It was golden - Baseball in the '60s and '70s
Neil Leifer. Ballet in the dirt. The golden age of Baseball. Excerpt from the introduction by Ron Shelton.
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No, it happens every day, 162 times a year, not counting spring training and playoffs. Sometimes 50,000 people are watching and sometimes 1,500.
This casual dailiness of the game of baseball, at once the fastest and slowest of all sports, is a game in which no clock is ticking. There is no marking off a quarter."The game isn't over till it's over," Yogi Berra is famous for saying. The idea in baseball is that hope springs eternal, creating great relaxed spaces of time. Because there's time between plays, time in the dugout, time to chat with the opposing first baseman as you lead off the bag, time in the clubhouse, time on the bus trips, time during endless rain delays, the game has rhythms and spaces that need filling, and language becomes the natural thing to fill it with.
"Dem Bums" had a passionate fan in young Neil Leifer, who grew up in a housing project on the Lower East Side, the "real" Lower East Side. He was the son of a postal worker, and a great baseball fan. Neil lived a short subway ride from the Giants' Polo Grounds, Yankee Stadium, and the Dodgers' Ebbets Field. He went to all the games but knew early on that if you were a Dodger, hating the Yankees accompanied the commitment. It was tribal. His hero was Dodgers shortstop Pee Wee Reese because he thought Reese was the shortest player in the league and Neil was the shortest kid on his block. Neil's father was a Giants fan because their third baseman, Sid Gordon, was Jewish. Baseball gave them something else to fight about.
As a 12-year-old, Neil Leifer joined the Camera Club of the Henry Street Settlement near where he lived. A Russian émigré taught the neighborhood kids how to take pictures. Once a week, each kid was given a roll of film and a DeJur twin lens reflex camera, and instructed to come back next week to process the photographs. By 13, Neil was going by subway to the ballgames, and by 15 trying to sell a photo here and there, mostly to Dell Sports publications. Leifer began looking at his beloved sport through a lens and the world began seeing baseball and its heroes in ways they'd never been seen before Early in his career, Leifer became aware of something I have known and have included in many of my films: The essence of sports isn't about the defining moments of action ... it's about the time we spend between the moments of action. It's not about the big play. It's about everything else.
At age 17 Leifer cajoled a press pass from Dell Sports to cover the 1960 World Series, between the Yankees and the Pirates. Sports Illustrated agreed to process Neil's film in return for getting a first look at it. In those days there was no photographers' well, no privileged seating. You hung from the press box, sharing the omniscient view with the writers and principal overhead television camera—or you crouched on concrete in an aisle and hoped nobody hit you over the head with a beer bottle for obstructing their view. Neil felt he needed a professional camera, so he could compete with the "Big Boys" at SI. The problem was he didn't have $450 and neither did his father. Neil badgered his dad until he agreed to purchase the Nikon F with motordrive and make the 24 payments. Abraham Leifer had never bought anything on credit and was very proud he had no outstanding loans or credit bills. Neil promised to make all the payments from money he made delivering sandwiches for the mid-Manhattan Stage Deli. His father grumbled that it would take his son years to repay the loan.
Page [1] [2] [3]
Page [1] [2] [3]
No, it happens every day, 162 times a year, not counting spring training and playoffs. Sometimes 50,000 people are watching and sometimes 1,500.
This casual dailiness of the game of baseball, at once the fastest and slowest of all sports, is a game in which no clock is ticking. There is no marking off a quarter."The game isn't over till it's over," Yogi Berra is famous for saying. The idea in baseball is that hope springs eternal, creating great relaxed spaces of time. Because there's time between plays, time in the dugout, time to chat with the opposing first baseman as you lead off the bag, time in the clubhouse, time on the bus trips, time during endless rain delays, the game has rhythms and spaces that need filling, and language becomes the natural thing to fill it with.
"Dem Bums" had a passionate fan in young Neil Leifer, who grew up in a housing project on the Lower East Side, the "real" Lower East Side. He was the son of a postal worker, and a great baseball fan. Neil lived a short subway ride from the Giants' Polo Grounds, Yankee Stadium, and the Dodgers' Ebbets Field. He went to all the games but knew early on that if you were a Dodger, hating the Yankees accompanied the commitment. It was tribal. His hero was Dodgers shortstop Pee Wee Reese because he thought Reese was the shortest player in the league and Neil was the shortest kid on his block. Neil's father was a Giants fan because their third baseman, Sid Gordon, was Jewish. Baseball gave them something else to fight about.
As a 12-year-old, Neil Leifer joined the Camera Club of the Henry Street Settlement near where he lived. A Russian émigré taught the neighborhood kids how to take pictures. Once a week, each kid was given a roll of film and a DeJur twin lens reflex camera, and instructed to come back next week to process the photographs. By 13, Neil was going by subway to the ballgames, and by 15 trying to sell a photo here and there, mostly to Dell Sports publications. Leifer began looking at his beloved sport through a lens and the world began seeing baseball and its heroes in ways they'd never been seen before Early in his career, Leifer became aware of something I have known and have included in many of my films: The essence of sports isn't about the defining moments of action ... it's about the time we spend between the moments of action. It's not about the big play. It's about everything else.
At age 17 Leifer cajoled a press pass from Dell Sports to cover the 1960 World Series, between the Yankees and the Pirates. Sports Illustrated agreed to process Neil's film in return for getting a first look at it. In those days there was no photographers' well, no privileged seating. You hung from the press box, sharing the omniscient view with the writers and principal overhead television camera—or you crouched on concrete in an aisle and hoped nobody hit you over the head with a beer bottle for obstructing their view. Neil felt he needed a professional camera, so he could compete with the "Big Boys" at SI. The problem was he didn't have $450 and neither did his father. Neil badgered his dad until he agreed to purchase the Nikon F with motordrive and make the 24 payments. Abraham Leifer had never bought anything on credit and was very proud he had no outstanding loans or credit bills. Neil promised to make all the payments from money he made delivering sandwiches for the mid-Manhattan Stage Deli. His father grumbled that it would take his son years to repay the loan.
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Neil Leifer, Baseball - Ballet in the Dirt
Hardcover, slipcase, 39.6 x 33 cm (15.6 x 13 in.), 302 pages
$ 700.00
$ 700.00
This superb collection of 60s and 70s baseball images reflects the total access Leifer had to the players on the ball field, in the dugout, and in the locker room. Limited to 1,000 copies, each numbered and signed by the photographer.
The "Ol' Perfesser" makes a point. Like his mentor John McGraw, Casey Stengel could be tough on his own players and on umpires. He saved his famous double-talk for the press. With umpires, he was straightforward in his displeasure, and the "Ol' Perfesser" enjoyed lecturing them on their errors in judgment. Photo (c) Neil Leifer