I love baseball

August 7, 2023

I love baseball. Maybe it is because other than baseball I have so few fond memories of my childhood. I was an unwanted second son. Dad wanted a girl. My brother was a math genius and a straight A student. I never could compete but he was my best friend until his senior year at Purdue. Dad showered him with accolades, new stuff and favors. I didn’t mind because I knew he was smarter than me. I was only jealous of his hair. He got my mother’s side of the family hair inherited from the Anglo side of the family: thick and wavy. I got “colored” hair. I had friends growing up but other than my brother none were close. It was because I was two years ahead in school, graduating from high school when I was 16. I was young. I was short and unathletic. When I was in the varsity band as an eight grader my feet did not touch the floor. When I graduated the only boy shorter in my class was a midget. I never had a date in high school.

But I looked forward to the summers. Going to Brooklyn or Cincinnati to see the Dodgers was the only time we had fun as a family. Dad loved the Brooklyn Dodgers because of Jackie Robinson. He planned our summer vacations around the Dodgers’ schedule. If they were in New York we would go stay with my mother’s brother (Uncle Son) in Brooklyn and go to Ebbets Field or to the Polo Grounds where they played the Giants. If they were in Cincinnati we would stay with Dad’s older brother (Uncle Floyd) and see them play the Reds in Crosby Field. The Dodgers’ 1954 lineup read like an all-star team: Junior Gilliam, Pee Wee Reese, Duke Snider, Jackie Robinson, Roy Campanella, Gill Hodges, Carl Furillo and Billy Cox. Carl Erskine, Johnny Podres, Don Newcombe and Preacher Roe were the pitchers. Walter Alston was the manager. Yet that team finished five games behind the New York Giants who had Sal Maglie, Hoyt Wilhelm and Al Worthington as pitchers. Joe Garagiloa caught. Alvin Dark, Billy Gardner, Hank Thompson, Monte Irvin, Dusty Rhodes and Willie Mays were on that team. Leo Durocher was the manager. The 1954 Reds had Gus Bell, Wally Post, Ted Kluszewski, Art Fowler and Knoxville’s own Ed Bailey. Cincinnati wasn’t very good finishing 23 games back. But that didn’t matter. We went to see the Dodgers. 

Although we loved baseball, we never went to see the local minor league team – the Atlanta Crackers (I kid you not. During the heyday of the Negro League, the local team was the Atlanta Black Crackers. Again I kid you not). We did not go to the games because the stadium seating was segregated. The black section was run down, the bathrooms hardly functioned and were filthy. Dad refused to put us in a situation where we would be segregated by race.

When I went to work at the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency in 1973, the Washington Senators had left to become the Texas Rangers so I became a fan of the Baltimore Orioles. I was there during the great years of Cal Ripken, Jim Palmer, Boog Powell, Mark Belanger, Mike Cuellar, Eddie Murray, Mike Flannagan and Steve Stone. Frank and Brooks Robinson were recent memories. Earl Weaver was the manager. 

By the time Baltimore’s glory days were gone, so was I. But I went to see college baseball while on the faculty at UNC and remember Walt Weiss as being the star. When I returned to DC in the early 1980s, I stayed an Orioles fan and picked the opponent to go see while the Orioles struggled.

Coming to Knoxville, I was treated to SEC baseball, arguably the best in the country. Tennessee has had some great players and Todd Helton was my favorite. I really liked the Rod Delmonico teams but the ones with Coach Tony Vitello are more fun.

I now usually go to Cincinnati and St Petersburg for major league baseball. Although the Braves are my favorite team I won’t go the Truist Park because the Braves abandoned downtown Atlanta for the ritzy suburbs. I don’t fault them. They know their fanbase. They have been successful and have an incredible team. But I still won’t go. I can’t even see them live, since they are blacked out in Knoxville. That’s one of the things I don’t like about Major League Baseball. Another dislike is the floating strike zone of some umpires. I probably am biased but the worse called game in major league history has got to be game five of the 1997 National League Championship Series where Eric Gregg’s strike zone was as wide as his waist. The Marlins’ Livan Hernandez whose fastball was probably 75 mph struck out 15 Braves who behind Greg Maddux lost 2-1. The last out was made by new Hall of Famer Fred McGriff who could not have reached the called “strike” if he had thrown his bat at it. 

I subscribe to MLB since the stupid rapacious Google gods dropped the MLB Network. Now I can see how truly awful most of the umpires are. Angel Hernandez is the worst but CJ Bucknor isn’t far behind. Dan Bellino made perhaps the worse strike call I’ve seen this side of Eric Gregg. Since MLB has instituted rules to speed up the game, maybe they should go to a digital strike zone. It pains me to say that but I suffer a greater pain seeing all the bad ball and strike calls.

My last peeve with Major League Baseball is ignoring the great Larry Doby. Every year I would send MLB a letter/email imploring them to recognize Doby who integrated the American League the same year that Jackie Robinson debuted in the National League. Very people know of Doby, although he is in the Hall of Fame, because he came into the league after the Allstar break while Robinson started at the beginning of the season. So I think it should be Jackie Robinson/Larry Doby day with all the teams in the National League wearing Robinson’s number and those in the American League wearing Doby’s. Alternatively, why not have each team wear the number of their first black player? I have a Sam Jethroe jersey.