As a child I had a love affair with baseball. Perhaps just about everyone my age loved the game as much as I did. It was our national pastime. In elementary school we always got to listen to the World Series games on the radio. The games were played during the day because most (if not all) stadiums did not have lights. Everyone had their team...mine was the LA Dodgers because my brother's Little League team was the Dodgers. My Grandfather (Papa) played some kind of baseball but I have never been sure what kind. Somewhere in the recesses of my memory it was a NY Yankee farm team in Richmond, have no idea if that is true. I do remember going to baseball games at the old Parker Field in Richmond as a small child. We played baseball, I collected baseball cards, everyone had their favorite heroes. I read a biography of Lou Gehrig in the 4th grade and loved it.
In the summer of 1959 we lived in Napa, California and the highlight of our short stay there was going in to San Francisco to watch the Giants play the Milwaukee Braves!! A real major league baseball game!! The Giants were in a race with the Dodgers to go to the World Series so it was a big game. I remember that Lew Burdette pitched for the Braves and Hank Aaron played. The Braves had won the World Series in 1957 so they were a big deal. But the stars were on the Giants... Willie Mays! Orlando Cepada! Felipe Alou! Willie McCovey! (I think it was his first year) I do not remember who won, but I was in heaven. My Mom kept asking where Casey Stengle was and we kept telling her New York. She was very disappointed.
The game was played in Seals stadium, Candlestick Park was being built and they were trying to hurry and complete it because they were sure the Giants were going to play in the World Series...didn't happen, the World Series that is. My team the Dodgers played.
We then moved on to Japan. We were really into baseball! I guess it was because we were so far away and it was like being in the States. We would have to wake up and listen to the World Series at 3 in the morning...everyone did. The Woman who worked for us, Shizeko, and her husband took us to an exhibition game in Tokyo at Korakuen Stadium. The San Francisco Giants against maybe the Tokyo Giants. During the 1960 Election/World Series it seemed that everyone was either for Kennedy and the Yankees or Nixon and the Pirates.
When I grew up and moved to Atlanta there the Braves were Hank Aaron and all. We would get the cheap seats out in center field in the old Fulton County/Atlanta Stadium to watch Hank up close. I have a card somewhere that says I was there when Hank hit his 712th home run, or some number, I need to dig that thing out.
But baseball heaven came in 1991 when the Atlanta Braves went from worst to first and went on to play in the World Series! Pat went to the stadium at some bizarre hour with cash to buy 4 tickets. I was going to go to the World Series!! Baseball was reborn in my heart, The Braves did not win, but it did not matter...Atlanta had been treated to a wild and fantastic ride. Then there was 1992! We went to the great game when Atlanta beat the Pirates to win the pennant with Sid Bream sliding into home. The place went wild and the "chant" went on forever as everyone left the stadium; it was great! The decade of the Braves was well under way. By 1995 World Series victory was at hand and the names of Tommy Glavin, Greg Maddox, Steve Avery (who lived very close to us), Fred McGriff, Chipper Jones, David Justice, John Smoltz, Javy Lopez, and others were household names and everyone suffered from sleep deprivation and elbow dislocation from doing the chop. Ted Turner and Jane Fonda were always at the games and provided something to watch when the game was boring.
I really do not know what happened to me and baseball. The ridiculous salaries, the strike, Tom Glavin becoming a butt head...I don't know. I divorced the game, it was not the game I used to be so enamored with. We are in the middle of the present World Series and I did not even know who was playing. If it had not been for Brinkley's friend Reagan putting stuff on facebook about the Rangers I would not have known they were playing in the venerable Series. I miss it, but there is college basketball and the Heels are ranked , you guessed it, number 1!
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