Watchdog

It's the illicit video everyone was talking about before that other illicit video turned up.

Images of LeBron getting dunked on evidently have resurfaced!

Now I really need to dig up that video of me dunking on the big guy before a Cavs vs. Knicks game last season.

(UPDATE: The video is up now. Thanks Big Lead for heads up.)

I took three books on my L.A. vacation but didn't quite have time to get through all of them.

So my mini-review of Marty Appel's new bio of Thurman Munson will have to wait.

I did read "Miracle Ball," Brian Biegel's account of his quest to solve the biggest mystery in sports memorabilia:

What happened to the ball Bobby Thomson hit to win the 1951 pennant?

Biegel weaves his personal story - and the story of his personal demons - into the tale, which despite some leaps of faith, logic and evidence makes for an oddly compelling read.

Still, even at a modest 227 pages, there are places the spy story feels padded.

This is a worthwhile book, but it likely would have been even better boiled down to the essentials as a magazine article.

"Pull Up a Chair," Curt Smith's bio of Vin Scully, has the same pros and cons as his recent look at Mel Allen's life in "The Voice."

Smith knows as much as anyone about sports broadcasters, and there is plenty of valuable information here.

But his bizarre syntax, tortured historical references and goofy word choices distract from his content.

I did a lousy job during my vacation of collecting sports-related blog material, other than the guy I overheard at Disneyland telling friends he just had run into Rodney Peete and his wife, Holly.

I did take a tour of Dodger Stadium, though. I would have preferred a game, but the Dodgers were in New York and I was in L.A.

The tour ($15 for grownups, $10 for kids) was so-so, lowlighted by a 10-minute infomercial on the team's plans to modernize the stadium without tearing it down.

(As opposed to what other teams have done, which the Dodgers' video pointed out not-very-subtly by showing a picture of old Yankee Stadium.)

But Dodger Stadium itself is a gem, from its setting and views to its elegant simplicity.

One thing I found interesting was that for all the grief the Yankees take for the concrete moat surrounding their most expensive tickets, the Dodgers have one, too.

It encloses a premium area created by squeezing the distance from home plate to the wall behind it, and by moving the dugouts farther into foul territory.

Don't worry, I won't bore you with the rest of my L.A. area adventures. That's what Facebook is for.

One thing, though: I did notice the traffic hadn't eased up since my last visit in 1980.

Photo: Getty

Of 55 media luminaries' preseason MLB picks being tracked by www.whereistand.com, the leader at the All-Star Break is . . . Newsday's own Ken Davidoff.

Five of Mr. Davidoff's predictions for division winners currently are in first place, and the White Sox aren't that far off.

Good luck the rest of the way, sir. You are making us all proud.

Random stuff:

Sports Business Journal reports the Padres and Cox Communications soon will follow the Yankees and Cablevision in offering in-market live streaming of games. The Mets? They're working on it, but nothing close, apparently.

I confess to missing the U.S.-Brazil game in the Confederations Cup final - I was at Northport High School watching my niece graduate at the time - but the highlights were enough. Wow. American soccer, on the verge! Speaking of soccer, the Red Bulls' new stadium in Harrison, N.J., is almost completed and will make it much easier to take that franchise (and league) seriously. That, and having them win the occasional game.

Paul Maguire will have a reduced role on ESPN this autumn.

Even John Feinstein has a blog now!

Strange media scene before Thursday's Cardinals-Mets game:

Future Hall of Fame St. Louis manager Tony LaRussa holding court on the field surrounded by . . . six reporters!

One of whom was Ron Blum from the AP. Another was WFAN's Ed Coleman.

Let's just say that is not the way it works before games for Yankees or Mets managers.

Photo: Getty

Holy cow: New York journalists are pussycats when it comes to A-Rod compared to his hometown papers in south Florida!

Caught up at Citi Field Wednesday with loyal Watchdog reader Tom McCarthy, who was popular in these parts during his two years doing Mets radio in 2006 and '07 before returning to Philadelphia

McCarthy was assumed to be Harry Kalas' eventual successor in Philly. That transition came earlier than anyone expected when Kalas collapsed before calling an April 13 Phillies-Nationals game and died soon thereafter, generating an extraordinary outpouring of emotion in the Philadelphia sports community.

Click below for McCarthy's thoughts about his new role with the Phils.

