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| Mickey Lolich: not "fat" at all |
The memories float back as one listens to the "No Filter Sports" podcast out of Michigan. The hosts include Denny McLain who was the No. 1 pitcher in the season as he won 31 games. McLain pitched right-handed while Lolich was the masterful lefty. I doubt that anyone would even comment on Lolich being "fat" today.
Today we only pay attention to someone being overweight if that situation impedes a normal quality of life. If it does, the person might need some special accommodation. But as a purely aesthetic matter, it seems to have almost disappeared.
You might say that fat-shaming amounts to "objectifying" people. We hear much about the inappropriate objectification of women. Such a welcome re-do in our thinking. One wonders how our previous standards got created. Some of my friends wonder why I even ask questions like this. They'd say all that matters is how we behave and think today. If we are in a better place today, let's just feel good about it. Who cares how things "used to be?"
Maybe I feel it's important to remember past traits in order to establish perspective, maybe to better understand the human condition.
Our Morris Area High School discontinued cheerleaders long ago. I have written about how girls were objectified when it came to this. It was unspoken, of course. We all just knew that girls who had a certain "cute" look would be cheerleaders. Girls not in that category "need not apply."
The basketball cheerleaders seemed like the "first string" and they met the criteria most sharply.
What were the criteria? I suppose I should define the terms of what I'm talking about. This would be rather unpleasant. It would make me seem sexist myself, even though I'm just trying to explain societal norms of a previous time. Maybe I can do this in a backhand way by just referring to the famous "rat pack" that included Dean Martin and Frank Sinatra.
The rat pack reflected a lot about our culture at the time. If you remember how they objectified women, how they determined what women to salivate over as it were, then I need not explain any more.
At the very serious risk of offending some people, I'll suggest that the easy availability of porn in the Internet age has served to de-sensitize men to a large degree. I will suggest this is a huge blessing. Several years ago on the "Morning Joe" program, MSNBC, Joe and a panelist remembered their adolescence and how they might not see an image of the naked female body until they were maybe 15. The idea of getting sexually aroused at all was taboo. The taboo was enforced by our elders who I'm sure had ways, legitimate or not, of dealing with their own sexual impulses.
Adolescent boys would go to Annette Funicello beach movies and wonder why their body would react in a certain way. It could be troubling. Porn today can feed young males' curiosity about such things, to the point where we see de-sensitization and an actual diminishing of interest.
So, to the extent sex can be a prodding distraction, it can thus dissipate, allowing more constructive thoughts to enter one's head. Boys were once taught nothing about such things. How were we supposed to react when watching TV shows where a host like Dean Martin spelled out very clear standards for identifying "attractive" women. The hosts made insinuations about such things. They promoted a set of norms. Women had to have "good measurements." Us boys learned to joke about "36-24-36."
How unconscionable that we learned to make judgments like this. Yes, we "learned."
Here's one more very blunt assertion, and I'll suggest you turn away if you suspect being affronted: In our contemporary age where it's so easy finding naked bodies to look at, I don't think female breast size means a damn anymore. Why did it ever mean anything? Well here's a theory: In the age where boys got scarcely a look at naked female bodies, it took large breasts for feminine traits to really stand out. Today one can be "satisfied" to see the whole body, no mystery and no prodding of the imagination.
Remember the Tom Cruise character in "Born on the Fourth of July?" There was a classic scene where his mom discovers a hidden Playboy magazine. Is there any more horrifying memory that a man my age can have? And why? Isn't such shame stultifying? My generation probably reached puberty earlier than our predecessors. Perhaps our parents didn't understand certain things about us.
Instead of inducing boys to develop a "complex" about such things, we should in effect shrug and let boys see images in an uninhibited way. I strongly suspect our parents had the x-rated thoughts themselves. How did we all get born?
I don't wish to conclude this post with sex so I'll get back to pitcher Mickey Lolich of the Detroit Tigers. "Fat." Or, so was the CW (conventional wisdom). Jim Bouton wrote about how our Minnesota hero Harmon Killebrew was called "the Fat Kid" around the league. Killebrew wasn't really fat at all. He just had a full physique.
Lolich's manager Mayo Smith described the premier hurler as "my sway-backed left-hander." Lolich himself said of his ample belly that it was "all muscle." Today he wouldn't be forced into any defensiveness.
McLain lost game 1 of the 1968 Series. Lolich came on to win the second game vs. the vaunted St. Louis Cardinals, 8-1 with a six-hitter. He even hit a home run in that game, surprising given his reputation as bad-hitting even for a pitcher. Then in game 5, with the Tigers having their backs to the wall down 3-1 in games, Lolich again out-dueled Nelson Briles. Detroit and Lolich won 5-3.
Detroit won game 6 in a romp, then we got the deciding game 7 where the rotund Lolich strode out to the mound as starter. Detroit rallied for three runs in the seventh to win 4-1 over the Cardinals and Bob Gibson. Lolich picked off two runners in the bottom of the sixth. Lolich was named MVP of the Series.
Why would anyone care how he tipped the scale?
- Brian Williams - morris mn minnesota - bwilly73@yahoo.com
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