Season's end at Pacific League TV

This is pretty much the same as last year's letter submitted when I cancelled my season viewing pass.  I hope I don't have to say the same again at the end of the 2018 season.

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I have been a subscriber to PA League TV for the 2016 and 2017 seasons and am writing to let you know how pleased I have been with your service. I hope to renew my subscription for the 2018 season. Please keep up the good work.

Here are a few changes I would like to suggest.

Allow controls at full screen. The present software removes all video controls when the full-screen option is engaged. This can be frustrating whenever there is need to pause, fast-forward, rewind, or adjust volume.

Add 10 second forward/reverse buttons. These would be a huge help in navigating through a game, most especially if we can use the forward and back buttons on the keyboard to navigate through the video.

Add condensed games. MLB VOD service offers games in four formats: Live Stream, VOD Full Game, VOD Condensed and VOD Highlight. The highlight film is similar to what you already offer at PA TV. The condensed film runs 10-15 minutes, depending on the level of action in any particular game. All of the relevant plays are shown, though not every pitch, nor every out. There is no commentary on the audio track. (Search [condensed game] at youtube for examples.)

Add a Facebook share button to video clips. At present, only a Twitter button is available. FB is by far a wider network, one which the Pacific League can use to promote its brand through attractive and interesting video clips.

Finally, bring us the Nippon Series! Those of us overseas have no access apart from illegal streams.

Thank you for your attention to this letter and thank you again for a wonderful service. My last wish is that the NPB offer a streaming service for both leagues.

Yours sincerely,

Book review: Morris, P. (2007). Level Playing Fields: How the Groundskeeping Murphy Brothers Shaped Baseball.

Morris, P. (2007). Level Playing Fields: How the Groundskeeping Murphy Brothers Shaped Baseball. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press.

Modern readers may take it for granted that the playing fields of professional baseball stadiums all look pretty much the same. It wasn’t always that way. Home field advantage once meant more than being in familiar surroundings supported by loyal fans. It could also mean knowing where the furrows were under the tall grass, or that you could safely bunt because the foul lines had been molded to keep balls in play. Such were the conditions of play at the turn of the 20th century. How we got from there to here, though the lives of two landscaping brothers, is the ostensible arc of Morris’ book. It sounds inviting, and offers quite a lot of detail of interest, but in the end is a history that reveals how little we actually know.

Morris is something of a prolific baseball researcher and writer, with five other books to his name, most published in the first decade of the 2000s. His directness and clarity make for easy reading. Unfortunately, his subject is not well represented in the literature and Morris is repeatedly left to speculating, both on his subjects, and on many causes of changes to landscaping practices.

Book Review: Reaves, J. (2002). Taking in a Game: A History of Baseball in Asia.

Reaves, J. (2002). Taking in a Game: A History of Baseball in Asia. Lincoln, Nebraska: University of Nebraska Press.

Although a bit old by now, this is still the only English book-length treatment of the history of baseball in Asia.  A number of anthologies, such as Baseball Without Borders or Diamonds Around the Globe, cover the development of baseball within the national borders of single countries, including most of those reviewed here, but none of them cover Asia as a region.  Unfortunately, Reaves does not either.  It seems he tires, but for whatever reason – demands of the publisher, requirements of his thesis adviser, or difficulty in conceptualizing the approach – he falls back on a country-by-country review. The manuscript began life as a PhD thesis in Philosophy, a field not known for engaging with sport. Those disinterested in or averse to discussions on the nature of existence, knowledge, or ethics need not worry; there is nothing of this in Reaves’ book (suggesting the University of Hong Kong has a rather broad conception of philosophy).

Atlanta’s SunTrust Park: Bussing in the help

On a recent trip to Atlanta, I had a chance to visit the Braves’ new home, SunTrust Park.  It’s a lovely facility, but unfortunately terribly inaccessible for anyone who doesn’t live in the new neighborhood.  Since relocating to Atlanta in 1966, the Braves played in middle of the city, a location convenient to citizens on all sides of what has become a congested metropolitan area and one served by both train and bus.  The new stadium can be reached only by very long bus rides and is located at the intersection of two overcrowded interstate highways in an overdeveloped area full of malls and office parks. Parking is scattered around the stadium in a number of small lots, some as far as a 20-minute walk.  The demographics of Braves baseball are obvious at the stadium, where most of the customers are white, but a large part of the help is not (in a city that is 48% white, according to the 2010 census).  On a walk around the facility, I spoke with a young black female doing customer relations work who noted that she and many of her coworkers – all part-time, hourly staff – are bussed in from one of the city’s train stations.  Is it that those willing to work for Braves wages in sufficient numbers are not the people living in the vicinity of the stadium, and those that are willing cannot afford private transport to the stadium?  Might be some interesting research for a baseball anthropologist!

