Something Very Rare Has Happened
In the history of professional baseball, which spans 165 years, only 19 perfect games have been recorded, with the 19th being pitched May 9, 2010, by an Oakland Athletics left-hander named Dallas Braden – an unlikely candidate to accomplish one of sports’ most difficult feats. Selected in the 1,383rd round in the baseball draft in 2004 and never considered amongst the top Major League prospects (supposedly lacking the tools to be a consistent winner in the “bigs”), Braden beat the Tampa Bay Rays 4 to 0…27 batters up, 27...
read moreAnother Boyhood Hero Has Died
The good Sisters of St. Francis were baseball fans. And every fall our classrooms at St. Mary’s were filled with the sounds of the World Series being broadcast on a radio that was strategically positioned to allow the good Sister and her classroom to catch every sound of the game that plays so well on the radio … while still attempting to teach a class. I remember the World Series of 1950 and the beating that the Philadelphia Phillies and their ace, Robin Roberts, took at the hands of the New York Yankees. I can hear the rhythm of...
read moreThings We Do For Love – And Autographs
This is the first post in the series “The Art of the Autograph” You’d think someone my age would be ashamed at some of the tactics I’ve employed to obtain autographs. There’s no shame when you’ve secured a great signature – none. I’ve crawled under bleachers, stuck my hand through a hole in an outfield fence (a groundskeeper promptly chased me out of the area – after 3 autographs), talked grandkids into helping me (players universally sign for kids and pretty girls), and walked onto a Cincinnati Red‘s team bus as they were leaving their hotel...
read moreTales of a Misspent Youth
This is the second post in the series “The Art of the Autograph.” I am a kid again when asking for an autograph from anyone wearing a Major League uniform – from the stars to the youngster just brought up from the Minors for a “cup of coffee.” For a half century I’ve been a collector. I’ve watched promising rookies develop into stars, and I’ve watched them retire – some gracefully, some not. But I have their autographs as a part of their history and mine. The collection officially started in 1962 when...
read moreSpring Training: The Best Six Weeks of the Year
Spring Training. This very special six weeks of the year has been instrumental in building my baseball collection, and has provided me so many wonderful experiences. Always a little sad to see my time at spring training come to an end – I sure do love these spring games – it serves as a harbinger to the wonderful season to come. Autographs totaled at 43, having slowed a bit the last few days, but have some very valuable ones to add to the collection. Slim crowds early in the 6-week spring training session made for great autograph...
read moreMy Ticket to Cooperstown
Last August, my son Bob Jr., two grandsons, granddaughter and I flew to Cooperstown to tour the Baseball Hall of Fame, then to New York to see the Yankees play the Boston Red Sox. We stayed in Cooperstown at the beautiful 150-year old Otesaga Resort Hotel that sits on the shores of Lake Otsego – referred to as “Glimmerglass” in James Fenimore Cooper‘s book of our childhood: “The Last of the Mohicans.” The village of Cooperstown, population 3,000, tucked away in upstate New York, was named after Mr. Cooper and is...
read moreA Lifelong Love Affair With Baseball
I’ve loved the game of baseball since I was a kid – it’s in my blood – a summertime game that has chronicled my youth and become a passion as I’ve grown older. I’ve played the game, and I’ve studied the game from almost every angle – It’s stars, stats and scandals, and in spite of the many attempts by the “gods of the game” to kill their creation, I’ve never lost the love. So what was the spark that ignited this love affair? I suspect it was the time I grew up – an era when Baseball ruled American...
read moreHellman Field – An Opportunity to Build Our Ballpark
It’s summertime in the late 1940s – a time when Baseball rules American sports and our “Fields of Dreams” on the East Side of Waterloo are sandbur-laden vacant lots. The real baseball fields are a bike’s-ride away across the river that divides the city of Waterloo, on the West Side. But that doesn’t deter you from playing the game you love. Nor do you consider the divide that separates this industrial city … it’s summertime … it’s baseball. Sixty years later things have changed, and there are now lush green diamonds on the East Side – the...
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