“Ball Four Goes Hollywood”

When Jim Bouton’s book Ball Four hit bookshelves in 1970, it exploded myths, revealed secrets, and offered tales of baseball, theretofore kept protected from the public.  If reporters knew about Mickey Mantle’s alcohol problem, for example, they...

Hank Aaron Hits #715

It was a glorious moment. On April 8, 1974, Hank Aaron broke Babe Ruth’s career home run record, previously thought unassailable, when he hit his 715th career home run.  Aaron’s historic blast occurred during a game between the Los Angeles Dodgers and the...

Coca-Cola and Baseball

The Pause That Refreshes.  The Real Thing.  The Best Friend Thirst Ever had. Coca-Cola. With slogans changing nearly every year, Coca-Cola is entrenched in American culture through a barrage of advertising campaigns, marketing strategies, and celebrity endorsements....

Letterman, Leno, and Late Night

Tonight, the first full week without David Letterman in late night television begins. Letterman, the informal successor to Johnny Carson as the ruler of the late night kingdom, began his television talk show hosting career with a morning show in 1980.  It won two Emmy...

Brooklyn Baseball

In the summer of 2007, HBO aired The Ghosts of Flatbush, a documentary about one baseball’s most beloved teams.  The Brooklyn Dodgers.  This two-part documentary drilled into the passion, celebrity, and heartbreak surrounding the team that gave the borough an...