Welcome! I hope I bring a spot of calm and happiness into these uncertain times. I blog about my photography adventures, flowers, gardening, the importance of chocolate in a well lived life, or anything else on my mind.
The past and present exist side by side on this site.
I took a picture of this historical marker in 2023, shortly after it was erected. For many years a minor league baseball team (mainly affiliated with the New York Yankees) played here. The stadium was demolished in 1968 and a senior center (sign on the right of the marker) was built on the site.
If any of my readers are interested in baseball history,here is a list of players who later made it big in the major leagues or in broadcasting, including Whitey Ford and Ken Harrelson.
Earlier, I introduced my Wordless Wednesday readers to the historic Harris Diner in Owego, New York , where my guest photographer and I had lunch earlier in January.
This diner recently celebrated its 100th birthday.
Here are several photos she took. The diner was darkish and if she had used flash, there would have been glare off the glass and stools. But I think she still did a good job.
I love the stools (memories of childhood) and glass. Also, we both enjoyed the baseball memorabilia, especially of the New York Yankees.
James Earl Jones, the voice of Darth Vader, Mufasa in the Lion King, and"This is CNN" passed away yesterday at the age of 93.
Here, a short tribute. I chose videos because....that voice. But were you aware that Jones was a stutterer? Or that he won three Tony' awards, an Emmy, a Grammy, and a Golden Globe, plus an honorary Academy Award (Oscar) making him an "EGOT".
Mufasa in The Lion King. He was the only cast member to appear (so to speak) in both the original movie and the 2019 remake.
Jones voicing Darth Vader in various Star Wars movies.
As you grow older the parents, relatives, other adults, childhood heroes, favorite musicians, childhood sports favorites, and others, grow older along with you.
Eventually, they all pass on, as you know (intellectually) you will also, one day.
This is life, and we must accept it.
Tuesday, another sports figure of my youth passed away. Willie Mays, the Say Hey Kid [so named because it was how he greeted people in his youth], was 93.
True, Willie Mays was one of the greats of the sports of baseball. Many consider him the greatest all around baseball player of all time. What statistics he compiled in his career in all categories of baseball play. He entertained with his smile and showmanship.
Mays eventually won the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian honor in the United States.
Also, consider this: Mays grew up in Alabama, in the segregated South. He started his career in the Negro League, which existed because Major League baseball did not admit black ballplayers at the time. Mays may have ended up having a spectacular career without much of our population ever knowing, or perhaps caring, if history didn't provide otherwise.
Ironically, Major League Baseball held a major league game yesterday in the same park as Willie's Negro League team, the Birmingham Black Barons, once played. Willie had already announced he would not be able to make that ballgame.
It was only earlier this month that Major League baseball included statistics from the Negro League in the stats of former Negro League players who had entered the major leagues after integration.
Ironically, perhaps, I learned of May's death Tuesday evening while watching a New York Mets game with my spouse.
So,where do I fit into this?
Neither of my parents followed baseball, but I somehow found (and loved) watching games, starting around age eight. In high school and college, I went to a handful of games with friends. Also, I met another New York Mets fan (the spouse mentioned above) in college. By the fall of 1972, we were engaged.
In May of 1972, Willie Mays, at the tail end of his career, was traded to the New York Mets. We in New York loved Willie Mays. He had started his major league career (once he could play in it) with the New York Giants. It was a homecoming.
In 1973, the Mets didn't play well for most of the year,and by the end of August they were in last place. But then, they started a winning streak. By September 21 they were in first place. It was such an exciting time. We went to some games. By then, Willie Mays wasn't playing every day (he only played in 66 games total). For me, it was enough to be in the same park as him.
On September 20, Mays announced he was going to retire after the season ended.
On September 25 the Mets held a Willie Mays celebration at Shea Stadium. Some 53,000 fans showed up. My future spouse and I were two of them, and we, his fans, gave him a six minute standing ovation.
Mays never played in the regular season again, but he played in several postseason games. We went to at least one of those, game five of the playoff vs. the Cincinnati Reds, where the Mets won the National League pennant. We were also at game three, where Mays went out with several other Mets players to calm fans successfully, and prevent the Mets from forfeiting the game, after a brawl.
Mays' last base hit was in game two of the 1973 World Series, held in Oakland, California.
