Minor Obsession: Baseball (everything but the actual sport).

Fuck sports. there, i said it. i'm a nerd, and for whatever bizarre reason, i could not and still am not able to get into sports. i jokingly tell people i love Soccer and Jai Alai (actually, both are kind of minor obsessions of mine... hmmm....), but i don't really know much about them, and i don't really follow them.  i think it's mainly just to sound cool and/or ridiculous and/or as nerdy as possible.

all the above having been said, i am strangely fascinated by Baseball. but, and the subject line is a bit of spoiler on this one, i honestly could not care less about the game/sport. i don't know, nor do i care, about the rules, the stats, who is winning what, what someone's RBI is ( i do know what RBI stands for: Runs Batted In. i do not, however, know what that means. nor do i care. thanks anyway). i can't sit and watch it. i've actually even been to Baseball games. i think maybe 2 or 3 when i was young. i kinda remember just being more bored than anything. one was a California Angels game. i don't remember the outcome. another was a Pirates game. they lost.
so what is it about it that i'm obsessed with? frankly, and this may sound artsy-fartsy, snobby, pretentious, etc, by i really enjoy the aesthetic of the game. weird, maybe, but this is a post about random obsessions, so there's bound to be some weirdness.

there's a cut-off for all this, of course. i think primarily the early 80s. if you look at baseball through out the early days, through the 60s and 70s, there's something rather unique and strange about the look of the whole thing. old school logos are the shit, particularly if they're for teams that are kind of not as much the public eye (how indie rock of me). let's take for example the Orioles. that logo is crazy.

look at that smirking fuck. the color scheme is orange and yellow: halloween colors! and it's a goddamned cartoon bird. that's amazing. i'm not kidding, i would wear a shirt or hat of that. that's fucking fantastic.
how about another one i remember a lot from childhood. before wife beating and steroid abuse became his forte, i remember Jose Conseco being a household name for playing Baseball. i feel like the Oakland A's stuff was everywhere. dig one of their logos, let us:

Fucking ay. an elephant either tiny enough to stand on a baseball, or the ball is giant. this says nothing of the bat, which is either tiny (if the elephant is standing upon an actual baseball) or possibly normal sized (if the ball is huge). and i can't think of the last time i saw a happier elephant. good for you, jumbo. also amazing, unlike the above bird-themed team, the team is not called "the elephants". it's called the Oakland (get ready) ATHLETICS. that's right. not "athletes". ATHLETICS. that is some awesome olde-timey goodness. "sir, our men are some of the finest specimens of athletics you shall ever set eyes upon in your storied career". i fucking love it so.

there's a million more. google that shit.

speaking of the A's, it would be remiss not to mention the following giant among men:

Rollie Fingers. do i really need to say anything else? that moustache says it all. there is nothing about this that is not perfect. baseball has a pretty great history of moustache antics. in fact, i'd go here, because it's fucking great:
http://2radicaldudez.blogspot.com/2011/08/mlb-moustaches-from-80s-90s.html

probably the thing i'm most interested in aesthetically in Baseball is old school Baseball cards. i think i recall having a friend or two in the 1990s who collected Baseball cards. they weren't particularly exciting, kinda generic, actually. but being a little kid and seeing cards from back then, as well as before my time, they have a pretty excellent design sense. not being someone involved in graphic design, it's difficult for me to explain what i mean. it's just that they appeal to me on that level. i didn't collect them as a kid (i was more of a non-sports card person; i had a shit ton of star-wars, the 1989 Batman movie, garbage pail kids, Dinosaurs Attack!, etc cards), but it would be impossible to get through an American childhood and not see them.

seriously, dude? come on, how is that not fucking amazing?! balls to you, i say. that fucking rules.
another fine example. p.s. -prepare to have you mind blown. blood may shoot out of your nose. you have been warned:

holy fucking shit! i know nothing about Oscar Gamble (too lazy to google him), but he is my hero for life. clearly a god among men. stunning. just unbelievable.

finally, i wouldn't be a huge nerd if i didn't think the foreign version of everything was better than the American version. so here's that portion of the proceedings.
due primarily to our rebuilding the country, as well as American cultural hegemony that has been present in the world since at least the middle of the 20th century, Baseball is huge in Japan. in fact, the player to hold the record for most home runs ever is Japanese. Sadaharu Oh of the Yomiuri Giants. he played from 1959 - 1980. i'm not sure, but that seems like a long fucking time to me. someone's probably beaten it, but who knows? i first learned about him from the Beastie Boys song, and have been obsessed ever since. back in the heyday of Myspace (i know, i know: i'm a pappy), under "who i'd like to meet" or whatever the fuck it was, for awhile i had this picture:

i left it up to people to figure out who it was. (i.e. - a goddamned hero, that's who!)

so that's that in a nutshell. i feel like this entry was a bit rambling. and i know a pal of mine who is super into Baseball that may find fault with some of what is said here, factually or otherwise. truth be told, i have no mind for stats of any kind, especially not sports related. but who is to say? as far as the "look" (for lack of a better term) of old school Baseball, i think it's the shit.

and finally, we can't overlook possibly one of the greatest Baseball exploits of all time. back in the super funky 70s, this is the shit that happened:

groovy.