One more comment: My grandfather (1905-80) was the nephew of a Civil War veteran. So looking at those Matthew Brady photos from the vantage point of 2005, I'm only three generations removed from that.

We were discussing great things we'd seen in person on RSBB once, and someone noted that he'd seen Cy Young pitch. It was an exhibition, but it still blew me away. Cy F. Young.

Cy Young's debut in the major leagues is closer to the age of the Articles of Confederacy than to the present day.

And with the way they have changed scoring over the decades, I don't even know how it would translate.


That's because I haven't posted my treatise on SAT-Highschool Intelligence-independent Testing metric, yet. I'm waiting for the right deal to come along. Its central premise is that test takers don't have any influence on the outcome of the test, its all luck. You can prove it by doing the following:

(1) Calculate $SAT
(2) Region adjust it according to the region adjustment table.
(3) Divide by .31117456
(4) If the person is lefthanded multiply by .21752
(5) If the person drank a beer within 24 hours subtract 2.1693

(I call this Quickshit)

You will then see that all the results are random. But if the person takes the SAT more than 60 times, it will predict the next SAT score better than the previous SAT score predicts the next SAT score.

You know how old I am? I can remember when Kevin Millar didn't hit like a girl.

Fat tub of goo. He should be ashamed of himself. I am really disappointed that a guy who initially had to scrap to get playing time has allowed his body to just disintegrate into an oversized creme puff.

And I'm not a Sox fan. "Just" a baseball fan.

You're looking at a hardcore TMNT fan from back in the day. I've got the action figures to prove it.

I think I've got some of the old Eastman & Laird comics laying around somewhere. That was a pretty violent comic; I remember being somewhat surprised when they turned it into a kids' show.

Cy Young's debut in the major leagues is closer to the age of the Articles of Confederacy than to the present day.

Heck, Cy Young's MLB debut is as close to Lexington & Concord as it is to today.

And his birth is about midway between now & the first British settlement of Georgia.

Last year's crop of seniors was the last that was in college for the World Trade Center attack.

Pretty recent, I know, but it's disconcerting to see things you see as current events start to slide into history.

Barry Bonds has always played for the Giants.

Greg Maddux had played for the Braves his entire career until 2004.

Randy Johnson never played for Montreal.

Barry Bonds has always played for the Giants.

This is cheating. They were already 5 when Bonds went to the Giants.

-The spitball has never been used successfully by a pitcher

-Waitress service has always been available in box seats

*The only presidents they have known are named Bush and Clinton

*National media has always been biased

*Tiger Woods has been the star golfer as long as they can remember

*They have always had realistic video games

*Pen pals have always been over e-mail, many have never written a letter

*They have always had cable TV

*Fantasy football/baseball has been common their entire lives

*National media has always been biased
has been biased left. I remember veerrry conservative big city newspapers.

Reggie Jackson's light-tower HR in the All-Star Game in Detroit is not very impressive.
Spitter is probably a misspelling of split-finger pitch; what's a forkball?

Dennis Eckersley was always a relief pitcher.

The web was invented when they were four. (Admittedly, unless you had a NeXtStation, internet access and a working relationship with CERN, you probably didn't use it until they were in Grade School).

They probably don't remember trying to find things on the web before Google.

Web pages have always had white backgrounds.

Doc Gooden was never anything special.

Robin Yount was always an outfielder.

The Red Sox have never lost a World Series.

They've never seen anyone steal 100 bases.

Quisenberry was never a closer.

Joe Morgan never played the game. Billy Beane did.

many have never written a letter

I haven't written a letter in 10 years, and I'm 26.

Barry Bonds has always played for the Giants.

This is cheating. They were already 5 when Bonds went to the Giants.

That's not cheating; that's kind of the point. I was born in 1976, but I thought Sandberg was always a Cub, until I read about it later.

Well, Sandberg was a Phillie for about five minutes. Even people who lived through it may not remember it.

Actually, I remember always knowing that Lou Brock played for the Cubs, even though he was traded to the Cardinals before I was born, because of the stats on the back of his baseball card. These kids today, they don't know that baseball cards used to be our primary source for numbers.