Continue reading "Tom McCarthy in transition as Harry Kalas' successor" »

Today's Newsday Sports Blog Post of the Day goes to baseball scribe Ken Davidoff - fitting to kick off a huge week of New York hardball.

I forgot to jump in on Ken's live chat before it ended, but I checked it out after the fact.

The highlight comes at 11:20, when he takes a break to get onto a train to Boston, then picks up where he left off.

Reporters once played cards, smoked and drank with the players on trains.

Now they live chat with readers.

Photo: AP

The sight of Kate Hudson sitting in the stands watching her new man, Alex Rodriguez, play baseball naturally got me to thinking of my favorite actress-jock New York baseball pair, which the public first started to get wind of just across the Harlem River from where new Yankee Stadium stands.

It was Helen Dauvray, a mega-star in her day, and Giants captain John Montgomery Ward, whose marriage soon after the 1887 season ended was big news, and prompted a New York Times reporter to recall the hints Miss Dauvray had dropped back in June.

Click below for that.

That's all for now.

Enjoy "Caddyshack II" at 8 p.m. on Versus.

Continue reading "Alex Rodriguez, Kate Hudson pairing is nothing new" »

In an earlier post I referenced Sandy Koufax appearing on "Mister Ed," an episode I had not recalled from my misspent, re-run filled youth.

Sure enough . . .

On that note, have a lovely weekend. Enjoy Federer in the French Open final. LIVE!

And the Belmont, of course.

I don't think Mister Ed will be ready to run after that slide into home.

This is interesting: The Ducks have signed a deal to have their home games shown on the Internet starting Monday.

Ten Cent Beer Night - 35 years ago today. Wow. Time flies. If I had been living in Cleveland at the time, I wouldn't have been eligible to participate in the festivities.

By having a beer, I mean. I still could have thrown stuff at people, I suppose.

Thanks to Deadspin for the reminder.

(The modern strategy of 10 Dollar Beer Nights has proven safer for all concerned.)

I have no Stroh's to toast the occasion. Will have to settle for Genny Cream.

The Uni Watch blog has breathed new life into my post from a couple of weeks back wondering why the distance down the lines in baseball stadiums always is shorter than to dead center.

Maybe I'm biased. I tend to hit the ball up the middle.

But rarely anywhere near the fence.

The good news for Washington Nationals ratings: They're way, way up, more than for any team in MLB!

The bad news: They're still easily the worst in baseball.

Dan Steinberg, the Washington Post's excellent sports blogger, discusses the subject here. That's Dan in the video above talking to Erin Andrews about spelling.

Today's Newsday Sports Blog Post of the Day comes to us from Adam Ronis' fantasy sports site, in which he manages two impressive feats:

Defending Carl Pavano and using a blur of statistics to support his case, some of which I never had heard of before.

I was in a fantasy league once, in 1988, back when it still was called rotisserie baseball.

Picked Jose Canseco in the third round for what turned out to be his 40-40 season.

It wasn't as cool as Deacon Jones appearing as himself on "The Odd Couple" or Kareem Abdul-Jabbar on "Everybody Loves Raymond," but Tuesday the Cubs' Mike Fontenot and Micah Hoffpauir joined the pantheon of athletes playing themselves on shows about fictional sportswriters when they guested on the season finale of TBS' "My Boys."

The script called for Fontenot to be mightily displeased upon learning one of the characters had been canoodling with his girlfriend.

I was just happy to see the show dealing with P.J. Franklin's work life, which in this case included covering a spring training game from the stands, while drinking beer and sitting next to a beat writer from a rival paper . . . whom she is dating.

Yup, that's pretty much what spring training is all about for sportswriters.

Photo: Getty

Sonia Sotomayor is Barack Obama's choice for the open Supreme Court spot. Check it out here.

Ms. Sotomayor and I go way back. I was in her courtroom on March 31, 1995, when she kick-started the baseball season with a ruling for the players over the owners.

At the time I was royally displeased to be there, because I was not at the Final Four due to having a very pregnant wife.

In light of today's events, I suppose it was cooler to be in a courtroom in New York that day than at a basketball news conference in Seattle.

(How long ago was 1995? Newsday's Michael Dobie went to the Final Four in my place . . . and simply used my airplane ticket, no security questions asked!)

