This is what it’s all about

Jackie Robinson In 3-D

With perhaps days/hours to go before the baby, I’m doing a big push on Jackie Robinson to see how far I can get before my life changes so much.  I had a big day in the shop yesterday and took these stereo photos.

Together, they can be viewed in 3-D.  If you were one of those who could left your eyes relax and see those old 3-D, computer-generated drawings, then you SHOULD be able to do this the same way.  I can do it.  But it takes a few moments to get it.

The trick, for me, is to get far enough away from the two photos, so that they are a little smaller than a postcard, held at arms length.  Then you stare, allowing your eyes to relax and not truly focus.  When your eyes are relaxed correctly, you should see double–that’s 4 images.  Keep trying different pressures on your focus until the two center photos become 1 photo and it will be 3-D.  It’s eerie.  When you get it, you will KNOW, so if you are wondering, then you don’t have it.  Remember: Try and make the middle two images merge into one, so that overall, there are 3 photos, and only concentrate on that middle photo–that’s the one that will become 3-dimensional.

How did I take this photo?  With a 3-D camera?  Nahh, with my own camera.  Since I’m working with a tripod, and nothing is in motion, the time lapse between photo1 and photo2 can be ignored.  You couldn’t do this trick with live action, because p1 and p2 would not match.  But in the studio, you just take one photo and then move the tripod 80mm to the right and take another one.  80mm is about the distance between people’s eyes.  The “interpupillary distance”.  Actually, in the population, it’s much smaller for most and is smaller for women and bigger for some ethnic groups.  It runs between 65 and 83 mm.  At 25.4 mm per inch, you do the inch-math.

With the two photos of EXATLY the same thing and yet from two slight different (80mm apart) vantage points, they are about what your brain takes in and processes into one, 3-D image.  The slightly different perspective means that the right eye sees a little further around Jackie’s left side, than the left eye can see.  That info is used by your wonderful brain to give you all sorts of depth and distance information.  Imagine trying to golf without it!  “How far to the pin?”  “Where’s the 150 yd marker?”

And for you Liberals out there, remember, the beauty of the eye and the brain and the depth is pure chance–we’re talking NO INTELLIGENT DESIGN, right?  Don’t even think those words in a public school.

Before you go thinking I’m some kind of techy person, realize that 3-D cameras and looking at “stereo-images” like we are here, originated at about the time of the Civil War.  Stereo view photos were all the rage from about 1870 to 1910.  They looked like this:

They were viewed in a viewer that looked like this:

The slides were available as canned, commercially produced photos of current events and famous places and landmarks.  Think GAF-viewmaster from the 1970’s:

I’m not sure why they fell out of favor.  Perhaps WWI, which destroyed so much of what good was happening in the world around 1914.

Anyway, they did commercially produce stereo cameras for the home-gamer and here is one:

All you need is the ability to take TWO images simultaneously, one interpupillary distance apart.  Now if you search for these things, you will only find, I believe, film cameras from yesteryear.  There doesn’t seem to be any digital stereo cameras available.  There are a couple of guys who have hacked together two digital cameras, but the hack is never simple and the mounting and alignment is never easy.  Both lenses have to point at the same focal point out in space, or the pictures will look hokey–like mine!

What I want to know is why doesn’t SOMEone produce a decent digital stereo camera?  WHY?  With PC’s bringing down photography prices and giving us all sorts of exotic ways to display them, it’s a perfect marriage!  I have searched, but not recently, so it’s possible that there is something out there now.  If anyone knows of a product, comment in please.

For Jackie fans, Jackie may be getting his first paint today on the lower legs and shoes and pants.  It’s always the single biggest, quickest change in the statue and for a medium that goes crawling by in the hundreds of hours, this is a welcome thing.

The Real Jackie Robinson

How to argue with Yankee fans

[sigh] I have to go over this one more time, because I just heard it again.  I was lamenting the Yankees (and to a MUCH lesser extent the Mets) just spending ridiculous amounts of cash and rendering MLB a joke on a lot of levels.  Anyone who reads The Pinetar Rag is well aware of this, and probably tired of it too.

So a guy I know accuses me of being “Socialist” because I complain about the bigger market teams out spending the small market teams by 10-1 at times.

Here’s the correction:  “Socialism” is the situation when GOVERNMENTS heavily tax their population under the guise of providing goods and services that would otherwise be provided by the private sector.  So instead of choosing the item and paying for it out of your pocket, the government takes the money out of your pocket, in the form of taxes, and provides their government version of the service.  You no longer make the choice–the politician and the voters who stamp it, make that decision for you.  Once it’s made, you have no other options.

