Wednesday, March 30, 2016

baseball, and Jackie Robinson


Yes, that's a customized baseball (made in China: it has a little stamp on it ...).  I love its softness and heft: it really invites one to throw it, hard, somewhere - but inside my apartment doesn't seem like a good idea.  

And why do I have a customized baseball?  There was an event at the NHC tonight (to jump-start the Trustees' spring meeting) - a screening of the Ken Burns Jackie Robinson PBS documentary - coming up in early April - or to be more precise, a truncated version of the 4-hour documentary, introduced by Gerald Early, who was an adviser to it.  I'm sure the 4 hour version is more coherent than what we saw - but I came away with various take-aways
- who knew?!  The Dodgers used to be in Brooklyn, not LA!  Please excuse me, all baseball aficionados - well, hey, probably most Americans ... sometimes realize that I have very elementary gaps in my knowledge.  Yes, I know, Chavez Ravine, etc etc, and yes, I knew the Dodgers played briefly in the Coliseum before that ... but ...
- Jackie Robinson was a really complex figure in terms of the mix of talent (in four sports, before he settled on baseball, or baseball settled on him) iconicity and politics - and what I saw of the documentary pointed to this complexity, but offered very little by way of analysis
- the Obamas had some great stuff to say.  I'll so miss B and M O, and their intelligence, when they leave the White House.  It'll be worth watching the documentary for what they have to say ... 

I wish I had a photo of (or indeed had eaten) a baseball-decorated cupcake, too.  

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