Here’s the cover of the May 26 issue of Sports Illustrated…
At first, I thought I was looking at some major mistakes in the artwork, but then I realized, no, the action depicted is taking place in Bizarro World. (That was a little less clear on my subscription copy, which has the address label printed over the bizarro advertising in the lower right corner.)
Here’s an online art exhibition, of illustrations of old-timey baseball players, entitled Stealing Signs: Dead-Ball Era Baseball; Memories from My Last Life, 1927. And here’s an interview with the artist.
Unfortunately, this one is already sold, or I’d suggest it as something for the walls of the Rocketship (unless the walls are completely covered in books by now). There are a few other St. Louis players, though.
These are awesome. (Originally seen on Uni Watch.)
I am certain that the Baseball-Related Program Activities crowd will enjoy the Flickr submissions of a user called baseballart (actually two people, cialis one an artist and one a collector) — in particular, the Baseball Books and Baseball Paintings sets.
Here is a large metal sculpture that kinda, no rx sorta resembles the stitches of a baseball, decease outside Principal Park in Des Moines, home of the Iowa Cubs:
The name of the artist? James Ellwanger.
From the Yankees’ 1981 yearbook. The artist did the “Spider-Man” comic strip for years, so it’s nice to see that he can present an entire baseball game in only four pages.
thatbob: “No one will ever better Don Larsen’s performance in the Greatest Game Ever Pitched!” is quite a claim. Mightn’t someone pitch a perfect World Series game AND hit a couple of grand slams? And wouldn’t that, by any standard, be considered a better performance?
Someone on Baseballprimer found a bunch of Korean baseball cartoons. As Dan Rivkin would say, they’re awesome!
If you’ve got a lot of time to kill at work, you can read the comments to the post at Baseballprimer for some translations. And the guys at The Birdwatch have picked out some related to the Cardinals.
Dan: Wow, those ARE awesome!
Levi: In Korean, “Those are awesome” translates to: “Ã∑âˆÃŽÃ¬Â§ÃùÄ ÃµúÃ≥†Ãù¥Îã§!”
At least according to a robot.
Dan: I think my favorite is the one with the nude Tony Batista, but I also really like the one with Bernie Williams and his guitar and the Yankees watching porn.
In 1996, Levi was in the U.K. and the Cardinals battled the Braves in the NLCS. The Braves beat the Cardinals 14-0 in Game 5, and then 15-0 in Game 7, becoming the first team to win the NLCS after being down 3 games to 1. So I mailed Levi, across the ocean, a sympathy card with a few news clippings enclosed.
This year, shortly before Game 4 of the World Series was about to begin with the Cardinals already down 3 games to 0, I stopped off at the drugstore and bought a sympathy card. There was no reason to include news clippings this time, so instead, so it was more than just a card, I broke out my disused colored pencils to do some illustration, making a certain logo into a sad and tearful Cardinal.
I was finished by the sixth inning, and we all know what happened next. I put it in the mail the next day.
The preprinted message on the right reads “Although no words of sympathy can ease the loss you bear/Still, may you find some comfort knowing others truly care.” Appropriate, huh? The message I wrote on the left reads, “Well, we’ll see what happens in the next 86 years… (signed) Jim.” There was a raised illustration of a bouquet of flowers on the front of the card, so I couldn’t draw on the bumpy surface on the left side (which I didn’t think about when I was buying the card). I think I did a pretty good job, except for the fact that I somehow managed to end up with the cardinal leaning backwards. It’s more straight up-and-down in the real Cardinals logo.
Levi: I don’t know that this presentation does the card justice. The crying Cardinal looks very, very sad.
But Jim, does the fact that you were working on this card during the final game mean that the Cardinals’ loss is your fault?
Jim: I was watching the game TiVo-delayed, so nothing I did could possibly have affected the outcome. At least that’s my excuse.
Jason: It looks like the Cardinal is about to fall backwards off the bat in despair. And nice lettering job! Could you now draw a happy Devil Ray to celebrate the escape from the AL East cellar?
