Thursday, January 14, 2010

This and That

1. Some more thoughts on Wilt 1962:

It's the kind of book that I like; a microhistory of one particular event. I've read a couple of books like that on the Colts-Giants game (Gino Marchetti was there AND at this game, So were some other Colts, They played a warmup game against the Eagles before the main event.), Don Larsen's perfect game, and Dan Okrent's Nine Innings. The book reminded me that the game took place in Hershey, Penn.; not Philly or any other big city. It also had a lot of info about the games' other participants. It sort of game me a taste of what times were like 15 years before I started following sports. Today, there'd be a bunch of YouTube clips of the game. Then, there was one photographer and no media other than those that followed the Warriors. In any event, they moved to the West Coast the next year.

2. Bethlehem Shoals moved from TSN to Fanhouse (He still blogs at Free Darko) and recently wrote about stardom. How do you define it? I'd like to see someone tackle that for baseball. Maybe I will some day. But I still want to discuss the basketball labor struggles and haven't made much progress. BTW, Shoals alludes to those here.

3. I read a couple of chapters of the Brian Billick book. He shows an awareness of the football blogosphere. Too, the added variety in the NFL since my childhood is sets, not plays; at least according to that book. Some say that most teams run the same few plays. I didn't play fantasy football this year and the Giants didn't have a good season. Without those two incentives to watch, I thought college football was more interesting. This is the reverse of how I felt about the two popular forms of basketball a couple of years ago. (I have notes on this somewhere. I just can't find them at the moment.)

2 comments:

  1. I just finished reading Billick's book. I found it quite interesting; especially his perspective on how the league has changed even over a relatively short time.
    I've enjoyed reading your blog. Keep up the good work.

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  2. Thanks, Bill. I read the chapters on offense and defense and they looked interesiting. Fun Brian Billick facts:

    A young Billick was a contestant on the game show Match Game in 1977. Billick later appeared on The Gong Show in 1980, where he performed his famous “Spider Monkey” routine.

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