Boo-urns

A few years ago, after brainstorming with a friend about a board game set in Prohibition-era Chicago, I watched the first two episodes of Ken Burns' Prohibition for research. For some reason, I never watched the third. But yesterday I realized that all of Burns' PBS documentaries are on Netflix, so I finally finished what I started.

I had never seen a Burns documentary before Prohibition, but I quite liked this one. The only complaint I have is the overwhelmingly romantic tone and the emphasis on American exceptionalism.  Both were expected, but I could have done with fewer tinkling piano tunes and assertions that Prohibition was foolish because no American will stand being told what they can't do. Aside from that, it was a fascinating story, filled with tons of interesting characters. I still think there's a fantastic board game waiting to be made about the topic. Whether it would broadly deal with the fight for the 18th Amendment or the fight for its repeal or focus on bootlegging or gang wars, I'm not sure. Someday, I'll sit down and come up with something.

Continuing my recent insatiable appetite for baseball, I started watching Burns' Baseball today. Clearly, the man likes his titles straightforward. This one is older that Prohibition - 1994 versus 2011 - and is even more romantic and indulgently American. Speakers insist that baseball is the most perfect, most beautiful game ever devised. I can't exactly argue against that position, but praise inflation - when "best" comes to mean "good", while "good" is barely passable -  annoys me. Worse though, is the constant insistence that baseball is quintessentially American and the perfect metaphor for everything about America. As a Canadian baseball fan, who knows that the game as been played here as long as it has been in the States, this irks me. I've only seen one episode so far, but there's not yet been a mention of baseball being played outside the US. Hopefully later episodes at least address Cuba, Mexico, the Domican Republic and Japan.

That said, Burns' should get credit for purposefully and pointedly refuting the Abner Doubleday myth. And I was surprised that even in the first episode, which deals with the 19th century, black baseball players are featured heavily. It would have been easy to talk about Jackie Robinson and leave it at that. Instead, a good chunk of time is spent on the black players who made it to the 19th century big leagues only to be forced out by owners who caved to pressure from racist white players.

Those stories, and all the others about the evolution of rules, the creation of leagues and struggles around professionalization, make the program worth watching. I'm interested to get to the later episodes, since this was made in 1994 - right in the middle of the steroid era, before many knew it was the steroid era. I imagine the discussion of those years will be much different - and less cynical - than it would be if the documentary were made today.

Recommendations for November 2

More recommendations!

First,  a great article from Evan Narcisse at Kotaku about the need for better portrayals of blackness in video games. Don't have a lot to say about this one, other than that I really appreciate how he specifies certain black characters in games as examples of how to do things well, but reminds the reader that it's not enough to just clap your hands and finish at that. Also, apparently this is an except from The State of Play, an anthology of video game cultural analysis which just came out. I think I'll have to pick that up.

On that note, Laura Hudson at Offworld (which I really need to read more regularly) has a nice feature on Kiro'o Games, the first game development studio in Cameroon, and their upcoming game, Aurion. I actually remember hearing about this last year and am glad I was reminded of it. Video games often lack a sense of identity that draws on where they were made - or at least, that identity tends to be implicit. So I'm glad that we're starting to see games come out of areas outside of the traditional development centres of North America, Japan and Europe. (Chilean developer ACE Team is another example.) That these folks seem to be pulling a Tolkien on African history and mythology makes me even more excited.

Because of the Blue Jays recent, but too short, playoff run, I've fallen back in love with baseball. Which means I've been reading a lot about baseball history. Corinne Landrey at The Hardball Times wrote about how this years World Series between the Mets and the Royals is the first ever not to feature one of the original eight MLB teams. That's pretty shocking, considering that this was the 53rd World Series since the MLB started expanding. Equally shocking, to me at least, was that the New York Yankees used to be called the Baltimore Orioles. Weird. I also liked this article by Rany Jazayerli at the recently shutdown Grantland about the biggest plays in MLB history. Baseball is great because of how it's punctuated by moments like these. Dozens and dozens of things happen that seem to be of no consequence and then all of the sudden games, series and seasons pivot on one hit, one catch, or one throw. And to round out the baseball reading with contemporary events, here's Jeff Sullivan at FanGraphs congratulating the Kansas City Royals on winning the World Series yesterday - and for being such a damn fun team.

Finally, some Canadian politics, in the form of comments on Justin Trudeau's policy plans for electoral reform from Evan Solomon at Maclean's and the Syrian refugee crisis from the CBC. These were both important issues for me during the election, so I was glad to see some continuing coverage of them. Both articles are a bit pessimistic, though. On the electoral reform front, while the Liberals might put forward a ranked ballot as the easiest change that also benefits them, I'd prefer anything to First-Past-the-Post (although my preference is Single Transferable Vote.) On the refugee crisis, I find it strange that the article talks about the difficulty in processing the applications for so many people before the end of the year, but doesn't really address what those applications are like and whether things could be done to reduce the paperwork.

One final recommendation, although not for an article: Bouletcorp is a fantastic webcomic that everyone should read. It's mostly in French, but there are English versions of many strips, so you have no excuse!

Seventh Inning Stretch

Tonight's ALDS Game 5 between the Blue Jays and Rangers will, forever, be reduced to one inning. It's already happening, on websites, social media, in the minds of reporters. By tomorrow, the process will be complete. It wasn't a game the Blue Jays will have won; it was the seventh inning.

Many great accomplishments will be glossed over in the process. Great pitching performances by Marcus Stroman, Aaron Sanchez and Roberto Osuna. Amazing defence from Kevin Pillar, Ryan Goins and Josh Donaldson. A sixth inning, game-tying home run from Edwin Encarnacion that looked for about twenty minutes like it would be the story of the night. Too bad for Eddie, I suppose. There was a bigger myth to be made.

You've heard the story already I'm sure. Russell Martin receives a strike from Sanchez and as he moves to toss it back, he accidentally bounces it off Shin-Soo Choo's bat. It looks like the home plate umpire calls time, but Rougned Odor scores from third anyway. Then follow eighteen-minutes of screaming, debating, bench-clearing and (shamefully) garbage throwing from Toronto's fans. Police come onto the field. Calls are made to New York. The safe call for Odor is upheld and Toronto continues the game under protest. Sanchez promptly strikes out Choo.

Then comes the bottom half and the myth is written in stone. Two groundballs and a well-charged bunt on the part of the Blue Jays. What should have been three outs for the Rangers. But Elvis Andrus misplays all three. Three outs are instead three baserunners. One comes in on a pop-up from Josh Donaldson that finds a hole in shallow right. The slide from Dalton Pompey is questionably dirty, so there's another review. Tension grows. The call is upheld for the Blue Jays – tie game again.

Then comes Jose Bautista. Nobody else you'd rather have at the plate right now and he proves why. The ball rockets off his bat and lands deep in the left field bleachers. When it flies over the fence, he flips his bat, shouts and offers the world a stare that shames anybody for ever thinking he might not be able to do this. Undoubtedly, that will go down as one of the biggest home runs in Blue Jays history.

More outs, more hits, another bench-clearing came after that. But it all felt like a formality. The Blue Jays had stared losing in the eye and they shot the notion into the bleachers. From now until forever, that game will be about a ball bouncing off a bat, three balls bouncing out of a glove and a bat smashing away all the tension in the building.