We went to World Series game three, in New York, and that was my last major league game ever. I don't know if I will ever go to another one. Such again is life.
I haven't been a baseball fan for many years, but I still admire the players from my era and before. For example, seeing Bob Feller play the year before he passed away was a highlight of my life.
What a thrill to have been able to be present at a couple of historic points of baseball history.
Yesterday, there was a moment of silence before all major league games.
Willie Mays is gone, as we all will be one day. Life will go on, but many will miss him. I am one of them.
Today, we return to Greenville, South Carolina to investigate swamp rabbits and Shoeless Joe Jackson.
No, I don't have any pictures of real swamp rabbits. Just a statue of a rabbit I found in Greenville, South Carolina.
This will have to do, which brings up the question "why would Greenville, South Carolina have a statue of a rabbit? And what does that have to do with Shoeless Joe Jackson?
Bear (no pun intended) with me.....
A swamp rabbit is a large cottontail rabbit (the largest cottontail, actually) and is found in the Southeast United States and Gulf Coast regions. They are good swimmers, too.
One had a famous encounter with President Jimmy Carter in 1979 while he was fishing near Plains, Georgia. The hissing rabbit apparently tried to climb into Carter's boat. It may have been trying to escape some dogs. The rabbit was dubbed a "killer rabbit".
I don't know exactly why swamp rabbits are popular in Greenville, but it could have originated as Sa local name of the Greenville and Northern Railway that began operating in 1920. After the railroad ceased operations part of it eventually became part of a 22 mile walking/multi use trail that runs from Travelers Rest, South Carolina through Greenville. The name of the trail? Well, of course, the Swamp Rabbit Trail.
As for Shoeless Joe Jackson, he was a baseball player that you may recall from the hit movie "Field of Dreams". "If you build it, they will come" and the ghost of Shoeless Joe was one of them that came. But let's start at the beginning.
In 1919, eight members of the Chicago White Sox were accused of trying to throw the 1919 World Series to the opposing team, the Cincinnati Reds, for a payment of $5,000. One of them was South Carolina's "Shoeless Joe" Jackson. They were acquitted in a trial, but the baseball commissioner banned the eight players for life.
After the scandal, Jackson returned to Greenville and ran a dry cleaners and a liquor store. Shoeless Joe Jackson died in Greenville, South Carolina in 1951, at the age of 64, and is buried there.
Enter two somewhat lost tourists....
When we were driving around trying to find a Swamp Rabbit trail head (parking can be difficult), we passed Woodlawn Cemetery. Something rang a bell - "quick, drive into that cemetery!" I asked my spouse. "I think this is where Shoeless Joe is buried."
After a little searching, we found it.
There is also a museum devoted to Shoeless Joe in Greenville, but we were not in town the one day of the week it is open.
"S" Day in the Blogging from A to Z Challenge. My theme: Exploring South Carolina and the Eastern United States.
When I saw this lying on the grass in our local park, I thought it was a strange kind of sandal.
But my spouse knew exactly what it was. It's part of the inside of a baseball. The stitching should have given it away. My spouse called it a "deconstructed baseball".
And I found how a baseball is made is pretty fascinating. You may, too.
We humans are creatures of music, and creatures of storytelling. Our relationships to people, to places, to our world, to our fellow humans, can be marvelous, hurtful, or both at the same time.
This is a story about relationships.
In May of 1995, my spouse, my then young son and I flew to Iowa from our upstate New York home to attend the wedding of a cousin. The lilacs were in bloom and it was a beautiful spring.
Iowa and I have a complex relationship, but that's a story for another day. Returning to today's story...
During the visit, another cousin (the bride's younger brother) offered to take us to the Field of Dreams move site in Dyersville, Iowa.
Back in 1995, Field of Dreams wasn't quite the same as it is now. But how did it come into existence?
In 1989, a movie set was built on parts of two farms a few miles outside Dyersville, a small city (population then around 4,000) in eastern Iowa for a movie called Field of Dreams. My son wasn't that interested in baseball but I wanted, very much, to see the Field of Dreams.
After all, dreams (or visions) can come true. The plot of the movie is simple, in a way. A farmer hears a voice coming out of his cornfield whispering "if you build it, he will come" and has a vision. The rest of the movie basically has to do with the vision, the farmer's complex relationship with his father, and finally, what happens when the protagonist builds the field. I plan to see the movie again in the near future.
