch in Ohio watching children play the game she loved.
27:31But it would be four decades before women finally got a chance to play in their own professional league.
27:37Between seasons, baseball's greatest stars supplemented their salaries on the vaudeville circuit.
27:47Outfielder Turkey Mike Donlan of the New York Giants married an actress and performed with her on tour.
27:55Cap Anson recited a monologue written for him by George M. Cohan.
28:02Even Christy Mathewson once played the palace.
28:05One summer day in 1908, a popular vaudeville entertainer named Jack Norworth boarded a Manhattan train and saw an advertisement that read,
28:20Baseball Today, Polo Ground.
28:22He had never been to a professional game, but by the time he reached his stop, he had written out the lyrics for a song about baseball.
28:31When Norworth introduced the song in his act at the Amphion Theater in Brooklyn, it fell flat.
28:38But when Nickelodeon audiences were encouraged to sing along with lantern slides, it became a nationwide hit.
28:46Katie, Katie was made for mad, had the fever and had it sad.
28:56Just to root for the hometown through every school, Katie blew.
29:02On a Saturday, her young beau called to see if she'd like to go to see us go.
29:10But Miss Kate said no, I'll tell you what you can do.
29:16Take me out for the four game.
29:19Take me out with the crowd.
29:22Buy me some peanuts and Cracker Jacks.
29:26I don't care if I ever get back.
29:29Let me root, root, root for the home team.
29:32If they don't win, it's a shame.
29:34For it's one, two, three, take you out at the old ball game.
29:50The song would become baseball's anthem.
30:04George Edward Rube Waddell may have been the strangest man ever to play in the big leagues.
30:14A farmer's son from Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania.
30:17He possessed a fastball fearsome enough and a curve wicked enough
30:21to lead the American League in strikeouts for six straight years
30:26and to outpitch Cy Young for 20 innings.
30:29But it was his personality that most people remembered.
30:34He poured ice water on his arm before he pitched
30:38because he said otherwise he'd burn up the catcher's glove.
30:42And when he won a game, he sometimes turned cartwheels on the mound.
30:47He drank too much.
30:49The sporting news called him the southpaw.
30:52And he couldn't quite remember how many women he'd married.
30:55Between seasons, Waddell wrestled alligators
30:59and toured in a vaudeville melodrama, The Stain of Guilt.
31:04On the field, his attention tended to wander.
31:08Opponents could break his concentration
31:11by holding up puppies or bright shiny toys.
31:15He loved fires, and when a fire bell clanged,
31:19he had to be restrained from leaving the game to chase the fire engine.
31:22The exasperated teammates and opposing players
31:26never knew what he'd do next.
31:28But fans loved him.
31:31Sunday would come, and the little park would be packed way before game time.
31:39Everybody wanted to see the great Rue Waddell pitch.
31:42Nowhere to be found.
31:44Manager would be having a fit.
31:45And then just a few minutes before the game time, there'd be a commotion in the grandstand.
31:51You'd hear people laughing and yelling,
31:53Here comes Rube! Here comes Rube!
31:55And there he'd come right through the stands.
31:57He'd jump down on the field, cut across the infield, the clubhouse,
32:01taking off his shirt as he went.
32:03In about three minutes, he never wore any underwear.
32:06He'd run back out in uniform and yell,
32:08All right, let's get him!
32:10Sam Crawford.
32:12Players like Waddell, with their drinking, with their bad acting,
32:17with their inability to take their profession seriously,
32:21they came to baseball in its early years in very large numbers
32:25because baseball, though popular, was outside social norms.
32:30The instability of a career where you might work for a year or two and then be gone,
32:34the jumping from team to team seemed to be suited toward individuals
32:38who couldn't fit as well in the rest of society.
32:42Now, it helped, in the case of Rube Waddell and many of these other sociopathic figures,
32:47that in addition to being sociopaths, they also had incredibly strong arms or very good batting eyes.
32:51In 1904, Waddell struck out 349 batters,
33:02a record for American League left-handers that still stand.
33:06But he was just too hard to have.
33:09Though he was one of the greatest pitchers in baseball,
33:12his unreliability infuriated his teammates,
33:15and he was driven out of the big leagues and then out of the minors.
33:19Waddell contracted tuberculosis, helping victims of a flood,
33:24and died on April 1, 1914, at the age of 37.
33:29The greatest ball player of all time?
33:45I picked the Detroit man.