They also think every new park ever built has been "retro."

Well, Sandberg was a Phillie for about five minutes. Even people who lived through it may not remember it.

Fair enough. I was trying to think of a player who switched teams around '82. He was the first one to come to mind, and I've had some trouble thinking of others -- which just illustrates my point, in that I don't remember anything about baseball from when I was 5. Maybe Keith Hernandez would be a better example. He was a Met to me; I have no recollection of his STL days.

And I knew that guys had played on other teams before because I read a lot and looked at the backs of baseball cards. But I didn't associate the players with their older teams.

This is all very funny to read, having been borin in 1987 and all.

jonathan: to make this easier, please provide a complete list of things you don't know.

And I knew that guys had played on other teams before because I read a lot and looked at the backs of baseball cards. But I didn't associate the players with their older teams.

I understand exactly what you're saying: knowledgte and memory are distinct things.

By the first time I ever read things like baseball cards and Who's Who in Baseball, I knew that Lou Brock had played for the Cubs. But I have absolutely no memory of Brock playing for anyone but the Cardinals.

As soon as I know what you need to know that I don't know I'll get right to it.

Posted by King Kaufman on August 24, 2005 at 02:38 PM

I think this is a big difference in childhood today. We knew who Bing Crosby was because our parents' culture was THE culture, pretty much. Today, kids have their own culture. They're marketed to. They don't have to watch grown-up TV shows or listen to grown-up music except in those rare hours, like Saturday morning, when they're catered to. They're always catered to. If I had a collection of Hillary Duff and Aaron Cater records when I was a kid (or whatever kids listen to now), I wouldn't have gone sniffing around my parents record collection when I was bored, saying, "Let's see what this Sinatra geezer sounds like."

If there were entire cable channels devoted to my tastes, I wouldn't have come home from school and watched "Gomer Pyle" and "Leave it to Beaver" reruns.

I don't know that any of this is a good or bad thing. It's just different. It does seem to rob kids of a certain layer of cultural history -- I knew at a very young age what the '50s more or less looked like and how it was different then, because I'd seen plenty of TV shows and movies made in the '50s -- but I would guess that loss is made up for in other ways.

How, exactly? How is a lack of knowledge of the past (unless you're Irish, I suppose) ever a good thing?

Posted by Mefisto on August 24, 2005 at 04:32 PM (#1569710)

What happened when you were in 2nd grade?

JFK was elected President. Harveys is clearly "winning" this contest, so I'll just add that when my grandmother (still alive) was in second grade, the US had not yet entered World War I. Take that, Harveys.

Well, I can't top Waterloo here, but when I was in 2nd grade I had a grandmother who had known Walt Whitman, and a great-aunt whose sister was the subject of Thomas Eakins' The Concert Singer.

And in the same year, the only type of margarine you could get came in a giant plastic squeeze bag, which also contained a little internal bag of yellow dye, which you would somehow break without puncturing the big bag, and then would squeeze some more until the dye gradually spread itself all through the big bag and turned the formerly white margarine into a sickly yellow. I think you then transfered the entire contents into a bowl and stored it in the refrigerator.

The butter trust, naturally, was behind all this, the purpose of which was obviously to discourage people from buying margarine, then known as "oleo." And if all this sounds just too weird to be true, ask Harvey. For all I know, as a farmer's son he might have been rooting for the butter trust and still curses the FDA for finally letting the dye be pre-blended into margarine sticks.

And if Harvey's not reading this, just google "margarine" + "yellow dye." Apparently in Quebec margarine is still forced to be colorless!

All this was just ending when I was in second grade, at the same time that Collier's Magazine was giving us a preview of World War III, which ended with UN troops in Moscow and a glorious women's fashion show being held during the 1960 Moscow Olympics.

I suppose the only moral of this is that truth has always been stranger than fiction, no matter what generation you belong to.

