Comments on: The Mulder Collective

By: blmeanie

blmeanie — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 02:59:50 +0000

I enjoyed the article. The beauty of the “Mulder collective” has to be the what-if. It obviously is not limited to pitchers as you describe. My entry into baseball worship was watching a young Fred Lynn come up in 1974, dazzle the fans in Boston for a month or so, then take the league by storm in 1975. He swung the bat unlike others, so smoothly, so effortlessly. He glided, aggressively, in the field, making highlight worthy plays long before ESPN. There was hero in him, there was “all-timer” across his uniform chest. Unfortunately this story has a big what-if, what-if Freddy didn’t get banged up as often, what-if he could play 150 games per year…he made it all the way to 1990 or 1991, I saw him play for the Padres in Atlanta, while watching batting practice before the game, I wished over an over that he coulda stayed healthier, coulda stayed a RedSox…What-if?

By: Roy Mewbourne

Roy Mewbourne — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 01:09:36 +0000

The pitcher you mentioned after Roy Oswalt, I had never heard of before and I follow baseball very closely. I was very confused…

By: Paul Catalano

Paul Catalano — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 20:50:38 +0000

Well written post. And man, you are young.

My Mulder Collective—the guys who crested at the time I started watching were Ron Guidry, J. R. Richard, Rick Sutcliffe, Goose Gossage,Scott McGregor and those guys (late 70′s early, 80s. And you’re right, it is sad, to see ballplayers come of age, then age, then move on—hell I watched Ted Lilly grow as a youngster on the Yankees, to say nothing of an aging Jeter. And at 37, I can feel time press on me as well.

I speak to an older guy in my building, and marvel as he—an addled old dude—can pull out names from the 40s as if he was remembering his old names. These people meant something to him, even if he never meant them. And to him, I guess they will always be 25.

By: Ted

Ted — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 17:27:03 +0000

“Baseball, more than any other sport, is defined by the tension between the truths we believe emotionally and the truths we understand intellectually.”

That is well said.

The Mulder Collective phenomenon isn’t limited to baseball or sports. In art and literature, it’s always a tad deflating to review a concrete list of artists that comprised an aesthetic movement. It’s usually two or three names that define a generation, rather than the hordes of aesthetic comrades that one envisions.

The collective formula reveals itself as A Few Geniuses x Hindsight = An Epic Movement.