Today we begin a new feature: Newsday Sports Blog Post of the Day, in which I highlight the work of colleagues and encourage you to broaden your horizons.

I'm sick of reading all the stuff I write about me, so I can only imagine what you're feeling. Queasy, probably.

Today's selection is from baseball columnist Ken Davidoff, who here somehow finds ways to reference "Young Frankenstein," "The Natural," "Cheaper by the Dozen" and "A Few Good Men" in a baseball post.

(WatchDog kudos to first reader to identify the woman in the picture and what she has to do with any of this.)

Fifty years ago today, the Pirates' Harvey Haddix pitched 12 perfect innings, but lost.

A nostalgic reminiscence of that night in the newsroom from Gerald Eskenazi, long-time Times man.

Speaking of short outfield porches (see three posts down), here is a question I've asked before and never had adequately answered:

Why are baseball outfields deepest in centerfield and shallowest in left and right? Why not a uniform distance all the way around?

In fact, why not have centerfield be the shortest distance from home and the areas just inside the foul poles be the farthest?

This way you reward people for hitting the ball straight, and decrease the benefit for hitting a ball barely fair (home run) versus barely foul (strike).

How about a wall that simply follows a straight line connecting foul pole to foul pole?

Why not? You've got until Tuesday morning to explain all this to me. I'm out until then.

Enjoy the crowning of the first NCAA Division I men's lacrosse champion other than Johns Hopkins, North Carolina, Princeton, Virginia or Syracuse since 1977.

That's 1 p.m. Monday on ESPN.

Photo: AP

Seventy years ago Sunday, NBC carried the first televised sports event - Princeton's 2-1 baseball victory over Columbia at Baker Field.

Even at the time, it was recognized as a historic moment. NBC's TV program manager, Thomas Hutchinson, told The New York Times the event would "signal the beginning of an important development in the art of pictures through the air, for outdoor sports will furnish much of the most interesting material we could televise."

Bill Stern was "assigned to identify players and interpret the play," which was important given the primitive technology and uneven picture provided to the 400 or so people in New York with TV sets who might have been watching.

The day after the game, naturally, brought another milestone in the history of sports TV - the first nitpicking review from a second-guessing media critic, proving again nothing ever changes.

Click below for excerpts from that historic Times review.

(Trivia question: Who played shortstop for Columbia on the big day?)

Continue reading "Televised sports made its debut 70 years ago Sunday" »

In addition to my lead item on Christopher (Mad Dog) Russo, my Friday column includes items on an excellent new documentary about the origins of baseball, HBO's announcement the Bengals will be the latest team featured on "Hard Knocks" and Spike Lee (sort of) admitting he was rooting for the Lakers against the Knicks Feb. 2 at the Garden.

If you are short on time and have to choose only one show among "Base Ball Discovered," "Kobe Doin' Work" and "Hard Knocks," I'd go with the first, written and directed by Sam Marchiano, an alumna of the famously talented high school and local college sports staff of New York Newsday's Kew Gardens office in the late 1980s.

It premieres at 6 p.m. Sunday on the MLB Network.

(Who's the guy in the picture?)

Looking forward to reading Michael Shapiro's new book, "Bottom of the Ninth," about the pivotal period between the departures from New York of the Dodgers and Giants and the arrival of the Mets, including the attempt to launch a third major league.

Above Branch Rickey talks about the Continental League on "What's My Line" in 1959. And here is a blog post in which Shapiro discusses the period.

For the heck of it, here are other sports-related "What's My Line" moments, featuring Duke Snider, Robin Roberts, Ford Frick, Jimmy Piersall, Bobby Murcer, Jesse Owens, Wilt Chamberlain, Ted Williams, Joe DiMaggio, Roy Campanella, Frank Gifford and Sal Maglie - with Phil Rizzuto as a guest panelist, the night before Maglie lost to the Yankees and Don Larsen in a somewhat memorable 1956 World Series game!

Hey, wait a minute . . . The show was seen on CBS at 10:30 p.m. Sundays, and I'm assuming it was on live.

Shouldn't the Scooter and the Barber have been in bed resting for Monday's day game?

I'm a couple of days late on this, but I like it anyway.

