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 batters down. And life as he knows it will never be...
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 the game, but unfortunately, remember very little...
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 as quaint and historic a site for a museum as you...
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 sports. Our East Side neighborhood had two spacious,...
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