Comments on: A treasure trove of Philadelphia A’s records has been uncovered

By: hcf95688

hcf95688 — Wed, 26 Oct 2011 13:41:50 +0000

Someone saw “Inglorious Basterds”

By: stackers1

stackers1 — Wed, 26 Oct 2011 12:42:14 +0000

Mack’s theory was – it’s better to have a team in 1st place most of the year, but then finish 2nd or 3rd. This way you get pleanty of fans paying to get in the park, but don’t have to give the players raises because they didn’t win anything. I got this from Ken Burns Baseball documentary.

By: deepstblu

deepstblu — Tue, 25 Oct 2011 22:34:27 +0000

If the film is old enough it may be nitrate film, which is extremely flammable and needs to be handled with great care.

By: Old Gator

Old Gator — Tue, 25 Oct 2011 17:45:03 +0000

Oops – hit the wrong “reply” key. The comment above is in response to WhenMattStairsisKing, below.

By: Old Gator

Old Gator — Tue, 25 Oct 2011 17:43:56 +0000

Can’t take credit for that. A friend of mine in San Francisco, a south Jersey expat and hardcore Feelies fan, emailed me about it last night because the historian working on the records is based at Texas State University in San Marcos, where the archives of Cormac McCarthy’s papers are also stored. I just passed it along to Craig. Butterfly effect, you know?

By: Old Gator

Old Gator — Tue, 25 Oct 2011 17:40:49 +0000

The place for these films is Martin Scorsese’s archival and preservation lab at The Film Foundation in New York City; it’s the great director’s labor of love for his revered medium:

http://www.film-foundation.org/common/11004/default.cfm?clientID=11004&thispage=homepage

By: Old Gator

Old Gator — Tue, 25 Oct 2011 17:36:34 +0000

Paul dug up Edward Teller and shaved them off. On that idiot, they look a lot worse for wear.

By: florida76

florida76 — Tue, 25 Oct 2011 17:36:26 +0000

It’s incorrect to say the old Philadelphia A’s were a “small market team”, rather the Philadelphia market just couldn’t support two MLB teams.

By: tmohr

tmohr — Tue, 25 Oct 2011 17:00:54 +0000

Those are the same eyebrows as Ron Paul’s.

By: clydeserra

clydeserra — Tue, 25 Oct 2011 16:53:21 +0000

Charlie Finley paid him $300 per brow.

By: WhenMattStairsIsKing

WhenMattStairsIsKing — Tue, 25 Oct 2011 16:25:14 +0000

Funny, I never realized Connie Mack grew mustaches above his eyes.

Thanks for posting this story, Craig, and for finding it, Old Gator.

By: Joe

Joe — Tue, 25 Oct 2011 16:20:59 +0000

Ooh, accounting ledgers! Given my company’s record retention policy, those would be gone long ago. And the world would be a worse place for it.

By: natstowngreg

natstowngreg — Tue, 25 Oct 2011 16:19:21 +0000

There’s a film lab on the Left Coast — think it’s at UCLA — that specializes in restoring very old films. Maybe they could do it.

By: natstowngreg

natstowngreg — Tue, 25 Oct 2011 16:17:24 +0000

Good idea for the films. The documents seem to be in good hands, with someone who is already chronicling Mack’s career.

The standard history is, Connie Mack built great teams, but couldn’t afford to keep them. The material cited in this article supports that history. The A’s became one of the “small-market teams” of its time, a status it maintained after moving out of Philly.

By: halladaysbiceps

halladaysbiceps — Tue, 25 Oct 2011 16:14:58 +0000

That’s very possible. I didn’t even think about the fragile aspect of the film itself. I guess there is probably a way of going frame by frame and copying the contents of the film without even putting it through a projector.

By: sdelmonte

sdelmonte — Tue, 25 Oct 2011 16:11:57 +0000

More likely, the film is possibly fragile. It might not survive more than one viewing. I would guess they are hoping to find a way to digitize the film before anything can happen to it.

By: halladaysbiceps

halladaysbiceps — Tue, 25 Oct 2011 15:55:05 +0000

I read this article this morning on Philly.com. The real treasure in this find is the film footage. Remarkably, no one has viewed it yet (I guess 16mm film projectors are hard to come by). I hope they bring in the resources of the Baseball Hall of Fame to go through this stuff properly.