One of the two farm families, the Lansings, decided not to plow the set over after the movie was filmed. The other farm family did plow their land over. The Lansings made a good decision. By 1995, the field was a tourist attraction.
On that day in May, we took a two lane road (what some call "blue highways") from where the bride lived, to Dyersville.
We walked the grounds. We could have played catch on the field, and maybe this would have been a better story if we had. But that wasn't my son's thing. We didn't play catch, but we soaked in that special plot of land. Neither I or my spouse remember going into the house. Did I take pictures? Maybe. I don't have them available to me -they would have been film, and I didn't own a computer at the time.
But I do have this. I bought this t-shirt. I still have it.
Afterwards, we visited the Ertl toy factory located in town, enjoyed
seeing all the toys (many of them based on farm equipment, and bought my
son a Thomas the Tank Engine toy.Earlier Ertl toys can be collectable but I don't believe any of them are made in the U.S. any more. I hope I'm wrong.
Ertl collection, Tioga County Museum, Owego, New York (taken by AM)
Over the years, many made that pilgrimage to eastern Iowa. Eventually, a decision was made to build another ball field, this one a genuine major league dimensioned field, and play a major league game there. It was supposed to be played in 2020, but the pandemic moved it to this year. I had wanted to try to go to the 2020 game and lost track of it. I wasn't there for the game on Thursday physically, but I was, in spirit.
On August 12, the Chicago White Sox played the New York Yankees at that adjacent field built in late 2019, based in part on the old Comiskey Park in Chicago where the White Sox played for many years. This time it was a real life 'if they built it' that never would have been possible without the original story and movie.
A couple of times while I was going to college, I went on camping trips, where my spouse and I tent camped - once with friends and once on our own. On the second trip, which occurred during spring break in 1974, we found ourselves in a beautiful state park in Pennsylvania - right after a snowstorm.
That's what youth is all about, after all - making mistakes.
But we also knew that Hank Aaron was playing that night, and was due to hit a record breaking home run. So we brought our radio into the tent.
Why should anyone care about Aaron breaking a home run record? The answer is simple and interwoven with the United States and the history of race relations.
Simply put, the home run record had stood for years, and was then owned by one of the greatest baseball players of all time, Babe Ruth. At the time Ruth played, however, people of color were not allowed to compete in the major leagues. So, we will never know how Ruth would have played if he had to face great African American players during his dual careers as a pitcher and an outfielder. That discussion is outside the scope of this blog post, but it was enough to say that Ruth was white.
"Major League" (i.e., white) baseball was integrated between 1947 and 1959. Prior to 1947, and even for a while after, talented baseball players of color were forced to compete in their own professional league, the Negro Leagues.
In fact, Hank Aaron played briefly for the Indianapolis Clowns of the Negro League before he was acquired by the Major Leagues Milwaukee Braves. Aaron, at the time of his baseball retirement, was the last active Negro League player.
But Aaron break Ruth's home run record? That didn't sit well with all baseball fans. Aaron received hate mail and death threats and, in fact, had a bodyguard in the stands the beginning of the 1974 season, "just in case". I've seen one of these letters, posted on Twitter, complete with a childlike diagram of how the letter writer planned to shoot Aaron.
But here I was with my spouse, shivering in an ice cold tent in Pennsylvania. And my question is:
That night, the Braves were playing at home against the Los Angeles Dodgers. How could I be listening to the game happening hundreds of miles away?
Maybe it was a rebroadcast, but both my spouse and I remember hearing the play by play as Aaron hit the record breaking 715th home run against former Yankee pitcher (the same team Ruth was playing for when he set the home run record) Al Downing. Downing, in turn, was the first African-American starting pitcher for the Yankees. In 1961.
So, returning to Aaron, is this a hallucination or did spouse and I really hear it that night? Maybe we can never be sure.
Today, people of all races mourn Aaron's death yesterday at the age of 86. He was a legend. It appears 2021 will be just as unkind to the great players of baseball as 2020 was.
One last thing. Do you know what I also remember about April of 1974 and that camping trip?
The beauty of that park. We were there all by ourselves. I even have pictures of the park I took somewhere in the house.