Now in baseball, it’s a professional sports league.  The league is holding out to the public, the concept that their contests will be fair contests among the teams.  If the contests were not viewed as “fair”, by the paying public, they would not pay money to see them–would not waste their time.  This is the concept behind the anti-gambling stance of Major League Baseball; to keep the game’s on-the-field-fairness-and-integrity sacrosanct, because everyone’s lively hood rests on that cornerstone.  A guy mixed up in gambling might be willing to “sell” games, as Hal Chase of the Yankees did with abandon in the 19-oughts and teens.

When I advocate that the league do something (salary cap) to prevent the Yankees from just buying up players and spending over 200 million while the lesser clubs have to get by on 30, 40 and 50 million, I advocate it because I don’t think the on-field contests are fair anymore.  How can they be?  I think the integrity of the game is compromised when the Yankees can do what they have been doing with all that money.  The Yankees’ spending is antithetical to fair contests.  It SHOULD be viewed with great alarm, but somehow, it isn’t.

The person who called me “Socialist” for wanting to cap or curb the kind of spending the Yankees do, is mixing up the contexts.  I don’t want the government to steal my freedom (taxes) and force me to take or leave their sub-par “services” whether I like it or not–with no “opt-out”, like with Social Security.  I’m not a Socialist.  That’s governments, got it?

But when I invest my time in a baseball game, I want some assurances that the deck isn’t just RIGGED with CASH, like it is now!  I want the league to address it themselves so I don’t have to think about it; so I can just enjoy the game.

The league is an artificial contrivance; a closed system.  By limiting the Yankees’ cash-sledgehammer, they are not being “Socialist”, they are actually delivering the product that they promised me; a fair product.

Anyone with a modicum of intelligence can look at a demographic map of the USA and see plainly, that all metro areas are not created equal, and thus, teams in those areas are not on equal footing with regard to generating cash!

Kansas City has 1.9 million souls.   Click here to bring up numbers in a new window

NY/NJ/CT metro area has about 19 million.

Only an idiot would set up a system where these two areas are considered “equal” in terms of cash generation.  You’re supposed to have a fair contest on the field but you are going to ignore these numbers?  My goodness.

So don’t advertise a “fair” fight on the field, when anyone who thinks about it knows it isn’t that way.

By this time in the fact-pattern, (usually from Yankee fans) I hear the talking points recited from memory, as if the Steinbrenners sent out a memo from their war-room, deep in the bowels (or the vault) of Yankee Stadium.  I’ll address the more common ones:

(1)  Money isn’t everything: look at the [names most recent high spending team that didn't win]

It doesn’t invalidate the Yankees’, cash-sledgehammer model if some other team wastes a lot money.  My goodness; anyone can blow through money!  Just because a fool squanders his money doesn’t decrease the VALUE of money, and the mountains it can move, for everyone else!  All it does is prove that one team and its management, was foolish that particular season, and no more.

The thought process is because the 1997 Orioles blew a ton of money, the Yankees can spend 100% more than the league mean, every year, and no one is supposed to notice?

Guess what?  We noticed.  The Orioles were stupid, but we’re not!

(2) The Yankees pay lots of luxury tax, and the “cheap” owners just pocket it

They do pay this but it is a pittance.  This money can not lift a Pittsburgh, KC or Cincinnati out of where they are: in small cash markets.  What it amounts to, in my opinion, is a line item on the MLB (and Yankees’) Public Relations Income Statement.  It is MLB’s way of fooling it’s customers (remember the fans?) into thinking, “see, we have addressed the spending disparity in our sport).”

No you haven’t!  Not even close! Since this thing went into action in 2003, the Yankees have paid out about 20 million per year.  During that same time, they outspent the league by an average of about 110 million PER YEAR!  So, even if you gave the FULL Yankee luxury tax to ONE average team spending 90 million dollars, the Yankees would STILL have outspent them by a whopping 90 million dollars, or, about DOUBLE.

Does that sound like they addressed it to you?  Me neither.  I’m not buying this.  But be fair, it’s wonderful PR, because many, many fans buy in 100% to this nonsense that the system is somehow fair.  And the media aids and abets the deceit, as they usually do in cases such as this.

(3) Owners like Pollad of Minnesota are billionaires who could easily write some checks and keep up with the Yankees.

This is my favorite because of it is the most “Candyland” of them all.  The premise is, “…the guy’s rich, so what if his team is in a small market, if he wants to compete with the Yankees, he can write checks out of his personal bank account!”

