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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Veteran Sports Illustrated photographers John Zimmerman, Hy Peskin, and Marvin Newman were covering the Series for SI when kid Leifer showed up, looking for his own aisle to crouch in. Yogi got to second base, Leifer aimed his new camera with long lens, and bingo—Yogi was picked off and Neil had the perfect angle. Sports Illustrated bought it and ran it full-page color! They paid $300. Game two—the Mick (Mickey Mantle) homered and as he entered the dugout, Leifer snapped the moment. The picture sold and ran the next day. Another $150. Neil paid off his dad in full, quit delivering sandwiches, and a career was born.
Leifer snapped the images that stand for a career. You see Mays laugh, Aaron smile, and Gil Hodges flash his signature broad grin. And even a not-so-crazy Jimmy Piersall, flashing teeth from ear to ear, as he smashes the ball in batting practice. At once you're reminded that these are men playing a boys' game. For a moment, the tough Hank Bauer sticks out his tongue, Billy Martin looks like a choirboy, and Reggie flips Billy over his back, goofing like eight-year-olds, and we recall why we like baseball.
These are part of the record of a golden age from a photographer who knows that the moments before and after the action hold the story.
Leifer gave us all sides and complexions of baseball. The action and the suspended quiet moments all without auto-focus. All without digital.When the center fielder crashed into the fence, he caught it with his 600 mm lens, manually focused as the action unfolded. There're no second takes. There's just the work of a great sports photographer hanging out in America's national pastime...when it still was America's national pastime. These Neil Leifer portraits of baseball connect us not just to the game but to our fathers, to our childhood, to memories so private that they aren't otherwise articulated. Your first mitt, the baseball you tied inside your mitt to give it shape, your first organized game, and the time a fellow nine-year-old threw a 30-mile-an-hour fastball by you and the humiliation you felt dragging the bat back to the bench, assuaged only by your first hit—a 20-hop ground ball that got past diving infielders. And suddenly you recall the moment you first laid eyes on your baseball hero. And years later you are older and you realize your gods are human, and there is mortality... but not in baseball. Leifer's photographs allow for a suspension of disbelief. He sees the game we feel and gives us images that soothe us and stir us. Through these pictures "you can go home again." Do I exaggerate? Not a bit. That's where these photos take me, and I suspect, many others. And that is their gift, a gift that even my friend Neil may not fully appreciate.
Page 1 2 3
Page 1 2 3
Veteran Sports Illustrated photographers John Zimmerman, Hy Peskin, and Marvin Newman were covering the Series for SI when kid Leifer showed up, looking for his own aisle to crouch in. Yogi got to second base, Leifer aimed his new camera with long lens, and bingo—Yogi was picked off and Neil had the perfect angle. Sports Illustrated bought it and ran it full-page color! They paid $300. Game two—the Mick (Mickey Mantle) homered and as he entered the dugout, Leifer snapped the moment. The picture sold and ran the next day. Another $150. Neil paid off his dad in full, quit delivering sandwiches, and a career was born.
Leifer snapped the images that stand for a career. You see Mays laugh, Aaron smile, and Gil Hodges flash his signature broad grin. And even a not-so-crazy Jimmy Piersall, flashing teeth from ear to ear, as he smashes the ball in batting practice. At once you're reminded that these are men playing a boys' game. For a moment, the tough Hank Bauer sticks out his tongue, Billy Martin looks like a choirboy, and Reggie flips Billy over his back, goofing like eight-year-olds, and we recall why we like baseball.
These are part of the record of a golden age from a photographer who knows that the moments before and after the action hold the story.
Leifer gave us all sides and complexions of baseball. The action and the suspended quiet moments all without auto-focus. All without digital.When the center fielder crashed into the fence, he caught it with his 600 mm lens, manually focused as the action unfolded. There're no second takes. There's just the work of a great sports photographer hanging out in America's national pastime...when it still was America's national pastime. These Neil Leifer portraits of baseball connect us not just to the game but to our fathers, to our childhood, to memories so private that they aren't otherwise articulated. Your first mitt, the baseball you tied inside your mitt to give it shape, your first organized game, and the time a fellow nine-year-old threw a 30-mile-an-hour fastball by you and the humiliation you felt dragging the bat back to the bench, assuaged only by your first hit—a 20-hop ground ball that got past diving infielders. And suddenly you recall the moment you first laid eyes on your baseball hero. And years later you are older and you realize your gods are human, and there is mortality... but not in baseball. Leifer's photographs allow for a suspension of disbelief. He sees the game we feel and gives us images that soothe us and stir us. Through these pictures "you can go home again." Do I exaggerate? Not a bit. That's where these photos take me, and I suspect, many others. And that is their gift, a gift that even my friend Neil may not fully appreciate.
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Neil Leifer, Baseball - Ballet in the Dirt
Neil Leifer, Gabriel Schechter, Ron Shelton, Eric Kroll
Hardcover in slipcase, 15.6 x 13 in., 302 pages, $ 1000
Hardcover in slipcase, 15.6 x 13 in., 302 pages, $ 1000
Koufax in action, Los Angeles Dodgers vs. Milwaukee Braves, August 25, 1963. On another gorgeous day in Southern California, with ocean waves represented by the pavilion roof, catcher Doug Camilli, umpire Ed Sudol, and a Braves batter enjoy a close-up view of Sandy Koufax in action. The Dodgers ace came within one out of a shutout, allowing a ninth-inning run as the Dodgers won 2-1. Photo (c) Neil Leifer