I'm only in my mid to late 60's but I find myself wandering the aisles of my memory, pulling open filing drawers, taking out folders with memories. Memories of what I did, where I went, where I lived. Lingering through the folders, Regretfully, putting them back in the drawer.
Today, it's baseball.
I remember some of the players of my youth and teenaged years.
And I think of my two lifetime trips to the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York (pictured above in 2014).
Then, reality intrudes. So many former major league ball players died this year (including all of them named above). Five Hall of Fame players passed away in the last six weeks. The latest one was Joe Morgan, possibly one of the greatest second basemen of all time, dead at the age of 77.
The old timers are vanishing before our eyes, we middle aged (and older) current or former baseball fans.
When will this year end?
It made me remember the one game, not quite an old timers game, I went to at Doubleday Field in Cooperstown, New York, where I got to see Bob Feller pitch at age 90. Then, he died a bit over a year later. In rereading this post, I realized that I had actually seen Whitey Ford at a minor league game in Binghamton, New York back around 2008. Ah, memories....
The following is taken from that 2009 post. I hope this is the last time I blog about baseball for a while.
It's funny....I go to a Fathers Day game for Fathers Day and....neither
of my parents were baseball fans. As a result, I grew up in the Bronx,
and never once visited Yankee Stadium. I don't know exactly how I
became interested in baseball, but (this was before it was OK for girls
to enjoy spectator sports) I used to get a lot of "you sure know a lot
about baseball for a girl" comments.
Actually my technical
knowledge wasn't and still isn't all that good. I can't tell you, given
a certain scenario, if the batter should bunt, try for the sacrifice
fly, if the man on first should try to steal, or what. I just always
loved to watch good baseball. I was always the last one picked for
softball, so I never even dreamed about playing, back in those pre-Title
IX days.
But...my Dad used to take me on Sunday afternoon walks
during the summer. It got both of us out of our hot apartment, as we
walked and walked. He used to love to go to houses under construction
to watch them go up. It fascinated him. I would tag along, with my
transistor radio, and listen to the Yankees ballgame. These walks are a
very fond memory for me.
That was many years ago, and my Dad passed away in 1986.
Too
bad no old Yankees from that 1960's lineup were there in Cooperstown
(although I did get to see Whitey Ford once in Binghamton) but here are
some pictures of players at the game. And, THANK YOU, BALLPLAYERS, FOR
COMING. It was so refreshing to see ballplayers who wanted to be there. And, I know you had a good time too. So much so that Bob Feller has already announced that he plans to return next year.
By
the way, I still don't know who the people were who rode in the
"Yankees" car, including the gentleman with the Mickey Mantle uniform
who looked so much like him. I have a picture, but there are spectator
faces in there so I don't want to post the photo.
This
picture was taken seconds before a mob of children and adults followed
Brooks Robinson. blocking my view, to get his autograph.
Here, from the back, is George Foster: I sure would not have been rooting for him when he was playing for the 1970's Big Red Machine.
This
picture was taken after the game: the players in "camouflage" uniforms
were Military all stars who played alongside the old timers. I
wish I had a good seat to capture all the clowning around. And,
Doubleday Field folks, just a hint-the PA system where we were (all the
way in the hinterlands) rivaled the 1970's PA systems in the New York
subway for incoherence.
And now....I need to escape into my memories once more.
I haven't been a baseball fan for years but I have a special spot in my heart for Whitey Ford, because he's one of my earliest memories of getting interested in baseball (I grew up in a non baseball watching family). Did you know that he died watching (on TV) the team he played for, the New York Yankees?
Ford played for the Yankees his entire career - 16 years. 10 time all star, six time World Series champion. Best winning percentage of any pitcher in the 20th century. He was called "The Chairman of the Board". But not only that, in a way, he was local to where I used to work, Binghamton, New York. In 1949, he joined our then minor league team, the Binghamton Triplets. Johnson Field, where he played, is long gone but the land is partially occupied by NY Rt 17. I believe our local senior center is also partially on some of the land that was Johnson Field, but can't verify it.
Up to the late 1980's, Ford used to occasionally visit Red's Kettle Inn near to where the field was, where he used to eat. As of this writing, Red's is still open.