33:47Because he is, in my judgment, the most expert man of his profession,
33:51and is able to respond better than any other ball player to any demand made upon him.
33:58He plays ball with his whole anatomy, his head, his arms, his hands, his legs, his feet.
34:04I have never seen a man who had his heart more centered in the sport than Cobb has when he's playing.
34:10I believe Cobb would continue to play ball if he would charge something for the privilege,
34:17and if the only spectator were the groundskeeper.
34:19Charles Comiskey.
34:26Baseball is a red-blooded sport for red-blooded men.
34:30It's no pink tea, and Molly Cottle's had better stay out.
34:35It's a struggle for supremacy, a survival of the fittest.
34:39He was born on a Georgia farm in 1886, and named Tyrus after the ancient city of Tyre,
34:51that stubbornly refused to surrender to Alexander the Great.
34:56His mother, Amanda, was just 15.
35:00His father, William H. Cobb, was a schoolmaster who had made good,
35:04and was grimly determined that his son make good too, in medicine, or law, or the military.
35:13His father was distant, demanding.
35:16The only man who ever made me do his bidding, his son remembered,
35:20and nothing young Tyrus could do ever seemed to satisfy him.
35:28The tense, skinny boy took out his anger on the diamond, and on his schoolmates.
35:33In the fifth grade, he beat up a fat boy whose error had let the girls' team win a spelling bee.
35:40He left home at 17 to play in the minors in Alabama and Tennessee.
35:48His father warned him, don't come home a failure.
35:52That admonition, Cobb recalled, put more determination in me than he ever knew.
35:59My overwhelming need was to prove myself as a man.
36:04When no big league offers came right away, he forged letters praising his own skills,
36:10and dispatched them to Grantland Rice, sports editor of the Atlanta Journal.
36:14Finally, Rice wrote, there's a young fellow named Cobb who seems to be showing an unusual amount of talent.
36:24He eventually got a job playing left field for Augusta in the South Atlantic League,
36:30and soon led that league in hitting.
36:32Sale to a major league team seemed only weeks away.
36:36A sure sign of the success with which he hoped to win his father's favor.
36:43Then, Cobb got a telegram.
36:48His father was dead.
36:51Shotgunned.
36:52Cobb's own mother had shot him.
36:55Her husband thought she was having an affair,
36:58and when he tried to slip into her bedroom window at night to trap her with her lover, she shot him twice.
37:05Later, she said, she had mistaken him for a prowler.
37:09My father had his head blown off when I was 18 years old by a member of my own family, Cobb told a writer when he was an old man.
37:19I didn't get over that.
37:22I've never gotten over it.
37:26Three weeks after his father was killed, on August 30th, 1905, Ty Cobb played his first game for the Detroit Tigers.
37:35Every rookie gets a little hazing, but most of them just take it and laugh.
37:43Cobb took it the wrong way.
37:46He came up with an antagonistic attitude which, in his mind, turned any little razzing into a life-and-death struggle.
37:53He always figured everybody was ganging up on him.
37:56He came up from the South, and he was still fighting the Civil War.
37:59As far as he was concerned, we were all damn Yankees before he even met us.
38:05Sam Crawford.
38:07Sure, I fought. I had to fight all my life to survive. They were all against me.
38:18Tried every dirty trick to cut me down, but I beat the bastards and left them in the ditch.
38:24It's an old baseball aphorism that you can't play baseball with your teeth clenched.
38:32You have to be sort of relaxed, balanced temperament.
38:37Ty Cobb played all his career with his teeth clenched, his fists clenched.
38:41Despised often by his teammates. Once, when they thought he'd lost a batting title, they sent a...
38:50His own teammates sent a telegram of congratulations to the man who beat him.
38:54A man of such fierce determination to play that one time in an exhibition game in Toledo, Ohio,
39:00He went, had tonsillitis. He went and had his tonsils out by a quack who was later sent to an insane asylum.
39:08Without anesthetics, played later that day.
39:12He developed ulcers, took to sleeping with a revolver under his pillow,
39:18and soon began to display an obsessive animosity toward blacks.
39:21One day, when a black groundskeeper tried to shake his hand, Cobb slapped him, chased him into the dugout,
39:29then tried to strangle the man's wife when she came to his aid.
39:33And when Cobb's teammates pulled him off her, he tried to punch them too.
39:42One sports writer said he would climb a mountain to punch an echo.
39:45Another suggested that he was possessed by the Furies.