More about the SunTrust boondoggle here:

Stealing home: Atlanta Braves and Cobb County kick out neighborhood residents
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/stealing-home-atlanta-braves-and-cobb-county-kick-out-neighborhood-residents-2016-11-18

Cobb County And The Braves: Worst Sports Stadium Deal Ever?
https://sports.vice.com/en_us/article/qkyk3v/cobb-county-and-the-braves-worst-sports-stadium-deal-ever

Book review: Withers, E. (2005). Negro League Baseball: Photographs by Ernest C. Withers. 2005.

Withers, E. (2005). Negro League Baseball: Photographs by Ernest C. Withers. 1st ed. New York: Harry N. Abrams.

When Ernest C Withers returned to Memphis after service in WWII, he decided to set up his own commercial photography business.  He had started practicing while in high school, improved his skills in the military, and hoped as a civilian to serve his community taking photos of whatever might be needed.  He shot weddings, funerals, church and school functions, portraits, business openings – anything and everything to help his business grow and support his wife and eight children.  In this book’s introductory essay by Daniel Wolff, Withers notes he was no baseball fanatic.  If a better paying job was available, he wouldn’t be found at the ballpark.

But the ballpark was not without its financial rewards.  In the 1940s, baseball was perhaps the largest black owned business in the United States and Withers found a way to make himself useful to the Martin family, owners of the Memphis Red Sox, providing baseball images for publicity posters, calendars, and newspapers. When he wasn’t busy elsewhere, Withers was at Martin’s Stadium, where he was not only an image maker, but also a retailer of pictures of teams, players, and even spectators.

For the Martin family and the owners of Negro League baseball teams, Withers’ photos were vital proof of the capability of the African American community.  Images depicting contract signings in well-appointed offices, teams in pressed white uniforms, and players riding shiny team busses were evidence that African Americans could be as successful as their white counterparts.

A Saitama encounter

The author, Iwaki-san, Matuskawa-san

Matsukawa-san said, Why don’t you come and sit next to me?  The people who own these seats never come, he claimed.  We took him up on his offer, Iwaki in the center, Matsukawa and I on either side.  Good thing, too, because Matsukawa had a rough way of speaking that was not easy to understand and Iwaki could help explain if required.

During the game itself (a win for the Lions against the last-place Marines) I didn’t interact much Matsukawa, but we spent a good 40 minutes in conversation on the train back to Ikebukuro.  A man of odd jobs who worked 23 years as a truck driver, he claimed to have no family, which is I suppose why he had the means for season tickets, regular transport from Gunma prefecture, and hotels in Ikebukuro during every home stand, 73 games a season.  He claims to have been a Lion’s fans from a young age, back when they belonged to Nishitetsu, the Kyushu rail company.

How did a kid in Kanto grow up being a fan of a team so far away in an age when there was only newspaper and a few channels each on television and radio?  It seems he was something of the contrarian.  Everyone he knew loved the Giants, and so he wanted to be a fan of some other team.  I’m not sure why he settled on the Lions, but it turned out to be a good choice as they ended up moving to Saitama, far closer to Gunma than Fukuoka.  He remembered the Lions playing at Heiwadai, a stadium that has since been torn down, but whose name remains attached to a park and a track-and-field venue. We spoke a bit about Fukuoka, since I used to live there and know a bit about it, and he warned that the Hawks was becoming the Pacific league version of the Giants, a team fronted by a huge corporation with the money to buy the best team, year after year, and thereby thwart the aspirations of other teams and communities. Since retiring Matsukawa has travelled to a number of stadiums up and down the peninsula, from Kyushu to Hokkaido, and hopes someday to visit the US to see some live MLB games, and maybe even to Korea and Taiwan for some pro-league Asian games.

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A Nagoya encounter

Ueda-san was an average-looking, middle-aged Japanese guy with a full head of hair and a Chunichi Dragons jersey on his back.  He arrived just as the game began and sat to my right at the end of the aisle.  He didn’t say a thing, just rummaged around in his bag and took out a container of yakisoba, which he proceed to devour in a few quick bites before sitting back to watch the game. Between innings I started making small talk and before you know it Ueda-san felt free to unburden himself on the stranger sitting next to him at Nagoya Dome.  I subsequently learned about his wife’s recent death to cancer, his children’s marriages, and his desire to someday visit all the baseball stadiums in Japan and walk the Shikoku pilgrimage.  At one point he realized how he had been going on and apologized for taking advantage before literally offering me the shirt off his back.  As a long-time fan of the Dragons, he had dozens of jerseys, he said, and he felt like I should have this one on the occasion of my first visit to Nagoya.  He had a smartphone, but he insisted he didn’t have email or Facebook and that we should confine our relationship to these few hours at the ballpark.  Maybe we’ll meet again someday somewhere, he said.  Maybe we will.

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