Guerreros de Oaxaca fan
2013 Mexican League All Star Game
May 12, 2013
Estadio Eduardo Vasconcelos
Oaxaca, Mexico
Photo by Chad Santos via Archive Baseball
Jack White and friends
Greer Stadium, home of the Sounds
May 8, 2013
Nashville, Tennessee
Photo via thirdmanrecordsofficial
Dodgers hurler Sandy Koufax unleashes a pitch during the 1966 World Series against the Orioles in the 1966 World Series. (Herb Scharfman/SI)
A vendor sells souvenirs during the 1952 World Series between Yankees and Dodgers. (Mark Kauffman/SI)
work
For once an athlete taking off his hat, shoes, and shirt for a fan doesn’t lead to scandal. Instead, Matt Kemp gifted those to a disabled fan when the team was in San Francisco last week.
And that’s why Matt is the MVKemp of my heart (to shamelessly steal David Temple’s phrase.)
Raymond Pettibon, No Title (The one might), 1999, pen and ink on paper, 29 3/4×22 1/4”. Photo by Joshua White.
Grady Turner: You’re also picking up on the aspect of baseball that is perhaps inherent in surfing—one is entirely alone at bat or on the mound, just as surfers are on a wave. That’s rarely true in football.
Raymond Pettibon: Right, it’s more of a team sport. You know, they say baseball is 90% pitching. It’s a game where you can pitch a perfect game: no hits, no walks, no errors. That’s what I liked about pitching when I was a kid. You were pretty much on your own, and you could theoretically strike out 27 people in nine innings. That’s one thing that attracts me to baseball as a subject. I did a drawing once about a baseball player at bat. I think his batting average was over .300, his home runs were probably 40 or more, the text an “absolute criteria.” The drawing was a commentary about art. In baseball, you know how well you’re doing by your batting average. It’s not about how smoothly you ran the bases. Style doesn’t matter so much. In art, the aesthetics are at the forefront. So it was a kind of commentary about that.
GT: A commentary about how art is more about aesthetics whereas style is less of an issue in sports?
RP: Of my own favorite players in sports, there is a degree of style associated with them. I look at certain players for their batting stance, or the way they swing the ball or pitch. Of course, if you can’t strike out batters, you’re not going to be on the mound. So ultimately, statistics are an absolute criteria.
When I was a kid, I memorized baseball cards. I knew so many players’ lifetime averages: Eddie Brinkman, Ernie Banks. A year ago, I had a show where some of the art had to do with portraiture. I pinned to the wall Mickey Mantle’s baseball card from the mid-’50s, which is probably worth a couple of hundred dollars. But rather than show his face on the front of the card, I showed the back with his stats. In a sense, that was a more biographical picture of him than his physical portrait could be. Because in baseball, that’s how you’re judged. The bottom line is your batting average and how many home runs you hit.
GT: But how do baseball stats relate back to your experience as an artist? Is it that art has its own criteria of excellence, but they are never so definite as a batting average?
RP: Well, it does make the point that there is no absolute criteria. But I’m more interested in the aesthetic quality to baseball. In athletics, I don’t have favorite teams. I don’t really care. I haven’t since I was a kid. I just hate the Yankees. But I like to see certain players play, primarily for the quality of doing something well.
Read the rest: “Raymond Pettibon by Grady Turner”
My fourth annual drawing of pixelated MLB uniforms.
You can still see the 2010, 2011, and 2012 uniforms here.
Who needs six uni combos, really? Props to the Dodgers and the Yankees for keeping it real – home and away, and nothing else.
Jackie Robinson leaves Ebbets Field after playing opening day with the Brooklyn Dodgers on April 15, 1947.