Listen closely to what’s being said. The owner, because others feel he “has the money”, should just DONATE his own PERSONAL money to his business, to keep up with the Yankees, otherwise, he is, somehow, not a “sport”.   This concept could be the height of Yankee-fans’-arrogance and stupidity.  For the honor of spending like a lunatic Steinbrenner, owner-X should PAY.  Pay for it himself.  Even if his business LOSES money in the process.

They want to tell another man how to run his business, and, basically, that he should run his business AT A LOSS, so that the Yankees and their fans don’t have to feel self-conscious about out spending the league by over a 100 million dollars every year!  I guess the Kool-Aid is: It’s ok that we spend like pigs because Pollad has untouched money in the bank.  [shaking my head] My goodness…

(4) The Yankees won with home grown guys like Bernie and Jeter and Posada.  It wasn’t money!

Because George Steinbrenner was banned from baseball and couldn’t trade them all away (he tried very hard to dump Bernie–read “The Last Night of the Yankee Dynasty” by Buster Olney), they DID have a home-grown nucleus, I’ll grant you.

But why did they win 4 titles in 5 years?  MONEY.  They payroll was the highest in baseball EVERY ONE of those championship years.  And the nucleus was young and not making the obscene money yet, so SOMEONE must have been paid to come in and help, and they were.  Mostly the big ticket pitchers.  The Key’s and Cone’s and Clemen’s and so forth.  So while yes, there were home-grown guys on the roster, don’t be fooled: the dynasty was resting on cash; lots of it.  Cash that towns like KC and Pittsburgh and Cincinnati don’t have access to.  Make no mistake.

(5) See?  Small market teams CAN win. [referring to 2003 Marlins]

Yes, it’s true, in 2003 the 150 million dollar Yankees lost to the 49 million dollar Marlins.  It can happen.  That’s because home field in baseball is only a 4% edge and the biggest edge you’re ever likely to see in the post-season is only about 65%, which means that 35 times out of 100, the lousy team will beat the juggernaut in a series.

But let’s examine what’s really behind this talking point.  Yankee fans throw this one out there as if to say, “sure we spend a lot, but you don’t have to spend to win…”  This is supposed to deflect attention from their massive cash outlays each year.

But there are 30 teams in MLB.  And the mean payroll in 2007 was 80 million. [click to see numbers] So let’s call 10 of them, the bottom third, truly “small market”.

Here are the last 10 world series winners:

2008 Phillies, 2007 Red Sox, 2006 Cardinals, 2005 White Sox, 2004 Red Sox, 2003 Marlins, 2002 Angles, 2001 DBacks, 2000 Yankees, 1999 Yankees

I can really only call the Marlins truly, “small market”.  So let’s double it and say that twice every 10 years, a small market team scales the heights.  So you might be tempted to think that, “…sure, about every 5 years, we have a puncher’s chance to run-out in the postseason”.

But not so fast!  There are 10 small market “trials” EVERY season!  That’s 10, different small market teams placing their small bets and spinning the wheel every year!  And out of all 10, only ONE of THEM scales the heights every 5 years or so.  But if you are one particular small market team, then you might have to wait longer.  You might have to wait 10 times 5 years = 50 years for your number to come up.  That’s the difference between referring to the population, and a given team IN the population.  Neat trick there, Yankee fans, but we ain’t buying it.  Being a fan in a small market stinks.  We watch our good players hit arbitration and then end up on the Yankees and coming back into town to kick the snot out of us.

Sure PNC park is the nicest place on Earth to watch a ballgame, but don’t blow the Yankee smoke up our bippies.  Please. –Fog

Jackie Robinson’s Million Dollar Legs

Early Robinson.  And clean for the most part.  Tonight, he was under piles of sawdust as the process of finding legs inside those wood blocks continues.  As you can guess from the position of the legs, this piece is going to be more of a pose, than an in-action.  Many hours of thought over a long period of time went into this decision and I could lay it out for you in detail if you want to read on.

Robinson’s batting pose is very “wooden”, for lack of a better term.  It looks posed.  It doesn’t look all that natural or fluid.  In short, it looks wooden.  And what I do is try to make wood look like people.  So a person who looks wooden to begin with?  No way.  Bad pose.

The other pose that folks associate with Jack Roosevelt, is running the bases.  Either the arms-akimbo-stopping-short-down-the-3rd-base-line-to-mess-with-the-pitcher, or, the slide into home on the steal of home.

