New York Yankees Joe DiMaggio Baseball Player Art

About Joe DiMaggio

 I image almost every baseball fan is familiar with the name Joe DiMaggio.  He is considered one of the greatest baseball players of all time playing for at the time one of the greatest baseball teams, the New York Yankees.  There is nothing much I can add to all of his stats.  I have also painted DiMaggio a number of times but thought it would be fun to try and do a simple, small drawing of him.  This ink drawing of Joe DiMaggio by sports artist John Robertson  is 11 inches by 14 inches on

watercolor paper.  Actually the paper is a little bit bigger by one in high to 15 inches.  The watercolor paper I drew Joe on is in a spiral watercolor paper binder so when it is torn out it can be trimmed down to the standard frame size of a 11” x 14” size.

 Interesting Info about Joe DiMaggio

 It seems the only way one generation (who have not followed baseball) of people know Joe DiMaggio is that he was a spokesman for the brand Mr. Coffee.  The older baseball crowd knows him by his nickname “Joltin’ Joe” or “The Yankee Clipper.” He was called by his many fans “Joltin’ Joe“because he was such a strong, hard hitter.  And others called him “The Yankee Clipper” because he sailed so gracefully through the outfield when making a catch in the wide center field of Yankee stadium.   And one of the big reasons people knew him was that he was one time married to Marilyn Monroe.  He was immortalized in the Paul Simon song, ‘Mrs. Robinson” with the line, “Where have you gone, Joe DiMaggio /  Our nation turns its lonely eyes to you” -  meaning where has our heroes gone, where has the innocence of our youth gone and where are the days of the past as times have changes dramatically (this song was written in the sixties) and they are not coming back.  That’s a bit sobering.

Joe DiMaggio retired from baseball just as I was getting interested in the game.  1951.  I was young and listened to the Yankees games on the radio – the LA Dodgers were still in Brooklyn and did not come to L A for another six years.  So I was a Yankees fan and saw DiMaggio as a hero.  Heroes diminish and I lost some of my interest in baseball until the Dodgers showed up in LA. 

 Final Thoughts about Joe DiMaggio

 He was always being quoted and there are plenty around to draw from but I think the most interesting one must have been from when DiMaggio spoke about his days of his own innocence when he first started playing baseball.  He said, "I can remember a reporter asking me for a quote, and I didn't know what a quote was. I thought it was some kind of soft drink."

LA Dodgers Baseball Image Sports art Andre Ethier right fielder

Baseball Art LA Dodgers  

The baseball painting - LA Dodgers art of Andre Ethier playing right field is by sports artist John Robertson.  It is painted on a 30” by 40” gallery wrapped canvas with maps of Los Angeles applied to the surface.  The image is created with ink and acrylic paint.

 Andre Ethier Right Fielder

 As of this writing Andre Ethier of the Los Angeles Dodgers is hanging out at the Rancho Cucamonga location and hoping to start up from his disabled and is also expected to be in the Quakes lineup for what will be his first rehab game. He is not expected to be activated from the 60-day DL until Friday, Sept. 1. In the last couple of seasons Ethier has been out because of an injury suffered in Spring Training.  He has had a lot of problems from a herniated disk, with pain and discomfort in his lower back. 

After Ethier had a leg injury in 2016, and sitting out almost all of the season with the LA Dodgerds he started off the 2017 season with this back problem.  What is interesting to know about his playing time with the Dodgers is that he has only been in sixteen games since 2015. Who knows how much work he will get once he is hopefully back after the beginning of September.  

Baseball Catch Down Third Base Line

"Baseball Catch Down Third Base Line"

 Sports paintings by artist John Robertson

48" x 84" (4 feet by 7 1/2 feet) acrylic on unstretched canvas

Catching a throw-out from a fielder is easy – but a baseball catch on a line drive down the third base line is hard. But it looks easy from the stands - and artistic with the baseball player’s body laid nearly parallel with the ground and across the infield. Most batters think that when they hit a line drive it is good for a base and sometimes two.  But a good third baseman will break the batter’s heart with a great catch.

A couple of interesting baseball rules about catching a ball.

Here is an interesting rule in baseball which has to do with catching a baseball.  Players can only catch the ball with their hand, or their mitt. You can’t use your hat or your shirt or anything that’s not your bare hand or the mitt. If the ball is caught, or even touched intentionally, by a player with anything other than their bare hand or glove, on their hand, all runners, including the batter, get to advance a base.   Now I did see once a play where the infielder was catching a high fly ball behind a base but in play.  The ball his glove and bounced out but he caught it between his forearm and bicep.  It was ruled a hit and the batter took first base.

Tied into the above rule is one of my favorites, An infield fly is when a ball stays in the infield that isn't a bunt or line drive.  When there are runners on first and second or first, second, and third and less than two outs the umpire can make the judgment that an infielder, catcher, or pitcher could catch it with ordinary effort (whatever that means) the batter is out, even if no one caught it, even if they did catch it and then dropped it. The ball is still in play so any base runners who began to advance can still continue and the normal rules apply to them.  Confusing but fair because if they let it drop there is a good possibility for a double play on the players who hold their base with anticipation of the ball being caught.  If it is dropped then they are stuck on the base and when advancing can be easily thrown out.   This is where the expression “Hung out to dry” is sometimes used when the player is hung out on the base line waiting for the bsll to be either csught or dropped.  As an aside the expression comes is  based on the practice of hanging an animal that has been killed in a tree so its meat can dry.  Nice metaphor for a base runner. 