Another illustration of baseball's place in the Boston sports firmament, via the ratings for three games Sunday night:

Rays at Red Sox (regular season), ESPN: 10.8 percent of households

Celtics at Magic (Game 4, second round), TNT: 10.0

Hurricanes at Bruins (Game 5, second round), Versus: 6.7

Photo: AP

Just listened to Rog - sounding as agitated as he did in that news conference a while back - on ESPN Radio's "Mike & Mike in the Morning," dismissing the very long, very detailed, very heavily researched new book, "American Icon," as a big pile of misremembering.

Wow. You have to give the guy credit for consistency, I suppose.

Highly amusing video of Pat Burrell flinching as Red Sox fans start cheering out of nowhere upon Celtics' last-second victory.

No much blogging rest of today. Or Tuesday or Wednesday.

Read our other fine sports blogs.

(Oh, more one thing: Anyone out there get a great deal lately on Yankees or Mets tickets on the resale market? If so, email me at nbest@newsday.com with a contact number. Thanks.)

On April 8, Jose Canseco wrote this on Twitter: "Of the 103 unnamed players on the list who tested positive for steroids in 2003, Manny Ramirez's name is most likely on the list, 90%."

I know today's Manny bombshell is not about the 2003 tests, but still . . . Canseco's tweet at first seemed irresponsible. Now?

I attended both the Yankees and Mets games Wednesday.

Why?

1. Because I could, and thought it would be cool to see both 2008 pennant winners on the same night.

2. Because by leaving the basement only once, I could show my face to two separate groups of executives and media people, thus creating the illusion I get out more than I do.

3. I wanted to witness for myself much-discussed phenomena such as empty premium seats, quiet crowds, bad sight lines and long lines at the Shake Shack.

4. I had an interview scheduled for my Friday column.

Click below for assorted observations and adventures based on all of the above - if you can stomach another tiresome round of my cloying, self-referential babbling.

If I were you, I'd be sick of me.

Continue reading "Citi Field more full, more alive than Yankee Stadium" »

Jerry Remy, a very-well-liked Red Sox TV institution, is out indefinitely at NESN as he recovers from lung cancer surgery. A statement from Remy. Get well soon, sir.

Saturday's Kentucky Derby averaged 16.3 million viewers from 6:09 to 6:57 p.m., the best such figure for the race portion of the telecast since 1989 (18.5 million). As usual, female viewers outnumbered male ones - by about 2 percent.

Bonds sold in 2006 to finance Citi Field might be downgraded to junk status.

HBO replays the Pacquiao-Hatton fight at 9:30 p.m. Saturday. I don't want to give anything away, but I strongly recommend you not miss the first 6:38.

Scott Boras, in an interview with Playboy, says that he warns young players a child can cost $2 million over the first 18 years. (Of course, that figure depends on the quality of the lawyer hired by the mother in question.) Here is the link. (Parental discretion advised. For the site. Not the interview.)

Photo: AP

Davidoff finally got around here to asking an actual MLB umpiring official about my long-time assertion that umpires are much less forgiving to batters on checked swings now than they were when I was a young fan/viewer.

Only he got mixed up and asked the guy whether umpires are MORE forgiving now.

Sigh. Either way, Mike Port, MLB's VP of umpiring, said, "I don't think there's any different definition in recent years. It's still in the eye of the beholder. There's no specific defintion."

If by "recent" years, Mr. Port means the past decade or so, he's probably right. But check a recording of a game from the 1970s, sir, and you will see that checked swings that today are clear strikes once upon a time were considered clearly to be balls.

(Or maybe I am crazy. A little help here, fellow baby boomers.)

But thanks for trying, Ken.

"Lost Son of Havana," 102 minutes.

Luis Tiant, the well-liked pitching star of the 1960s and '70s who is best known for his seasons with the Red Sox and his funky delivery, returns to his native Cuba for the first time in 46 years.

There he reconnects with relatives who have grown old and frail and poor in his absence, and recalls his late father, a pitching star himself.

Tiant's laid-back demeanor contributes to what can be a maddeningly unhurried pace at times, but the emotional impact makes the film well worth the time investment.

El Tiante has fared much better than many of his exiled countrymen, but his story illustrates the countless lives and families fractured over the past half century by the ongoing freeze in U.S.-Cuban relations.

ESPN purchased this film last month and will show it to a national TV audience sometime in August.

A TV guy in L.A. . . . criticizing Vin Scully! (Via Fang's Bites.)

I'm feeling faint. Someone get the smelling salts!

