And It’s One, Two, Three Strikes You’re Out

What's the one topic you can always count on to get a stalled conversation moving again? Right, the weather. But that wasn't always the case and for some may still not be.

The other topic, depending on your interests, is sports — specifically baseball. I was reminded of this when I saw the Monroe Patch piece regarding the Mike Shalin biography of Don Mattingly.

During my teaching days — over 7 years ago — and even recently when I substitute in an elementary school class, I am amazed at the relative lack of interest among 8 to 11 year old kids in what for the country during the 1940s and 50s was a national obsession.

From April to early October my friends and I were totally preoccupied with the game of baseball. We watched (and played) as much as we could given the fact most games were played during daylight hours on a weekday. 

When not doing that, we showed off and traded our baseball card collections.

The whole thing took on special importance in September as the American and National League pennants were shaping up.

Remember, in those days there were no divisions within the two major leagues. Therefore there were no conference or playoff games. It was a simple matter of whoever had the best standing by the end of the regular season was the pennant winner. A few days later the World Series would begin. So by early October the season was over.

Since then of course major leaguer baseball owners realized that if they added conference divisions within each league and extended the season, they’d make a lot more money.

Loyalty was divided among three teams. The favorite for most kids was the New York Yankees followed closely by my favorite, the Brooklyn Dodgers. A distant third was the New York Giants. Notice no mention here of the Red Sox.

As a Brooklyn Dodger fan I had many disappointments. The Yankees were our biggest rivals and at the risk of using a badly overused term, they were truly awesome. So when in 1955 the Dodgers finally won the World Series, I was one happy 12-year-old kid. 

Aside from frequent losses to the Yankees, another especially painful loss was in 1951 when Bobby Thomson of the New York Giants got the "shot heard 'round the world" thereby ending the Dodgers’ season.

Then there were two other very bad days for me in baseball. The first was bittersweet because it was in the same year the Dodgers finally beat the Yankees — 1955. That was the year Monroe and surrounding regions got two back-to-back hurricanes thereby dumping enough water on us to completely flood ours and just about everyone else’s basements. In that basement was stored my complete collection of Brooklyn Dodger baseball cards. They were completely destroyed.

The next event occurred some years later — 1959 — when the Dodgers announced they were moving to Los Angeles. That's when I began to lose interest in the game.  

During those great years, our loyalty and admiration extended beyond our teams. We admired and rooted for the great players of other teams as well. Athletes like Jackie Robinson, Willie Mays, Joltin' Joe DiMaggio, Mickie Mantle … I could go on and on.

We admired those players for their commitment and dedication to a great game. They put their teams first and foremost every time they took the field. 

I had to laugh when I heard that Derek Jeter took a couple of days off after getting his 3,000^th hit. The poor guy was just "exhausted." Can you imagine Willie Mays doing that? Me neither.

Unfortunately, baseball is very different today. It will never be like it was for me as a kid. But the memories are still there.

Life in Monroe, small town America.

Those were the days.