Bits and Pieces, February 13, 2024

Oh, the weather outside is frightful…

Funny how you never hear songs about winter after Christmas. Why is that? It’s still the season. “Walking in a Winter Wonderland” doesn’t seem to have any holiday significance. Same for “Baby, It’s Cold Outside,” which has certain problems but we won’t go into that now.

Moving on…

♦  More on the Sports Illustrated debacle, as compiled by Newslit.org, a most interesting site.

Sports journalism is more than just game coverage and stats — it also plays a watchdog role in holding the array of powerful interests in the sports world accountable. Though sports content — including sports-focused social media accounts, commentary and entertainment shows — has never been more plentiful, there’s substantially less sports-accountability journalism today.

This pullback coincides with the rise of legalized gambling and new rules that allow college athletes to be paid, both of which are trends with impact far beyond the sports world. Experts also worry that without sports reporters on the ground, scandals and corruption will go undetected and important stories untold.

• Related: 

  • “The Sports Illustrated Cover, a Faded Canvas That Once Defined Sports” (Kevin Draper and Benjamin Mullin, The New York Times).

  • Opinion: “In defense of Sports Illustrated on Super Bowl Sunday” (Jon Wertheim, CBS News).

♦  Before there was Travis and Taylor, there was Monroe and DiMaggio, described by History.com as “the ultimate power couple.” And before that — waaaay before — there was John Montgomery Ward and Helen Dauvray (kids, ask your great-great-great grandparents), as descrbed by Scott D. Peterson, author of Reporting Baseball’s Sensational Season of 1890: The Brotherhood War and the Rise of Modern Sports Journalism.

♦  The Citizen Tribune (Morristown, Tennessee) ran this profile of Marshall Adesman, author of The Empire Mountain League, a novel about minor league baseball following Jackie Robinson’s debut, especially pertinent during Black History Month. Adesman “tells the fictional story of Appalachian-based minor league placed mostly in fictional cities. All of the main characters are fictional, but their stories are drawn from the experiences of people like Curt Flood, Bill White, Joe Morgan and others. It is based on stories Adesman learned during his career in professional baseball as well as the stories real life ballplayers shared in their memoirs.” (Another article appeared in The Rogersville (TN) Review.)

♦  The Babbo Italian Eatery in Phoenix is hosting its hosting its third annual Baseball for Babbo Day of Giving event on Feb. 29. All eight Valley Babbo Italian Eatery locations will donate 100% of profits made that day to the Seena Magowitz Foundation, to fund pancreatic cancer research at HonorHealth Research Institute, according to a press release.

♦  The Binghamton Baseball Booster Club (Binghamton, NY) is set to light up the Phelps Mansion Museum with an event titled ‘Baseball at the Phelps Mansion,’ slated for February 17. The program will “bring together history, opera, and baseball. Highlights include a one-act play about Lou Gehrig’s life, a historical baseball video, and an address by the Binghamton Mayor”

♦  Looks like Netflix is venturing into the “Hard Knocks”-type sports doc biz with two new programs. Great, but do they both have to be about the Red Sox? “The first project will follow the team over the course of the 2024 season, with Netflix saying it will gain ‘unprecedented access’ to players, coaches and execs.” The second looks back at the 2004 World Championship season that broke “the curse of the Bambino” (geez, twenty years ago?)

♦  One of the (many) books I’m reading right now is Frank Chance’s Diamond: The Baseball Journalism of Ring Lardner, by Ron Rapaport. Here’s a piece on it by the Chicago Tribune. It’s behind a paywall, but you get a few free articles before they start to nudge you to subscribe.

♦  Finally, has any out there seen any baseball magazines on the shelves of bookstores, newspaper stands (is there still such a thing), or wherever mags are sold? I haven’t and could only find Lindy’s online.