I don't just like, wanna jump into whatever is foing on now. I want some old radio broadcasts/ links to watch old games as televised. I wanna start as far back as I can and eventually catch up. If anyone has some recommendstions/ lesson plans lemme know. I intend to be a Baseball Guy within a few years.
Watch the extended cut of Ken Burns Baseball documentary. It's 10+ hours long and covers the whole history of baseball from 1850-2010
Secret Base, Jon Bois, Baseball Doesnt Exist are all good yt channels covering baseball history
The 2016 world series Game 7 is one of the greatest modern games ever played
Watch a minor league team in person. All sports but Baseball in particular are better at a stadium
The 2016 world series Game 7 is one of the greatest modern games ever played
Not a Cubs fan or a Cleveland fan, but I stayed up until the early AM to watch that game despite working at 5AM. Stuff Like that game is why I love sports in general. You can't script it.
I like this quote from Jon Bois:
"It’s in sports where we find some of the most pure, honest expressions of humanity. To borrow one of my favorite lines of yours from the series, nothing about it lies to you. It’s so intensely expressive in ways people can almost never achieve even when we script it. I think about this moment a lot. Looking at this, you’d never know the Astros would win the next game and go to the World Series for the first time ever. A stadium full of people is losing their shit, Pujols hits a ball 700 miles, and in an instant, the entire place sounds like a shopping mall. There’s no lesson in it, there’s no narrative arc, there’s nothing being sold, no message sent. It’s just 50,000 people having their hearts ripped out. You’ll never see a more essentially human moment. Give me times like those over every TV show i’ve ever seen."
I've seen a few games in stadium as a kid actually saw the third to fifth last Expos game.
Thanks for the suggests. I've got some time off coming after s long long work week and it feels like a light deep dive.
Watch the Jon Bois Mariners documentary, its on Youtube in one full video or split into 6 episodes depending on your attention span
My literal job is writing about baseball. (I'm bad at it, but yeah I like baseball)
Okay. Where should I start? I'm a film dork and enjoy the silent Era, old timey stuff is fine by me.
You can watch a lot of old World Series on Youtube. I recommend the 91 Twins/Braves as I am biased, but its also an excellent series. Also as a bunch of others have pointed out, Ken Burns baseball doc is really good. For some shameless self promotion there is this stupid video I made: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xGGnqJgnMBU (Crank volume way up I had mic issues oops)
Regardless of if you’re joking, the Rewinder series from Secretbase is good for this
I got into baseball by picking a local team and following the games. I'd listen on AM radio in the car, watch as many games on tv as I could, attended 1 or 2 live a year, catch the sportscenter highlights and Baseball Tonight on ESPN. Eventually I learned the rival teams, star players, unique obstacles on specific fields (the green monster) the whole vibe of the league. I followed the early 2000s Anaheim Angels, just as they came out of nowhere and won the World Series. I got my whole family into it, we attended games and shit. It was really wholesome and I remember it fondly. Now the local team is an Angel's rival so lol
My local baseball relevancy I'd limited to Atlantic Canada and I just can't manufacture team loyalty. To me sports are as much entertainment as a long running show is and I wanna get as close to season one as possible. I'll decide who I like as I go. And yes i can easily catch up on over a century of media, I do it all the time. I know I can't begin by caring about it, I need to do a history thing and figure out who my guys and teams are from that.
Atlantic Canada and Portland are the entire width of North America apart. The closest American border is Bangor Maine and that's still a solid 12 hours in a car that I don't have and can't legally drive. New Hampshire is closer to doable but still really really fucking far. Like three day trip if all I do is be in a car and see a baseball game and I donlong distance travel via hitchhiking or hopping a train to cross borders, it's a tall order for a baseball game. Maybe if I end out getting REALLY stoked on baseball
NS, but yeah, I don't drive so it's a whole thing. Also no passport.
If you want to be a Baseball Guy, you should experience some international games.
Cuba is really big into baseball if you want to take the :fidel-bat: angle. Also Japan and Korea, they took to baseball like a fish to water. The atmosphere of an NPB/KBO game is much brighter than in an MLB game.
I didn't really get into baseball until I learned the ins-and-outs of pitching. Like, 90% of the game is watching the pitches. So you either really appreciate all the different pitching styles and strategies or you just kinda sit around waiting for someone to get a hit.
Watching a no-hitter goes from being the most boring fucking thing in the entire world to this on-the-edge-of-your-seat riveting experience when you get into who all the pitchers are, what they're trying to do with their throws, and how the batters respond.
Good to know. I can't throw at highway speed but I know how to throw with different spins and stuff cause wallball was THE recess game at my elementary school. We had self organized teams and brackets and tournaments and standardized rules. I remember when my dad and I were doing a little pitch and bat as a kid he noticed that I knew how to do baseball pitches correctly, I actually ended out independently inventing them as a kid playing a different game, even had different names, like I called a knuckle ball a dead ball cause the not spinning.
I never issued wall ball before. But if you've got a few pitches, there are rec leagues that would kill to have you.
Either way, yeah. The pitcher/batter drama is what makes the game engaging
Go work at the stadium on weekends. A lot of times you get free tickets.
I still remember the sheer, unbridled joy on my brother's face at about 6 years old when my Dad showed him box scores in the paper and he realized there were stats to go with his favorite game. Baseball is nerd shit, and the fact that you're approaching it with the desire for lesson plans shows that you are already in the correct mindset and your heart is pure. Blessings be upon you.
(I have no interest in sports, so I have no actual help for you, aside from my baseless opinion that baseball should either be enjoyed in person or on the radio. TV is not the correct medium.)
Going through the Hall of Merit project at baseballthinkfactory.org might be interesting to do with new eyes. It's a bunch of stats nerds who voted their own version of the Hall of Fame, but went in chronological order from the 1890s onward.
Inthink I'd need to have the first clue about the history of the game for this to make sense but its a good bookmark to have for later.