Baseball slide rule change image

New Baseball Slide Rule

 Under the new baseball slide rule into second, "both baseball players have to wear a dress."  At least, that is what one of the Major League baseball managers was quoted as saying.  His point being that the MLB was taking all of the "sport" out baseball.   If the baseball player can't go into second base

with "spikes up and wide" in an attempt to break up the double play, then where is the excitement and risk of the game?  One of the new rules state: "A runner sliding into second has to make "a bona fide attempt" not just to slide into the base, but also to "remain on the base."   In other words,  "no interference".  In the case of this baseball painting the base runner is trying to interfere with the shortstop.

 Keep Baseball Entertaining

 It seems to me, part of the reason to slide into second base, during the possibility of a double play, is to interfere with the play.   Another way to break up the double play is to run the base path so the baseman can't throw straight to first base.  So, instead of taking the danger of the play out with the baseball slide rule they should put a rule in to make it a greater risk for the base runner to run the bases.  And that would be that the base runner has to run the bases in a straight line between the bases.  But, with the new rule, the  baseman may throw the ball at the base runner, but the base runner is not allowed to duck.  That kind of evens out the whole "fairness" of a need for a slide rule.  Let's make sure both basemen and base runners are, "at risk"  and keep the game as entertaining as ever.  Maybe, even more entertaining.

If the League thinks it is protecting baseball players, it is eliminating not the most dangerous aspects of the game.  The most dangerous?  - getting hit by a pitch.  The next change is coming:  protect the batter by putting him into a batting cage. 

Sports Art Baseball Painting by artist John Robertson is 11" x 14", ink and acrylic on drafting film. Available.  

Football paintings Jim Thorpe Football Baseball and Olympic athlete art

I have no idea when Jim Thorpe showed up in my conscientiousness.  But he seemed to always be there.  I am sure it had to do with my step-father who loved football. In my youth we used to go to the old LA Rams games at the LA Coliseum in 1952 -53 to see quarterback Bob Waterfield, and Elroy “Crazy Legs” Hirsh, and my favorite of all nicknames for a football player, Dick “Night Train” Lane.  

 I am sure my step-dad told me the stories that most people heard about Jim Thorpe  - winning the gold medal in the pentathlon in 1912 Olympics, crowned by the King of Sweden as “the greatest athlete in the world.  In which Thorpe said, “thanks King.”   This is what Thorpe said about track and field;   "...Track and field, because it was something I could do by myself, one-on-one, me against everybody else." And then my step-dad would go one about Thorpe’s college football career at Carlisle and becoming an All American in 1912 and 1913.  He played professional football for seven different teams and signed with the New York Giants baseball team in 1913.  He had different feelings about playing college football and professional football.   Thorpe said, "[T]he college game...brings out that something which is lacking in the pro game--I guess you could call it spirit. The college player...will willingly sacrifice his leg to gain the necessary yards that spell victory for his team. That's spirit. The professional gridder will play it safe, because he wants to be in condition to earn more money in his next game. That's business."  There were years he played in both pro sports of football and baseball at the same time.  And then the bad news came that he had played sports for money during the Olympic years and was stripped of his medals.  As Thorpe said about it, " "I went to play baseball in North Carolina for a couple of summers and paid for it the rest of my life."

As I loved to play sports, particularity football I knew his story well. We always thought of Jim Thorpe as the great football player from his success at Carlisle Indian Industrial School.  (as an aside:  The link is to the Wikipedia information about Carlisle and very interesting - about early turn-of-the-century college football and Indian affairs)   I, like a lot of boys wanted to be a football player.  This was long before there was any real organized football for children.  (We were called children then, not youth.)  So we got shoulder pads and helmets with Ram colors and insignia and banged into each other on the grass and sidewalks in front of our houses.  In those days the helmets had one single bar in front of the face so it was easy to catch an elbow or knee into the face.  Sixty years have not erased some of the scars. 

Jim Thorpe was eventually inducted into the Professional Football Hall of Fame in 1963 in the inaugural class of 17 athletes.  Grantland Rice, a legendary sportswriter said that Thorpe was the greatest football player ever.  It wasn’t because he was the best at any particular aspect of the game, passing, running, tackling but that he was really good in all of them making for a great, all around football player.

  Here is a good place for a lot more information about Jim Thorpe "The World's Greatest Athlete"

Old New York Giants baseball player Frank Frisch

Old vintage baseball image painted by sports artist John Robertson.  The picture is of Frank Frisch, second baseman for the old New York Giants.  He played during the thirties  In his days he was considered the best second baseman.  I saw an old photograph of Frisch in a baseball book and thought it might be interesting to paint.  The painting is 24” x 36”  oil on stretched canvas.  The photograph does not show the amount of blue that is in the painting.