39:57He waited at the plate with his hands wide apart so that he could bunt or punch or slap the ball just where he wanted it to go.
40:04Few could match the speed of his takeoff from first, and it took a brave man to block the base path when he slid in spikes high.
40:18One pitcher covering home, as Cobb came in with what he called my steel showing, is said to have fled from the field.
40:30If I hadn't been determined to outdo the other fella at all costs, I doubt I would have hit .320.
40:39In other words, my lifetime batting average has been increased at least 50 points,
40:46but qualities I'd call purely mental.
40:48He was the biggest draw in baseball, more admired than love.
40:58All across the country, fans now began to argue over who was better, Cobb or the great Honus Wagner.
41:05Cobb's ferocity drove his team to the pennant in 1907, and himself to the batting championship of the American League.
41:17At 20 years and 10 months, Ty Cobb was the youngest man ever to win a big league batting title.
41:25He would win seven more in a row, 12 in 13 years.
41:29He was, one writer said, a cyclone, a tornado, a typhoon.
41:38The cruelty of Cobb's style fascinated the multitudes, but it also alienated them.
41:47He played in a climate of hostility, friendless by choice, in a violent world he populated with enemies.
41:57He was the strangest of all our sports idols, but not even his disagreeable character could destroy the image of his greatness as a ballplayer.
42:08Ty Cobb was the best.
42:17That seemed to be all he wanted.
42:21Jimmy Cannon
42:22Next to Abraham Lincoln and George Washington, the name of A.G. Spalding is the most famous in American literature.
42:49It has been blazing forth on the cover of guides to all sorts of sports, upon bats and gloves for many years.
43:01Young America gets its knowledge of the past in the world of athletics from something that has Al Spalding on it in big black letters.
43:09And for that reason, as much as any other, he is one of the national figures of our time.
43:18Boston Herald
43:19Albert Goodwill Spalding
43:22Albert Goodwill Spalding, the sporting goods king, could look back on a long career in baseball.
43:28First, as a superb pitcher.
43:30Then, as a ruthless club owner.
43:33Finally, as the man who had made the game big business.
43:37But he still had one more service to perform.
43:42He was determined to prove that baseball was an exclusively American invention.
43:49The brain child of some ingenious American lad.
43:53He appointed a commission to prove it, but two years of research turned up almost nothing.
43:59Then, in 1905, a letter arrived from a frail old man who claimed that General Abner Doubleday had invented baseball as a boy in Cooperstown, New York, one afternoon in 1839.
44:17It wasn't true, but it was just what Spalding had been looking for.
44:23It proved, he said, that baseball truly was the national game.
44:28Played by Americans, watched by Americans, now invented by an American.
44:42We need Doubleday because, as a culture, we have to have origin myths.
44:48Now, baseball has no point of origin. It evolved, we know that.
44:52So they set up a commission, and they ginned up this absurd story about Abner Doubleday,
44:57who, as one writer said, probably didn't know of baseball from a kumquat,
45:00but he did fire the first responsive Union Volley at Fort Sumter,
45:04and he did briefly command the troops at Gettysburg,
45:06so to have an American hero as the originator of the game seemed very appropriate indeed.
45:12It's total mythology. In fact, there is no single point of origin.
45:17During the first decade of the 20th century, Americans sought to solve their country's problems
45:27by organizing everything.
45:29They formed children's aid societies, consumer associations,
45:33municipal reform leagues, and baseball teams.
45:38They played for the Redding Alerts, Utica Pentops, Binghamton Bingos, Scranton Choctaws,
45:46Hagerstown Antietam's, and New Jersey McClellan's.
45:49The Laredo Apaches, Union City Greyhounds, Cincinnati Porkers, Evansville River Rats, and Iola Gas Bags.
45:59They played for the Greenville, Mississippi Buckshots,
46:04Troy Collar and Cuffmakers, Providence Clam Diggers, Terre Haute Hottentots,
46:10Des Moines Undertakers, Lebanon Pretzel Eaters, Yakima Pippins, Bangor Bangers, and the Hartford Wideawakes.
46:18The Hartford Wideawakes, so eager to play, they got up at dawn to get in a game before they went to work.
46:27And they also played for the all-American black tourists, the Meridian Southern Giants, and the Monarchs of Kansas City.
46:35The colored ball player suffers a great inconvenience at times while traveling.
46:47All the hotels are generally filled from the cellar to the garret when they strike a town.
46:53It's a common occurrence for them to arrive in a city late at night
46:58and walk around for several hours before getting a place to lodge.