In July of 2019, I blogged about "The Miracle Boys of Summer". Today, we have one fewer. Hall of Famer pitchTom Seaver died yesterday, at the age 75. He had Lewy Body dementia but it was announced the contributing cause of death was COVID-19.
Seeing the Midnight Sun game is on my bucket list - it is played in Fairbanks on the longest day of the year, starting around 10pm, and is played without any artificial lighting.
As for "The Miracle Boys of Summer", here is that post:
With age comes nostalgia. In my mind, they will be forever young. Even
if you don't like baseball, please stick around for this story.
I grew up in the Bronx in the 1950's and 1960's. The New York City I
was born into had three major league teams. The teams were the New York
Yankees, the Brooklyn Dodgers and the New York Giants.
The year I was born, the Yankees played the Dodgers in the World Series,
and the Yankees won. In fact, until 1959, the World Series featured at
least one New York City team. Sometimes both were New York City teams.
But by the time I was old enough to discover and start loving baseball,
those days were over. As it happens, neither of my parents were baseball
fans, but I managed to discover the sport. Meanwhile,the Dodgers and
the Giants fled New York City for California. There was only one team
left in town, the Bronx Bombers (nickname for the Yankees) and I became a
Yankees fan.
In 1962, New York City gained a second team - the New York Mets.
Managed by the former Yankees manager Casey Stengel and populated with a
combination of young players and players way past their prime (some of
them from the Dodgers), they quickly gained the love of New York City
fans. Lovable, yes. But champions they were not.
They were bad. No, they were BAD. Their first season, they won 40
games and lost 120. The second year they improved, winning 51 games (and
losing 111). For several years, they were mired in mediocrity, but the
love of their fans never wavered. And, during that time period, I
abandoned the Yankees and turned to the New York Mets. The Amazin'
Mets.
Then, along came 1969. In a series of what seemed to be miracles, the
Mets started to win game after day (that year, they won 100 games) as
the front runner Cubs faded. The Mets united a city that seemed to be
deteriorating daily. My spouse was at the game where they won the
pennant against the Braves. I cheered from the classrooms I was
attending as a high school senior.
Then, in one final miracle, they went to the World Series - and won in five games (the Series is a best four of seven).
This past weekend, the 1969 Mets were given the keys to the city by the
Mayor. It was a weekend of memories, a weekend of nostalgia.
It's been 50 years. I am a senior citizen now and no longer a baseball
fan. But this brought me back to a special time. I wish I could have
been at Citi Field, but it wasn't all joy. The years have not been kind
to all of the Miracle Mets, just as the years aren't necessarily kind to
us.
Not all of the 1969 Mets were there. Their manager, former Dodger Gil
Hodges, died at the age of 47. Their general manager (Johnny Murphy)
died in 1970. One of their stars, Tommy Agee, died in 1981 at age 58.
Another, Tug McGraw (better known to many as Tim McGraw's father) died
from brain cancer in 2004 at the age of 59 . Donn Clendenon, who became a
lawyer after his playing days were over, is no longer with us. Ed
Charles died last year.
Tom Seaver, the Hall of Fame pitcher, has dementia (he wasn't able to
attend). Eddie Kranepool recently had a kidney transplant.
And there are those who are still active in their communities such as
Cleon Jones, who was 26 when he played in 1969. Now he is 86 and a
community volunteer, still active in making where he lives in Alabama a
better place for its residents.
A weekend of nostalgia over, we all return to everyday. Time marches
on, and we know there will be no 75th anniversary with the original
players. Time marches on.
But for this weekend, it was a chance to look back at our youth, our childhoods.
I am repeating (with some edits and updating) a post from July 4, 2011 called Baseball, Apple Pie, and Exhaustion. It seems like a million years ago now So much as changed....and if you don't like baseball, please, please stick around. This is about more than baseball. In a way, it's about life in our (I hate that phrase now) "new normal".
I tend to do things a little backwards, so I saw my 2011 Fourth of July
fireworks on July 3rd, at a minor league baseball game.
So, about my life and baseball, and 2020 baseball and the pandemic:
I grew up in the Bronx, New York City and my parents were not baseball
fans, so how I managed to become interested in baseball (in the early
1960's, when girls "didn't do that") is beyond me. My first couple of
games were outings with a girlfriend, when we could get into Shea Stadium (because we were women) on "Ladies Day". A Ladies Day ticket got us seats so high up you couldn't see the game unless you were Superman.
