Baseball, Humor, Home Runs, Healing, and 9/11

Tragedy demands a release.  When David Letterman took his spot at the Ed Sullivan Theatre for his first show after the September 11, 2001 attacks, he let us know that it was okay to laugh.  The shock of the attacks was beyond immense, defying description of the...

The Landmark Case of Ludtke vs. Kuhn

In the 1970s—the decade of disco, Watergate, and bell bottom pants—the women’s rights movement escalated to a new level, continuing a legacy ignited by Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Ida Harper. Billie Jean King’s defeat of Bobby Riggs in...

“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...

The Kingdome Welcomes the Mariners

Famed for its portrayal in Jim Bouton’s tell-all book Ball Four, the Seattle Pilots lasted one season—1969.  While the Mets inched toward an improbable World Series victory against the Baltimore Orioles, the Pilots went 64-98.  After the ’69 season,...

Aspro the Astro

Bob Aspromonte fit nicely with the cultural paradigm built upon a “boys will be boys” philosophy in the 1960s, the decade when Joe Namath swaggered while Dean Martin swigged, offering touchstones for male fantasies of being famous and female fantasies of...