Today, driving home from a morning "mission" my mind got to wandering. I was listening to the radio of course, and of a sudden, I remembered a time in my life when automobiles didn't have standard equipment radios. The buyer of the vehicle had to buy the radio. They were not inexpensive. A new car was maybe an $800.00 dollar purchase and the radio at the time was around $75.00. A real luxury.
Along with that, I moved on to one of the great experiences of my childhood life. I was coming home from a fishing expedition with my three uncles, brothers to my father. We had been fishing in the morning and now were heading back home toward the end of the afternoon. On the way the radio was playing so that we could hear the play-by-play description of the seventh game of the World Series. It was a very special series that year because the Boston Red Sox were engaged in the World Series. We lived in the western part of Massachusetts. My uncles were all Red Sox fans. My father and I were Braves fans.
As I was basking in the memory of the game, I enjoyed remembering that in those days there were 16 major league teams. I enjoyed remembering the distribution of their locations.
Boston - 2; New York - 3; Philadelphia - 2; Chicago - 2; St. Louis - 2; Washington, DC, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Pittsburgh and Detroit, one each.
Anyway, the score is now tied at 3 apiece. Second half of the 8th and St. Louis gets a man on first. His name is engraved on the brains of every baseball fan in the state of Massachusetts, one, Enos Slaughter. It all happened so quickly. Slaughter breaks for second and the hitter swings and drills one into left center field. The regular centerfielder, Dom DiMaggio had to be replaced by Leon Culberson because of a pulled hamstring. Now Slaughter is already around second and steaming ahead at break-neck speed with absolutely no intention of stopping at third. Culberson gets lackadaisical and sloppy while Slaughter has pulled out all the stops. The throw from the substitute centerfielder is late and short and Slaughter scores from first, spit, sweat and a cloud of dust at home plate. My uncles are stunned, shouting semi-swears (I'm only 9 years old) and stating that what happened to Dom was the curse that made this happen. Well, as everyone in the galaxy knows, the Red Sox did not recover and that is why the picture at the top of this article is of the Cardinals.
Surely there is someone in the audience who has a memory of this event. It should also be mentioned that back then each team played 154 games and the Word Series were finished by the third or fourth week of September.
As for me, I have come a long way since then. Now I don't even know who the participants in the World Series are from year to year. The Braves are no longer in Boston and Bickford, Spahn and Sain are gone. So has my interest. But the memories are great.
No, I did not have to check this out at Wikipedia.
Why do I think about these things? I have altogether toooo much time on my hands.
Before I get philosophical, I will see how many kinds of balls I can name in three minutes. Oh, by the way, this is limited to round balls.
Baseball
basketball
golf ball
meat ball
polo ball
canon ball
soccer ball
foam rubber ball
handball
racquet ball
bowling ball
Christmas tree ball
billiard ball
ping pong ball
tennis ball
sesame ball
matzo ball
volley ball
bearing ball
coming out ball [No square dancing]:-)
I'm sure that I missed some. I really did not go for broke in this exercise because I wasn't totally in it. Besides what made me think of this today was the fact that the sports news these days has a lot of basketball in it. I hate basketball. To me it is the most stupid of all games. I don't usually admit this, but both Basketball and Volley ball were invented in the same area where I was created. I am usually a nut about games with balls. I suppose that I have to admit that I am a negative nut when it comes to those two red colored names in the column.
My two favorite ball games are spearing meat balls with a well directed stroke of a sharp fork. The better to slip them into my salivating face. The other one is popping sesame seed balls. Now those two games make sense.
Try them sometime.
Seriously, now, it is observably true that the ball, as a reality is the most popular toy in the world. We have it in our lives from birth until the grave. It is an object that most people can afford. It is also, I suppose, an object that most people cannot afford to be without.
All together now, click and join in..."Take Me out to the Ballgame..."
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| comedy from the start |
this is a fitting day for the professional baseball season to open. april fools day is the greatest descriptive for the baseball team that carries the name of this city. there was a time when i was thrilled to be living in a city where there was a professional baseball team. i was glad that it is a national league team since i prefer the style of play of the national league to the american. on top of all, it didn't take long for me to go to the ball park to root for the Braves or the Cardinals or even the cubs for goodness sake. believe me, it didn't take long for me to realize that there was no way i could ever take a liking to these palookas. there was the left fielder who could not judge a fly ball; the right fielder had a tendency, or maybe total ignorance, of throwing to the wrong base. the first baseman couldn't turn a 3 - 6 - 3 double play and the best pitcher on the team had an 80 mile-per-hour "fastball." let me tell you, that was the team that was. now that the city has allowed them to swindle some $250 million for a new ball park, it is clear that nothing has changed. "same old, same old."
one thing has changed. i have. after the first strike of the ball players, i was one of those who stopped supporting the sport. i am an equal opportunity activist. i blame the players and i blame the owners and i blame the country's tax system which is slanted more in favor of the owners than of the players. along with many others, call-ins to talk shows; comments in the newspapers and magazines, i vowed to stop going to baseball games. i did too. it's getting worse as the years go by. i never thought, never, that i would cut off my relationship with baseball. well, it's almost cleanly severed now. i did not watch a single half inning of the world series in 2010. i don't remember who played and of course, i don't know who won. plus, i don't care.
two things did it: the union and the internal politics of the organization. even if today is april fools day, and it's traditionally too early for baseball, when i heard the season was on, i had a twinge in my heart. then i remembered that i am in san diego. there are but two things that are reviling about san diego -- the padres and the chargers. i'm still wondering two things about the situation -- how can 70 people be so bad at what they do and still make truckloads of money and how can i go from acrimony to ROFLMAO humor about it?
