|
angrygodofjebus posted:I have like 100 pages left and I've liked it a lot. The Ted Turner stuff in the first few hundred pages is pretty great, for one. I also didn't realize exactly how much Marvin Miller accomplished. Miller was one of those people I was fairly ignorant about going in, outside of everyone sayng HE SHOULD BE IN THE HOF, and holy poo poo how is he not in the HOF quote:I'd definitely be in for another month/book, which I assume would be a shorter read and with a much less hectic schedule for most people. I'd be down for sure.
|
#
?
Dec 31, 2014 05:29
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 26, 2024 22:33 |
|
|
I'm on Chapter 8, but I figure I can burn through the rest by the end of the week. Christmas this year was really hectic for some reason. Plus I got a late start. For reference, this is the lead-in to really testing the reserve clause. Lots of contract holdouts, the first (short) strike. I'm just amazed by how obstinate so many of the owners and GMs were, even on things like marketing. "Giving out caps for FREE? What the hell?!" And what's clear is they still, decades later, don't grasp that the blackout restrictions on TV are actually hurting their visibility. Even on MLB.tv I'm stuck missing something like half of the Twins season because I'm equidistant from Chicago and Detroit. (Thank god I don't live in Canada.) Or at least, I would if not for proxy workarounds. Anyway, I'm ranting. So far the only complaint that I have, especially at the beginning, is how nonlinear the narrative can be. He'll hop decades in the span of a couple paragraphs and I'll get a little shaky on the timeline of things. Anecdotes about stupid poo poo some owner did to some player 30 years ago that provided a somewhat tenuous precedent for what some other owner is doing to some other player, or backgrounds on a new owner that seem only tangentially related to the current narrative. For example, I just read about Howsam rebuilt the Reds organization, which was interesting and I enjoyed the story, but so much if it seemed almost completely unnecessary at that point in the overall story. Even though I know it really wasn't. I guess what I'm saying is that the chapters and sections within them seem arbitrary, like a series of articles or term papers printed out of order. The information in them is still important, if not hard to follow. This is probably a lovely remark when a fifth of the way through, but I'm reading because of the subject matter at this point, not because I think it's a "good" book. Yes I'm aware of the irony of the blackout tangent.
|
|
#
?
Dec 31, 2014 06:07
|
|
|
Deathlove posted:Miller was one of those people I was fairly ignorant about going in, outside of everyone sayng HE SHOULD BE IN THE HOF, and holy poo poo how is he not in the HOF Miller also actively disdained the Hall and said he'd boycott the ceremony if he were inducted.
|
|
#
?
Dec 31, 2014 23:07
|
|
|
Finally finished the pre-strike version. Can anyone fill me in, because it ends sort of hanging, without any sort of resolution. Beyond that, my thoughts are essentially the same as my previous post: there are some serious gaps in timelines, especially considering how narrative-heavy the book is. But it's worth reading for the 70s labor relations alone.
|
|
#
?
Jan 5, 2015 22:58
|
|
|
I actually found the additions kind of jarring. It really only briefly covers the strike in 1994, without going into much detail as with the strikes in the 70s, and the revised edition still ends before the resolution of the strike. He tries to sound a hopeful note but it makes the book feel even more inconclusive. Also, the whole narrative of the book is that the players have always stuck together and the owners always lose cohesion, but in the last chapter he can kind of see that the owners are going to stick together and that there is going to be a luxury tax, which also makes for a poor fit.
|
|
#
?
Jan 6, 2015 05:29
|
|
|
The book was post-dated as Nov 1994 so it's no surprise that the strike wasn't fully resolved by the end of it. While it offers a minor insight into what went on, I agree there's no resolution in the final chapter. Were the book to be revised but a year later I think there'd be a lot more to talk about. All in all I really enjoyed the book, one of the best books on sports I've ever read. The author had a good way of distilling the various personalities, both through dialogue and commentary on them.
|
|
#
?
Jan 6, 2015 08:52
|
|
|
Kundus posted:Anyway, other good cameos? I wouldn't really count Selig or Fehr, and the Fred Wilpon quote mentioned earlier is golden. Two that come to mind are the Suncoast Dome (the Trop) and George Bush, son of the president !! (W). Being a teenager when all the WHITE SOX ARE GOING TO FLORIDA OH MY GOD stuff was going on, it was interesting to see that covered a little more in-depth than I remembered from just the news clippings of my mind. As a Cubs fan, I was buoyed/annoyed at how little the team was mentioned. I know there weren't a lot of ownership changes, and while they were certainly a big part of the Superstation era, that story was obviously about Turner, and since the book gravitated towards the bigger personalities/assholes, there wasn't a lot of room for "The Wrigley family owns the Cubs. They seemed relatively normal next to the O'Malleys and the Busches." So, yeah. I think if you're a Dodgers/A's/Braves fan, this book is way more interesting than if you're one of the less-mentioned teams.
|
|
#
?
Jan 6, 2015 15:56
|
|
|
Has anyone written anything in depth about the near-contraction and then salvation of the Twins? After finishing Up, Up, and Away, I'm curious about their side of the issue.
|
|
#
?
Jan 6, 2015 16:03
|
|
|
John Wilkes Booth posted:The book was post-dated as Nov 1994 so it's no surprise that the strike wasn't fully resolved by the end of it. While it offers a minor insight into what went on, I agree there's no resolution in the final chapter. Were the book to be revised but a year later I think there'd be a lot more to talk about. The best resource about the strike and its resolution is probably Ken Burns' The Tenth Inning.
|
|
#
?
Jan 6, 2015 18:47
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 26, 2024 22:33 |
|
|
Timby posted:The best resource about the strike and its resolution is probably Ken Burns' The Tenth Inning. Probably the next thing I tackle, since I have a boatload of schoolwork starting in a week and a half.
|
|
#
?
Jan 6, 2015 18:59
|
|