Then, I met my future spouse.
The only baseball either of us ever knew was large stadium baseball. Even as older teens, the only seats we could afford were what we called the
"nosebleed seats" and if you didn't have binoculars you vaguely knew
there was a game going on down there below. So years later, when we
started going to Binghamton Mets, (double A baseball) games with our then-young son, we were pleasantly surprised.
The stadium only held some 6000 people and almost every seat was a good seat.
When my son was young (we are talking late 2000's and early 2010's), the players freely gave autographs. My son would
wiggle up to the fence with the other children, when warm ups were
going on, with his baseball. Some of these players ended up
going to the major leagues (such as, Jose Reyes). Too bad my son managed to destroy the balls he got autographed.
B Mets Game July 4, 2014
Between innings, there was hokey but fun entertainment. Over the years
this entertainment included musical commodes (don't ask), beanbag
tosses for free restaurant tickets, and races between costumed
characters dressed as the products of that year's sponsor. On the July 4, 2011 game, a
young man dressed up in an Uncle Sam costume threw T-shirts into the audience. Later on, another costumed character tossed wrapped hot dogs into the audience.
The B-Mets wore "flag" uniforms that were auctioned off after the game.
The fireworks were enjoyable.
Then came the future.
In the years since 2011, the stadium was renamed, and, eventually, renovated. The B Mets became the Binghamton Rumble Ponies (don't ask). At least they weren't renamed the Stud Muffins.
This year was possibly going to be the last year for the Stud Muff...I mean, the Rumble Ponies (due to a major league baseball decision), and many other minor league teams. The obituaries were already written.
Then, along came COVID-19. All minor league ball was cancelled for 2020, meaning Binghamton, New York most probably won't have minor league baseball any time in the near future.
As for the major leagues, they have been struggling putting together a short season. It should have started the beginning of April. Instead, it's supposed to begin July 23 as of this writing, and it's not going to be the baseball we quite remember. But who knows? Maybe (except for no fans) it might be better. It certainly will be played faster, and has some interesting rule changes.
I must mention the controversy that has started over athletes in these sports (baseball, basketball, football are trying to get started up again, too) getting tests easily while the bulk of us have to wait and wait and wait. We are going to have to answer this one ourselves. If we want these sports, I feel it's necessary. So our question becomes: do we want to allow this?
So, in a way, major league baseball has become a microcosm of our new world. We feel our way, learning more and more long the way, trying this and that, seeing what works, and what makes things worse. We reject some of "this is the way things must be because they've been like that for generations", but, at the same time, we just want to get back to how it was last year. That's just not possible.
It's Monday, and it's time for another episode of Music Moves Me!
Who
are the members of Music Moves Me ? We are
bloggers who blog about music
each Monday. If you have music to share with us, you are most
welcome to join! Just remember our simple rule: you must include at
least one You Tube or Vimeo video or your post may be subject to removal
or labeling "NO MUSIC". You are welcome to write about music. too but
we need that video! So let's get started.
Each month, we have a guest co-host and guess who the guest co-host is this month? You guessed it (I hope): ME! My theme for today is: Songs mentioning sports, or songs commonly played at sporting events.
Why music at sporting events? Teams must be introduced. Fans must be pumped up to cheer when a team is rallying. They must be entertained at dead spots in the action. In baseball, in recent years, players use "walk up" songs that are played when they come to bat.
Some songs have become so identified with one particular team that no other team plays the song.
So, I have to admit - I chose this theme for today before almost all sports in the United States had to shut down. Many of us miss pro sports. Some are trying to start up again, some (such as auto racing) have been able to start up again (but either without fans or with minimal number of fans present).
As for me, I stopped going to minor league baseball games several years ago, but I have fond memories of some of the songs played there (the then B-Mets - AA farm team for the New York Mets).
For example, the song Cotton Eye Joe, as performed by the Swedish (yes, Swedish) band Rednex. Our minor league team would play it between innings. I've featured this song before but it's a lot of fun.
So is this song, "Lazy Mary (Luna Mezzo Mare)", sung by Lou Monte, from 1958. Let's Go Mets!
Smash Mouth and "All Star".