Actually, I think moreso, kids of my generation grew up knowing more about their parents culture than before. Or, at least, past cultures. Because they were all exposed to us, through television reruns and oldies stations on the radio and through our parents. I imagine growing up in the 50's, you had very little ability to go back and know what exactly the 20's was about. Whereas even at a young age I remember my dad showing me his old record collections and hearing classic rock, disco, and my mom's doo wop and what have you, not to mention, like I said, movies and television and such from past eras were readily available to me.

Actually, I think moreso, kids of my generation grew up knowing more about their parents culture than before. Or, at least, past cultures. Because they were all exposed to us, through television reruns and oldies stations on the radio and through our parents. I imagine growing up in the 50's, you had very little ability to go back and know what exactly the 20's was about. Whereas even at a young age I remember my dad showing me his old record collections and hearing classic rock, disco, and my mom's doo wop and what have you, not to mention, like I said, movies and television and such from past eras were readily available to me.

Good point, providing that they just don't blow the whole thing off. But for some reason every generation goes through a phase of highly selective "nostalgia" for a rose-colored past of 20 to 30 years ago. In the 50's, "The Roaring Twenties" were looked back at as "The Golden Age," and this was especially true in sports, so much so in fact that in its very first issue (1954), SI had to stand up for the present with its first feature article, entitled The Golden Age Is Now. And in the 1970's I made a pretty good living by packaging a series of 16mm bootleg prints of 1950's TV shows and taking them to dozens of colleges under the heading of "An Evening of Nostalgia," with everything from The Lone Ranger to Nixon's Checkers Speech. The 1970's college students were barely alive when those shows were in their heyday, but they went absolutely nuts over them for about 4 or 5 years, at which point the whole 50's nostalgia boom had pretty much run its course, just a few minutes before me and my girlfriend would have been carted off to the bughouse screaming out the theme music for The Mickey Mouse Club. Pretty dumb stuff, but it beat working for a living.

"The Roaring Twenties" were looked back at as "The Golden Age," and this was especially true in sports, so much so in fact that in its very first issue (1954), SI had to stand up for the present with its first feature article, entitled The Golden Age Is Now.

You mean like how people like me pull their hair out every time they see a Jim Rice-for-the-hall article? ;-)

Asian people have small penises.

"The Roaring Twenties" were looked back at as "The Golden Age," and this was especially true in sports, so much so in fact that in its very first issue (1954), SI had to stand up for the present with its first feature article, entitled The Golden Age Is Now.

You mean like how people like me pull their hair out every time they see a Jim Rice-for-the-hall article? ;-)

Something like that, only at least you don't have Frankie Frisch on the Veterans Committee. His last will and testament called for the establishment of a special wing in Cooperstown so that the Gas House Gang's batboy could be inducted.

that the Gas House Gang's batboy could be inducted.

Was he up to taking the Gallon Challenge?

I'd vote for Rice, but I'd vote for Tiant and Dwight Evans too.

I was trying to think of a player who switched teams around '82. He was the first one to come to mind, and I've had some trouble thinking of others -- which just illustrates my point, in that I don't remember anything about baseball from when I was 5.

I'm surprised you didn't think of Garvey. He's always been a Padre to you, right?

Apparently some people think "left" means supporting an agenda of endless war and the continuing disintegration of civil rights.

Other than that, this is an extremely entertaining thread. When I was an undergraduate, it always amazed me how little my friends knew about historical pop culture compared to what I did. One reason is of course that they don't have to watch re-runs on TV, but another, I think, is that when I was growing up, I talked to my parents, and listened to them talk; they were at home and I was at home, we ate together, we took trips in the car together, etc. Now, I get the impression that kids only see their parents (either one) for a couple of hours a day.

Phillybooster, your point about on-demand media gave me a start, because it's right on. Even I've noticed myself throwing little fits to myself because I couldn't have the instant gratification I've gotten used to.

I'm surprised you didn't think of Garvey. He's always been a Padre to you, right?

When I was a kid, he was. It was jarring to learn he used to be a Dodger, to be honest. Over time, I've come to think of him as a Dodger, only because I think he's a #########.

That said, obviously it's possible for people's mindsets to be influenced by things other than their direct memories. I would guess that most San Diegans think of Garvey primarily as a Padre.