Another problem with the “running” pose, is that to be truly running, you are leaving the ground each time you push off of either leg; that’s the definition of it.  So the statue wouldn’t have any way to attach to the ground unless you contrived it to be at the point of landing on the lead leg and that leads to the problems that the center of mass is then WAY off the point of attachment to the ground (base).  Technically, it’s murder and the look might be more awkward than effective.

These are, no doubt, iconic Robinson photos and/or poses.  But a statue that depicts baseruning, unless done just exactly correctly (and maybe not even then), might look very strange.  It’s too big of a gamble on a piece that may take half a thousand hours or more.

The other objection I have to the baserunning angle is that it slights the man, somewhat.  It’s as if you are saying, “this guy is in the Hall of Fame because he was fast”.  No.  That’s not right.  He is in the Hall of Fame for being a great all-around player.  He played gold glove type defense at several different positions, including first, where he was not accustomed to playing his first year.  He ran well, true, but he also hit something like .306 for his career.  And he was on the Dodger pennant winners in 1947, 1949, 1952, 1953, 1955, and 1956.  In 1950, the Dodgers lost on the last day of the season to the Phillies.  On the last day of the 1951 season, Robinson’s homer in the last game, clinched a tie with the Giants, requiring a 3-game playoff to break the tie.  You’ve heard of that playoff?  It went 3 games and it seems, The Giants Win the Pennant.The Giants Win the Pennant.The Giants Win the Pennant…etc.

He was a great all around player is my point.  He should not be cordoned off into the “speed” wing of the Hall of Fame.  He makes it easily in any era and on his complete game.  That is why, I have chosen to depict him at ease (somewhat of an accomplishment in itself, for this man, and many others), holding the bat on his shoulder and looking up as if to pose deliberately for a camera.  On his face, a little look of satisfaction; a look that only a veteran big-leaguer can have; not so much a look of professional competency, but more like professional pride.

So, no batting stance and no baserunning hijinks.  A deliberate pose.

To make up for the lack of action on this one, I am considering a radical pose for the next piece with one thin, solitary attachment point to the ground.  The idea that this extreme delivery photo may be posed for photographers is being researched currently.

Babe Ruth In The Papers

Click here to open the story in the Washington Post in a new window. You may have to register a username and password but it is not a big deal.

This is the photo that is currently on the front page of the Washington Post’s Sunday Metro section:

Before I go any further, let me make sure that I take time to thank the staff at the Gaylord National Hotel inWashington, DC for their tremendous professionalism and attention to every detail. These people are the standard for their industry. I have, in all honesty, never seen such elan in my life. It was a real treat. With the hotel slated to open in a few days, you could ride on the energy of these folks as they readied their jewel of a hotel.

I would also like to thank Michael Hudson of Gaylord Hotels. He is a throwback to a more civil time in America and in business. He is a true gentleman and a visionary in his field. You don’t run into too many people like him and it was my good fortune to have done so. Thanks Michael, for everything.

This is a shot someone took for me with my camera during the installation.

The Babe Ruth statue is now permanently on display at the Gaylord National Hotel & Resort in Washington, DC at the new National Harbor area.

I went down there on Tuesday and stayed until Thursday and The Babe was installed and well received. The Washington Post came by and did a story on the hotel opening and included a fair amount of interest on the statue. I was not sure how much would run on the statue but I was pleased to have folks in Washington DC call and tell me the good news.

The full story of the statue and everything surrounding it is on the Birrerart.com website:

Click here to open the Birrerart.com website up in a new window

Other things that were noteworthy while I was down there was the fact that the Nationals has declared the sportsbar in the Gaylord as the official sportsbar of the team. Because of this, they had sent over the last home plate used at RFK stadium so it could be permanently installed at the entrance to the sportsbar. Here are a few shots of that and the Washington Post getting their story at the time:

That’s Michael Hudson, Director of Brands at Gaylord Hotels, with homeplate from RFK Stadium.

And here is the laying ceremony while the PR folks take photos.

***
The Gaylord National Hotel is so immense that it is difficult to photograph it all in one frame. The atrium that overlooks the Potomac River and Old Alexandria, Virginia, on the opposite bank, is 18 stories high. There is a village of little shops and fountains and trees and restaurants all inside the enclosure. It is so big that you mostly aren’t aware that you are inside.

Here is a view of the upper part of the atrium. These gaslights are 20 feet high. The scale is just hard to fathom.