47:02With the color question uppermost in the minds of the people at the present time,
47:09such proceedings on the part of hotel keepers may be expected and will be difficult to remedy.
47:16Salt White.
47:20For years, the so-called gentleman's agreement among the owners
47:24had excluded one-tenth of the nation's citizens from the playing field.
47:28But African Americans played wherever and whenever they could for dozens of independent teams
47:35that barnstormed all across the country.
47:41Their names were as splendid as the men who played for them.
47:44The Cuban ex-Giants, the New York Lincoln Giants, the Indianapolis ABCs, the French Lick Plutos, and the Hot Springs Majestic White Socks.
47:59The Cuban Giants, originally made up of waiters from the Argyle Hotel on Long Island,
48:07are said to have spoken gibberish on the field when away from home to fool the crowd into thinking they were speaking Spanish.
48:14The Page Fence Giants, sponsored by a wire manufacturer, spun through the streets on bicycles to drum up proud,
48:24and toured the country in their own private railroad.
48:26Black Chicago alone supported three great teams, the Leland Giants, the Unions, and the Union Giants.
48:37Baseball should be taken seriously by the colored player.
48:43An honest effort of his great ability will open the avenue in the near future,
48:50wherein he may walk hand-in-hand with the opposite race in the greatest of all American games, baseball.
48:59Two players dominated the decade.
49:06John Henry Pop-Lloyd was a hard-hitting shortstop whose fans called him the Black Honus Wagner.
49:14The authentic Wagner said he was honored by the comparison.
49:20But best of all was Andrew Rube Foster, star pitcher and manager of the Chicago Leland Giants,
49:26who got his nickname by beating the great Rube Waddell in 1902.
49:32Foster's team had a record one season of 123 wins and only six losses.
49:41John McGraw himself quietly hired Foster to show the New York Giant pitching staff what he knew.
49:48Christie Mathewson is said to have learned to throw his celebrated fade away from Rube Foster.
49:55Excellent mind. Excellent mind. He was born to be baseball. Rube was.
50:06And he was actually more or less two innings ahead of everybody.
50:12That was Rube Foster. Rube gave all of the signals. Rube put on all of the plays.
50:20And he had the men that could do just what he wanted them to do.
50:28Abandoned by the federal government, segregated from the rest of society,
50:32black Americans were on their own.
50:36They established colleges, started newspapers, formed organizations to stop lynching.
50:42And now Rube Foster began to dream of organizing a league of black teens,
50:48which would one day compete with the major leagues as equals.
50:51Who discovered the land of the brave and the free? I don't know. I don't know.
51:09T'was Christie Columbus is what they tell me? Maybe so. I don't know.
51:18There's only one Christie that I know at all. One Christie that I ever saw.
51:26He's the one who discovered the fade away ball. And he pitches for Muggsy McGraw.
51:32Baseball, baseball, baseball, ain't it a wonderful game?
51:41Old Christie Columbus found this country by gum,
51:45but the extras don't carry his name.
51:49If old man Columbus had sat in the stands
51:53and seen many pitching that fader so grand,
51:57he'd have said, boys, I'm glad I discovered this land.
52:00Gee, it's a wonderful game.
52:11Who lost out in the battle of Old Waterloo? I don't know. I don't know.
52:19They say t'was Napoleon. Maybe tis true. Maybe so. I don't know.
52:25The pink sheets don't print Mr. Bonaparte's face. No stories about him today.
52:34Cause he never could hold down that old second base.
52:38Like his namesake, Big Nap, they away.
52:42Baseball, baseball, ain't it a dandy old game?
52:49The general of France couldn't lead him like chance.
52:54So no wonder his Waterloo came.
52:56It's a wonderful game.
52:57If down in his pocket Napoleon had dug
53:01and paid his five francs to see Tyrus Cobb slug,
53:05he'd have said, I give up, I'm a bug, I'm a bug.
53:09Gee, it's a wonderful game.
53:11Baseball, baseball, ain't it a dandy old game?
53:14Baseball, baseball, ain't it a dandy old game?
53:20The general of France couldn't lead him like chance.
53:24So no wonder his Waterloo came.
53:26If down in his pocket Napoleon had dug
53:31and paid his five francs to see Tyrus Cobb slug,
53:35he'd have said, I give up, I'm a bug, I'm a bug.
53:39Gee, it's a wonderful game.
53:42Gee, it's a wonderful game.