As for the one-team songs: The Chicago Bulls play this when introducing their players - Alan Parsons Project's Sirius.
The Boston Patriots have Ozzy Ozbourne's Crazy Train. Here's Ozzy performing it live at the season opener in 2005.
Although I was born and raised in New York City, I think Boston (I've only visited once) is a wonderful city. So, there is the love affair of Boston Red Sox
fans with Neil Diamond's Sweet Caroline. This is a live performance of
the song by Neil Diamond at a Boston Red Sox game after the Boston
Marathon bombing.
After playing two Boston oriented songs, I hope I can get back into the good graces of New York fans with one of Noah Syndergaard's walk-up songs, O Fortuna (Carmina Burana) although this is not the performance he uses. But sports are played around the world, and some of the favorite songs the fans like may surprise you. I've picked a couple from England to end this.
British football fans from Liverpool have adopted, as their song, the Rogers and Hammerstein Broadway tune "You'll Never Walk Alone".
How about a rendition of "I'm Forever Blowing Bubbles", as performed by West Ham United fans?
With age comes nostalgia. In my mind, they will be forever young. Even if you don't like baseball, please stick around for this story.
I grew up in the Bronx in the 1950's and 1960's. The New York City I was born into had three major league teams. The teams were the New York Yankees, the Brooklyn Dodgers and the New York Giants.
The year I was born, the Yankees played the Dodgers in the World Series, and the Yankees won. In fact, until 1959, the World Series featured at least one New York City team. Sometimes both were New York City teams.
But by the time I was old enough to discover and start loving baseball, those days were over. As it happens, neither of my parents were baseball fans, but I managed to discover the sport. Meanwhile,the Dodgers and the Giants fled New York City for California. There was only one team left in town, the Bronx Bombers (nickname for the Yankees) and I became a Yankees fan.
In 1962, New York City gained a second team - the New York Mets. Managed by the former Yankees manager Casey Stengel and populated with a combination of young players and players way past their prime (some of them from the Dodgers), they quickly gained the love of New York City fans. Lovable, yes. But champions they were not.
They were bad. No, they were BAD. Their first season, they won 40 games and lost 120. The second year they improved, winning 51 games (and losing 111). For several years, they were mired in mediocrity, but the love of their fans never wavered. And, during that time period, I abandoned the Yankees and turned to the New York Mets. The Amazin' Mets.
Then, along came 1969. In a series of what seemed to be miracles, the Mets started to win game after day (that year, they won 100 games) as the front runner Cubs faded. The Mets united a city that seemed to be deteriorating daily. My spouse was at the game where they won the pennant against the Braves. I cheered from the classrooms I was attending as a high school senior.
Then, in one final miracle, they went to the World Series - and won in five games (the Series is a best four of seven).
This past weekend, the 1969 Mets were given the keys to the city by the Mayor. It was a weekend of memories, a weekend of nostalgia.
It's been 50 years. I am a senior citizen now and no longer a baseball fan. But this brought me back to a special time. I wish I could have been at Citi Field, but it wasn't all joy. The years have not been kind to all of the Miracle Mets, just as the years aren't necessarily kind to us.
Not all of the 1969 Mets were there. Their manager, former Dodger Gil Hodges, died at the age of 47. Their general manager (Johnny Murphy) died in 1970. One of their stars, Tommy Agee, died in 1981 at age 58. Another, Tug McGraw (better known to many as Tim McGraw's father) died from brain cancer in 2004 at the age of 59 . Donn Clendenon, who became a lawyer after his playing days were over, is no longer with us. Ed Charles died last year.
Tom Seaver, the Hall of Fame pitcher, has dementia (he wasn't able to attend). Eddie Kranepool recently had a kidney transplant.
And there are those who are still active in their communities such as Cleon Jones, who was 26 when he played in 1969. Now he is 86 and a community volunteer, still active in making where he lives in Alabama a better place for its residents.
A weekend of nostalgia over, we all return to everyday. Time marches on, and we know there will be no 75th anniversary with the original players. Time marches on.
But for this weekend, it was a chance to look back at our youth, our childhoods.
Our Super Bowl last night may have been one of the most exciting ever, with a come behind victory by a team famed for its come behind victories. It literally had to go into overtime, the first time ever.