On the 24th floor, there is a state of the art nightclub and one of the unique features is, believe it or not, the men’s room. Here are the fixtures and the view is outrageous. The Washington Monument can be seen while you are, well…ahem, you know. It’s just one of a myriad of details that make this hotel one of the most amazing in the world.

The Greatest Single Inning of Baseball

Just finished The Glory Of Their Times by Lawrence Ritter. Probably my 3rd reading in 20 years or so. I’m glad I hung on to it.

Kewell: The John McCain of Liverpool FC

[Freddie and I and the old Joe DiMaggio statue at the last Joe DiMaggio Day at Yankee Stadium in 1998. I am wearing the 97 or 98 away kit so that's your tie in.]

The Best View In Baseball

I’ve said it before and since we are at the pitchers and catchers reporting date, I’ll say it again.  Of the 38 major league parks I’ve been to, Old Comiskey Park was my favorite.  It was as old and charming as Fenway or Wrigley but I thought just slightly moreso.  It had such a great feel to it.  It felt small and the front row seats of the upper deck are just right over the field.  The stands are not high: batters routinely foul balls back over the stands and out of the joint.  The columns are also hard to miss and the photo was taken by me in 1987 to illustrate that point.  You could pay money for that seat, although I’m sure that on 99 out of 100 nights, you could move a few seats and actually see the plate.

The first All Star game was played here in 1933 (Ruth homered, you had to ask?), Veeck’s exploding scoreboard was here; Foxx hit 2 bombs over the roof in left center and disco demolition night was also here.  The last postseason?  I believe 1981  or 1982 with LaRussa as a YOUNG manager and Jerry Koosman as an old White Sock, if I recall.  They lost to the Brewers who lost to the Cards–somebody look that up. 

Detail Oriented Stadium Meister

Click here to open the site in a new window

http://www.majorleaguemodels.com/about.asp

This is something interesting I found while looking for the little plaster model of Yankee Stadium for 93-year-old-Max’s grandson. This man builds huge, tabletop scale models of old ballparks from scratch. You know, the exacto knife and the balsa wood and a thousand other things. I can relate to this man because of what I do with the wood products and all and will even admit to having built a cardboard model Shea Stadium in 1976 that was pretty darned good.

I love this kind of wacky, I’m-going-to-build-this-thing-in-my-cellar-and-sell-it-for-150k attitude. Take 5 minutes and visit the guy’s site. Look at the original wooden 1888 Polo Grounds model and see how baseball was just after the Civil War. It’s amazing work.

It also points out that I need to do better on my website. But now, we’re 7 minutes from the kickoff of Liverpool-Chelsea. The first league encounter of the year was way back in August, on the day we had our boy christened. I left for the church at half up 1-0 only to come home and find out that the ref called a silly PK and GIFTED the point to Chelsea. So strange was the call, that the next day, the ref PUBLICLY stated that he was wrong to point at the spot! I’ve never heard of such a thing but when taking points from the Reds, the refs have done some funny things. I think it’s because they all grew up in the 1970’s and 1980’s when Liverpool won every darned thing and I think there is some lingering resentment. Kind of like if I worked the plate at a Yankee game.

To give you an idea of how big these things get (he does different scales), take a look at the Old Comiskey Park. Old Comiskey is my favorite of the 38 ballparks I’ve been to. It was a real timewarp to go there and the place just felt right. They say that Jimmy Foxx hit two homers completely over the roof in left between the two light towers. Double-X was the best hitter no one’s ever heard of.

If the first 10 minutes of Liverpool Chelsea are any indicator, then Chelsea will get the points. They seem a whole gear faster than Liverpool and more confident and more creative. Liverpool look slow and I think it’s only a matter of time. Chelsea’s defense is so fast and shuts everything down so tightly, that I don’t see Kuyt and Crouchy cracking it. What we need is the pace of Fernando Torres.

Well, at least ManU lost their derby to City today. No points for Alex. That’s what you get for ripping your boss, Sir. With United coming away with none…if Chelsea could be beaten…oh stop dreaming. Wake up!  And I have to say: After watching only 25 minutes: Dirk Kuyt shouldn’t be in the first team.  Really.  He looks slow and lost.  Zero confidence.  And his play on the right is atrocious.  He can’t beat his man deep and he can’t do anything on the cut inside–every posession that reaches him, goes awry.  Perhaps he can be productive in the middle, but Crouchy is there now.  Play another midfielder and let them go forward.  Kuyt should come off.  Caragher has more mojo going up the right wing than this guy.  Oy.  Rafa.  Help. (Of course Kuyt till make an a** of me and score the winner but I’ll take it and eat my words if that is so).