Oh btw, I DID NOT KNOW who Fernando Venezuela was until I joined Primer. like I said, I was born in 84. So i had no clue WTF Fernandomania was about until I joined Primer

What happened when you were in 2nd grade?

That year was 1971-72. I guess the only thing I remember as far as world events during that time was Vietnam, and Nixon working to get us out of there. I remember a lot of things from that year, but they are all related to my own life, and things around town, not world events.

Now, in kindergarten, I can remember the first moon landing on TV. I can remember Apollo 13 - without checking, I don't recall when the movie came out, but today's freshmen would only know of the phrase "Houston, we have a problem" from the movie, not the evening news.

The Challenger item on the list actually gave me goosebumps when I read it. I was standing in the Texas Student Union (UT Austin) watching the takeoff live in the bowling lanes area with about 40 other people. We had more of the shocked silence than any outcry, but it was a powerful moment.

Regarding my SAT scores, I can recall mine 23 years later, it was 1370 (after a 1390 on the PSAT, which got me a National Merit scholarship). But I sure don't remember anyone else really talking about their scores, except this one guy in college that bragged about his perfect score all the time (and no, he sure didn't seem to be the sharpest knife in the drawer, either).

From a "timeshock" standpoint, I've encountered that by dating a woman some years older than me (I was 29 at the time), it stunned her to find I hadn't been born when JFK was shot, and she was old enough to remember it at the time.

my mom's doo wop
A woman who likes doo wop? My wife is one of the most doo wop tolerant women I've ever met and her limit is about 2 songs in a row.

From a "timeshock" standpoint, I've encountered that by dating a woman some years older than me (I was 29 at the time), it stunned her to find I hadn't been born when JFK was shot, and she was old enough to remember it at the time.

Was the term "cougar" a part of the vernacular then?

That year was 1971-72. I guess the only thing I remember as far as world events during that time was Vietnam, and Nixon working to get us out of there. I remember a lot of things from that year, but they are all related to my own life, and things around town, not world events.

Now, in kindergarten, I can remember the first moon landing on TV.

Texan,
that makes me and you the same age, I think. Same memories.

Also, I'll be in Dallas-FW Monday and trying to go to teh ranger/ChiSox game.

You in that area?

Ahh, Rock Stars on TV....in my day, it was getting a crappy UHF feed from Plattsburg VT for the PBS station that had "Don Kirshner's Rock Concert" on Friday nights at 11:30 or so.. Saw Black Sabbath at the time of "Sabotage" making it about 1975. There were some awesome acts on that show.

It does seem to rob kids of a certain layer of cultural history How, exactly? How is a lack of knowledge of the past (unless you're Irish, I suppose) ever a good thing?

I didn't say a lack of knowledge is a good thing. I said kids today aren't picking up the same knowledge I did, necessarily. They're picking up different knowledge. I'm not prepared to say that the cultural insights I gained from watching "Gomer Pyle" or "I Love Lucy" were superior to, say, the abstract thinking and problem-solving skills today's kids pick up from playing multilevel video games.

It's a little jarring when you're talking to a younger person and they don't seem to know anything about anything that happened before about five years ago. But at that moment you're not seeing what they've gotten in exchange. I'm sure it's just as jarring for them when I say I've never reached the second level of any video game, and don't even really know what a "level" is.

Andy, your grandmother knew Walt Whitman? Like knew him knew him? Did she tell you any stories? I'd love to hear some family lore about the Original Big Man.

In Camden or in Brooklyn or in Long Island?

My grandfather was born during Ulysses S. Grant's first term in office.
My father was born before the start of the Russian Revolution.
My aunt a couple of years ago told me stories about war rationing during WW I, and how her shopkeeper father always saved extra sugars for the nuns at the convent up the street.
This same aunt used to spend her lunch hours as a secretary in Manhattan watching the nice construction workers across the street build the Empire State Building.
And my wife was born a few weeks after Super Bowl VI.

Wow, before this thread, I never really put all this crap together in my head...