President Obama announced some very good news for New Yorkers. He says he's coming here soon to make some kind of speech. And since this has been the coldest Spring I can remember for a very long time, he's going to do us all a huge favor. We can use all the warmth we can get and all the hot air this guy blows out will keep us warm for a month.
My last entry got me thinking about what wonderful people baseball players are, especially ones with the Yankees. For them, what difference does a tradition make that's only been around since the 1840's? As I mentioned yesterday, I played a lot more than I watched as a kid, but still saw plenty of games. Not only on TV, but live.
In those days I lived on Manhattan's Upper East Side, 91st Street in fact. And, to show you how far the city's gone down the chute, when I was eleven years or so I used to walk to the subway station on 86th and Lex and take the train up to Yankee Stadium in the Bronx by myself. Today, I wouldn't let my kid travel up there without an armored car, bullet-proof vest and a SWAT team trained driver.
Anyway, one Sunday afternoon I went to see a double-header. I did that fairly often. Remarkably, in those days teams let you watch two games for the price of one. Today you're lucky if you can afford to see just one, unless you want to order food, drink or a beer. In that case, most folks have to take out loans.
But, most days back then, the excitement didn't stop for me when play was over. I used to hang out near the player's entrance after the games, and try to get autographs. In time I'd built up a fairly large collection, including the likes of Yogi Berra, Phil Rizzuto, even the great DiMag.
Most often, when the players left the stadium, they climbed onto a bus. If you couldn't get a signature while they were walking to their ride, you'd "struck out" autograph-wise and would have to wait until next time around.
And then one day I had a baseball brainstorm. I put some saved allowance together and visited the US Post Office where I bought some post cards. At that time they cost one cent. Then I sat down and self-addressed the fronts, but left the backs completely blank. So, the next time I visited the stadium, and trotted alongside my hero's to their bus, I tried to hand my cards to whomever I could.
Surprisingly, sometimes a player would stop and sign a card right there, but others actually not only took them from me, I'd get some autographs sent back in the mail.
Well, I thought I was really on to something here. I mean, that was pretty good, having Yankee autographs show up in my mailbox. And then one Sunday afternoon, after the Yanks had boarded their bus, this player named Bob Cerv leaned out an open window, there was no air-conditioning in buses back then, and took some of my cards from my hand.
Then as I watched, Cerv handed half the stack of my cards to the guy sitting next to him, a utility infielder named Loren Babe. Babe had a lifetime 38 at bats for the Yankees, playing all told in 17 games in a very short NY career.
The next thing I knew, while I stood there on the ground watching, Cerv and Babe tore my cards to shreds and tossed them down on me like confetti. I didn't know what to do, I was so upset, and then one thing came to mind. The Polo Grounds field, where the Giants played, wasn't very far from where I stood that very moment, and that same afternoon I became one of their fans. I rooted for that team, and especially Willie Mays until two years after they moved to San Francisco.
But, why write this tale today? Because in my experience with the Yankees they've always turned out to be self-serving, arrogant, miserable creeps regardless of their record. And it's been years and years since I've had anything to do with them and in fact to this day, go out of my way to avoid learning any of their player's names.
Nonetheless, this NY clown who dissed the opposing pitcher the other day, causing the pitcher to go out and throw a perfect game, reinforced my almost lifelong opinion. To me, that team has always employed the lowest-life dirt-bags in professional sports, and this time they got the publicity they deserve. Because, I can't imagine anyone who knows diddly about sportsmanship at all would give them an ounce of professional respect.
That's it for today folks.
Adios
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