What's next, me questioning how Bob Sheppard pronounces Jeter's name?

As I wrote earlier . . . the issue of empty, overpriced seats at the two new ballparks is going to be the biggest sports business story of the spring and summer, as evidenced by the 134 comments (and counting) in response to Wally's column today.

Wow. I'm grateful my daughters prefer minor league games to major league ones. Makes life much easier and more affordable.

(UPDATE: Up to 164 comments now.)

David Wells, last seen sitting in the bleachers at Yankee Stadium, will debut as a TBS analyst May 3 for the Red Sox-Rays game.

What famous announcer would he like to emulate? Charles Barkley, right? Um, no.

Ernie Harwell. Ernie Harwell?

“If I was to imitate anyone it would be Ernie Harwell," he said.

"Playing in Detroit for two and a half years was a great opportunity to hang around a legend. Ernie Harwell is always fun to listen to. Obviously, I never heard him until I went (to Detroit), but I heard of him. But to really listen to a guy, if you’re going to imitate someone that would probably be a guy that you would want to (imitate)."

Click below for a bunch of stuff TBS sent from Boomer off a conference call I had to skip, probably because I was at one new New York stadium or another.

Photo: Getty

Continue reading "David Wells will be 'nervous as hell' on TBS May 3" »

Readers who grew up in the cable TV era can't fully appreciate how much impact a regular-season, nationally televised baseball game still could have in 1976.

But that it did when Mark Fidrych's Tigers hosted the Yankees on June 28 of that year, attracting a "Monday Night Baseball" audience that cemented Fidrych's eccentric image for eternity.

By the way, Warner Wolf called the game for ABC!

I should have called him last night, but I was hard at work at Citi Field. I might call him today, but I have been given another assignment that will keep me busy and limit me to little or no blogging.

I'm a newspaper reporter, remember? If you have a problem with me not blogging, write a letter to the editor.

Do people still write letters to the editor?

NESN averaged 17.9 percent of homes in its market for the Bosox' opener Tuesday.

Late on a weekday afternoon. That is ridonkulous.

Red Sox ratings usually are more than the Yankees' and Mets' averages combined.

I'm amazed at how much critical attention the new baseball film "Sugar" has gotten, given its indie feel, its avoidance of sports movie cliches and the fact it is half in Spanish.

But SI, the Times, WatchDog and many others have written positively about it, and I certainly recommend you check it out.

Just don't go into it expecting the kind of mass-appeal flick that usually makes the lists of best baseball movies ever.

By all means spend the weekend catching up on films in the link above you have not yet seen, then enjoy Opening Week as our diamond heroes begin another insanely long campaign.

WatchDog will be on an early spring hiatus, with very limited blogging.

In the meantime, enjoy Newsday's many other fine sports blogs.

And, brand new on the baseball blogging scene: YES' Kimberly Jones, here.

WatchDog kudos to the first guy or gal to ID the fellow in the picture. Only hint is he has something to do with a famous baseball flick.

Photo: AP

"Sugar," opening Friday at four Manhattan theaters and later more widely, depicts a fictional, aspiring Dominican pitcher named Miguel (Sugar) Santos, played by Algenis Perez Soto.

Do not see it expecting a standard, Disney-esque sports movie.

Its pace is unhurried, half of it is in Spanish (with English subtitles) and it does not end with the dramatic climax of the customary "big game."

"We wanted to avoid the usual sports movie clichés," co-writer/director Ryan Fleck said.

"What interested us was not the guy who becomes Sammy Sosa or Pedro Martinez. We felt like there are hundreds of other guys who go though the same journey every year. We wanted to go through what happens to those guys."

Said Anna Boden, the other writer/director: "We’ve seen the rags-to-riches story before. We wanted to show people a story they hadn’t seen."

Continue reading "'Sugar' chronicles young Dominican's big league bid" »

My Baltimore Sun counterpart, Ray Frager, on the strange events of Sunday afternoon, when the Orioles' radio account of the game against the Mets ended during a rain delay when everyone on the broadcast team just . . . left!

Glad tidings for digital cable TV customers, including those of Cablevision (which owns Newsday), Time Warner and Comcast:

From April 6-12, there will be a free preview of MLB Extra Innings, offering up to 80 out-of-market games during the season's opening week.

The preview comes with an offer of $30 off the regular price of $199 for the full season, less expensive than many of the seats for a single game at our two new major league ballparks.

