So today was the last day of the regular baseball season and now it’s time for the “Boys of Summer” to become the boys of October and cap off the season with the playoffs and ultimately the World Series. Baseball is the only sport, were the winners are called the ‘World Champions.’ Although baseball is played in many countries, nothing compares to the level of the play, in the major leagues in the states. Players in every country of the world have as their ultimate goal, the chance to play in the big leagues in the United States.
Baseball has been such a big part of my life even though I never played at any high level in the game. I did coach for many years and it was so heart whelming for me to be able teach what I knew about baseball, to hundreds of young boys and girls that I coached. Baseball was to me the ultimate sport because it was a game for everyone. You didn’t have to be big or tall, overly fast or extra strong. You just had to have a love for the game and the desire to use what talents you had to your advantage and oh yes that fire in the gut, to play your best. As a kid my glove was always there strung through the handlebars of my bicycle, my taped up busted bat tied to the bars. In the summer there was always a “pick me up” game somewhere in town and we would play until dark. We were too busy playing ball to get into trouble, so my parents never worried about where I was but I missed a few suppers.
When I was about ten or twelve my kid brother and I slept upstairs in an attic bedroom. It had one light and that was a bulb that hung from the ceiling. You turned it on and off by pulling the chain on the socket, which I tied a string to, that then ran to the head of the bed. It’s about then that I acquired a small black electric radio. There was no outlet in the room so I found an adapter and plugged my radio into that light. At night I would lie in bed and listen to the voice of the St Louis Cardinals, which had a signal strong enough to hear up there in my attic hideaway. I listened to the great Jack Buck, Harry Carey and Joe Garagiola as they extolled the play of men like Stan “The man Musial”, Red Schuendienst, Bob Gibson and Enos “Country” Slaughter. I could only dream what it was like to go and sit in that stadium and watch those greats. A few years ago in St Louis, Pats brother–in Ted–law took us to see the Cards and that night I crossed one more thing off my bucket list.
When I graduated from high school I moved to the Minneapolis and a few years later the Twins came to town and my allegiances switched to the hometown team and they have been there ever since. I wanted to get to the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown this year but it fell through the cracks. I need to do it soon before its too late. I want to wander the halls by myself because I am sure my emotions are going to run unchecked when I touch Harmon’s Plaque and pause for a selfy with Kirby’s. So many names, so many memories that they scarce all fit in my ageing mind. The great sports writer Grantland Rice wrote something about baseball that sums it all up for me and I quote. “For when the great scorer comes to call against your name. He marks- not if you won or lost- but how you played the game.”
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