Now that we have survived the Super Bowl, how about some sports oriented music?
I'm thinking here of songs I used to hear at our minor league baseball games in Binghamton, New York. We would be entertained during the game, especially during the "7th inning stretch" where fans would get up between innings, stretch, move around and even dance.
So the music was dance music.
Cotton Eye Joe: for years, this song, as sung by the Scandinavian group Rednex used to entertain us at the Binghamton Mets (Double A baseball) games. Alas, the Binghamton Mets are no more; they were renamed at the end of last season. They are now called the Rumble Ponies (don't ask). At least they weren't renamed the Stud Muffins.
But the song perhaps most associated with sports may well be this gem from Queen. The 1977 "We Are the Champions." This morning, this is again the theme song of the team that won the Superbowl So congrats to the New England Patriots.
You don't have to follow baseball to appreciate this story, and I hope my non-baseball fan readers will stick around and read this.
A young man defects from Cuba at the age of 15, successful on his fourth try. During that fourth try, his mother fell overboard, and the teenager saved her.
Baseball has been a part of his life since his early childhood. He goes to high school in Tampa, Florida, where I lived many years ago. He becomes a star baseball player with the Miami Marlins. At 24, he learns he will be a father for the first time. He is popular. He earns respect.
And then, he dies in a tragic boating accident Sunday, in the early morning when their boat rammed into a jetty. Two other men die with him. Speed was a factor. No life jackets were on the boat, but they may not have helped.
His team cancels their Sunday game, something which is Just Not Done in major league baseball.
Monday evening, they play against "my" home team, the New York Mets, so the game is televised. After the National Anthem is played, the members of the two teams cried and embraced. Every member of the Marlins is wearing a shirt with the late ballplayer's name and number. The players gather around the pitching mound and inscribe his name and number in the dirt.
The Mets baseball announcers are holding back tears. One wasn't entirely successful.
The Marlins come to bat, and the very first player hits a home run. Afterwards the player breaks down in tears. The Marlins go on to win, 7-3.
If Hollywood had made a movie from a fictional story, who know how many tickets it would have sold?
His child will never know him. And millions of baseball fans, stunned, mourn the death of a man gone too soon. A small thing, this death, compared to the going-on's in the world, but it reminds us that the end for each of us can come at any time, without warning. We must make the most of the time we have on this earth doing what we love to do.
A local Little League team played yesterday for the United States championship at the Little League World Series, and my entire region of upstate New York watched. Busloads of people came to the game, and more watched on national television.
Decorated Door, Dick's Sporting Goods (which started in Binghamton)
A number of my readers are foreign, and I realize that baseball isn't necessarily the most popular sport outside of my native United States. But please don't leave - this is not a story about baseball, but, rather, something greater than baseball.
"Through proper guidance and exemplary leadership, the Little League
program assists children in developing the qualities of citizenship,
discipline, teamwork and physical well-being. By espousing the virtues
of character, courage and loyalty, the Little League Baseball and
Softball program is designed to develop superior citizens rather than
superior athletes."
Which is why, when our local Maine-Endwell team won the United States championship against a team from Tennessee, we saw this on live TV:
While the opposing teams high-fived each other, the two opposing coaches embraced (the Maine-Endwell coach is in blue, the Tennessee coach in yellow).
It was such a refreshing sight. (I also knew that, 155 years ago, New York and Tennessee were on opposite sides of a civil war that took hundreds of thousands of lives. The history lover part of me took note of that, too.)
When you saw the two teams play, it was hard to believe these were young people of 12 and 13 years old. I would have been happy to pay to see that game on a minor league baseball level. Our own son had pursuits other than athletics, so we were not exposed to Little League as parents. But I was a baseball fan growing up - as a spectator, that is. My spouse still is a fan.
When I was growing up, girls were not permitted to participate in Little League baseball. But that changed in 1974.
My spouse was impressed by this young man, the Maine-Endwell pitcher. He sees much promise in this young Maine-Endwell pitcher. Only time will tell, of course.
Here is the happy team posing after the game.
I applaud any organization that stands for ideals of good sportsmanship. To see those ideals in action and to know your local team was one of the participants is even better.
Today, Maine-Endwell plays for the world championship. You'd better believe many in this area will be watching that game at 3pm Eastern Daylight Time.