TBS announced the schedule for its first eight Sunday MLB games . . . five of which you will not see on TBS if you live in the New York area, as they feature the Mets or Yankees and thus belong to local rights-holders. Anyway, there they are:

April 12, 1 p.m.
Mets @ Florida Marlins

April 19, 1 p.m.
Cleveland Indians @ Yankees

April 26, 12 p.m.
Philadelphia Phillies @ Florida Marlins

May 3, 1:30 p.m.
Boston Red Sox @ Tampa Bay Rays

May 10, 12:30 p.m.
Atlanta Braves @ Philadelphia Phillies

May 17, 1 p.m.
Minnesota Twins @ Yankees

May 24, 1:30 p.m.
Mets @ Boston Red Sox

May 31, 12:30 p.m.
Yankees @ Cleveland Indians

Sorry, America, but this international sports upset is even nuttier than that hockey game back in 1980, if for no other reason than the Netherlands beat the Dominican Republic TWICE to advance in the WBC.

Wow. Of course, much as in the NCAA Tournament or a match play event featuring Tiger Woods, the excitement of an early upset soon gives way to the reality that a marquee attraction is gone.

Thus the Dominicans' departure will be a problem for the WBC and its TV partners, and makes Team USA more important than ever. So how were the ratings for its first two games, both on ESPN? Pretty good, actually.

Sunday's game attracted 3.5 percent of households in the New York market, ESPN's highest-rated baseball game here not involving the Yankees or Mets since at least 1999, which is as far back as its records go.

Nationally, the game attracted 2.0 percent of ESPN homes and 2.65 million viewers.

Saturday's afternoon thriller against Canada drew 1.78 million viewers nationally and a solid 1.7 percent of New York-area homes.

Photo: Getty

We now conclude our blogging week with a look at a fellow named Lucas Swineford and his idea for a fan action slated for April 17, the 54th anniversary of Roberto Clemente's major league debut.

Here is the Web site of Baseball Fans Give Back, which is encouraging fans fed up with the ongoing steroids stain not to attend or watch games that night, and instead donate three hours or $13 to one of the charitable causes listed.

Swineford, 33, who works in digital media at Yale and grew up a Mets fan in Secaucus, N.J., said the idea hatched a couple of weeks ago during a discussion with his wife and two friends.

"The four of us all love baseball," he said. "We’re not going to give it up for good, but the steroids thing has gotten out of control.

"The Peter Gammons interview [of Alex Rodriguez] struck a a nerve. To hear him say he cheated the game to deal with the pressure of an enormous contract felt insulting to me in some way. It seemed he had lost touch with reality."

Photo: Getty

Continue reading "Fans are mad as heck and not going to take it anymore" »

The dinner of the New York Chapter of the Baseball Writers' Association of America featured "stars, critics, magnates and officials of the diamond," on a night when "formality was forgotten and hilarity was the keynote of the occasion."

Actually, that was The New York Times' description of the first dinner, 85 years ago this week at the Commodore, not the one I attended Sunday at the Hilton.

(Perspective: The baseball writers' dinner is a New York sports tradition older than the existence of the New York Football Giants.)

Instead of Kenesaw Landis, Babe Ruth and Christy Mathewson being among the speakers, we settled for AL MVP Dustin Pedroia of the Bosox thanking the crowd for not booing him, emcee Dave Lennon of Newsday good-naturedly ribbing Brian Cashman about not acquiring Johan Santana last offseason - "I live with that every day," Cashman said - and standing ovations being given to Greg Maddux and to veteran baseball writer Bob Klapsich for coming back from a devastating eye injury suffered while pitching in an over-30 league last summer.

I sat at the Newsday table, as did two all-time announcing greats: Bob Wolff and Warner Fusselle.

Lennon did a fine job as emcee, especially for a guy from the Boston area.

In addition to Pedroia not getting booed, Cole Hamels and Brad Lidge also were spared. The audience was not bashful about booing members of the Red Sox' front office.

Bernie Williams played a haunting, harp-like rendition of "Take Me Out to the Ball Game" on his guitar, and later joined Ed Kranepool in accepting awards as proxies of sorts for the closings of Yankee and Shea Stadiums.

Photo credit: Thanks, AP! Pictures of the Babe are hard to find on the Internet!