It's baseball season

“Tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow, the day I've been waiting for since the World Series ended arrives.

Yes boys and girls, pitchers and catchers report, there is a spring, there is a God, there is .... baseball.

All is right with the world.

Brang it on!”

“Stop hopping from one foot to the other, you'll hurt yourself again...”

“I'm ready, Geo! Go, YANKEES!!!!!!”

“And to think I used to like Joe Torre and "Popeye!"”

“I yam what I yam”

“Phightin' Phils will improve to .500”

“If the Fightins only improve to .500, they will be finding bits and chunks of Larry Bowa all over this city after he explodes.”

“Now THAT would be worth the price of a ticket.

Speaking of... I thought the Phils should have gotten Billy Martin for manager years ago (when he was alive and managing.) It would have been fun to watch Bowa (the player) and Martin interact. Fireworks every night!”

“.........for the season to start...the wife got me season tickets to Fightin Phils for Christmas.....”

“"Who are these friggin' guys?"”

“Will someone please tell those Damn Yankees Fans to behave when they visit Baltimore!”

“Tom, Tom, Tom, ... when will you learn to say Balmer? It's Balmer, jeez, do you come from Silver Springs or what?

We get the Mutts fans in Philly. Just as obnoxious.

In the days when I went to Memorial Stadium, Yankers fans didn't want any part of Balmer. They stayed away in droves. I used to love the Yankers in those days. They laid down so well. Earl would always throw the left-handers at them and they couldn't hit left-handed pitching worth a, well, y'know!”

“Yes, they are doing it as I speak in Clearwater. Baseball is back. Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh.”

“If you live within proximity of Royals Stadium, it's a sad time of year. I remember when they were World Champions. It's just too hard to talk about.....
GO GIANTS!!!!!”

“Perhaps you stoopid Americans should play ze cricket and not ze baseball, oui?”

“Excuse moi, Monsieur Saucee, cricket et un sport Anglaise.”

“Position players report by tomorrow. Most of the Phillies are already in camp.”

“Dunadan - How is ole' Buck O'Neil doing? Have you visited the Negro League Hall of Fame?

KC has an awsome stadium, and a sweet player in Sweeney, they deserve better.”

“Buck O'Neil, now there is a man who loves baseball! And I love hearing him talk about it.”

“So true Geobeet.... he's the ambassador of baseball if you ask me.”

“Go 'stros”

“When he talks about the Negro Leagues, he never calls it the Negro Leagues. He calls it "our ball."

And when he talks about "our ball," he makes me think the white baseball establishment hurt the white baseball fans who grew up never knowing about Cool Papa Bell, Josh Gibson, and the all the other greats. They played more of a running game, and they were awesome. And when we got to see Satchel Paige, he was just past his prime, but still pretty darn good.

Their lore is also rich. Of Cool Papa Bell, Paige supposedly said he was so fast he could flip a lightswitch and be in bed before the light went out.

But hearing Buck talk about those days is about as mellow as one can get. His love for the game is infectious.”

“Geo, my dad had a unique opportunity to play for a Canadian Negro league team back in the 50's. He had played on a semipro team that had played against one of the teams, and they offered him a contract (for pretty good money, actually). There was no mention of any unusual circumstances (like, maybe, having a white guy on a Negro league team), and my dad thought it was pretty cool. He had agreed to the deal in principle, but then got a call from the Pirates organization (a fella named Branch Rickey) that they wanted to sign him, so the Negro league thing never happened.”

“Intersting, Marty, and you dad would be ...?”

“Retired....

(never made it past one or two AAA games, so you wouldn't have ever heard of him....)”

“Hey, at least he gave it a shot. I covered a kid who made it to AA and could get no further. It was a ride while it lasted.”

“Hey, if it weren't for baseball, I wouldn't be here (my parents met when my dad was playing ball in Montana).”

“BAN BASEBALL!”

“There you go Marty. That must be what the B stands for!

I once dated a woman whose parents met that way too.”

“Heh heh...

As an adult, I started putting the pieces together: he moves to small city as promising minor leaguer; she works at movie theater upon high school graduation; wedding in September. D'ya think she was thinking "major league salary"???!! Well, they're still happily married after all these years, so I guess it worked....”

“Baseball, it's my religion. We have a new A ballclub here in Cleveland this year, I can't wait to start watching the A ball kids play.

Did you play back in the day Geo and Marty?”

“If they're happy, that's all that counts. Who knows, if he had made it to The Show, maybe the prospect of groupies would have torn the marriage apart. The combination of money, fame, women looking for something, and long trips away from home brought down many a player.”

“No, I played softball for a work league. I was a catcher used for defense and made the all-star team that way. Go figure. Good field, no hit. But I loved it and loved to make the plays.

When I found myself covering five games in six nights, I decided that it was indeed possible to get too much baseball. That surprised me and worried me a bit, but by the time the Sunday matinee rolled around, if they had gone into extra innings I might have gone down and hurt somebody.

I was covering this kid in AA ball. I got to see a lot of guys play who made it to the show, probably the most notable of which were Charles Johnson and Vic Darensbourg, then in the Marlins system, and some guy named Nomar Garciapara of the Boston Red Sox. Nomar was amazing even at Trenton. I still have videotape of the AA All-Star game that year when he fielded a ball behind second, did a 360, and threw the guy out at first by a stride.

The guy I covered was a wash his second year in AA. He came back for half a season with the Baltimore team, but only filling in so they could field a team. He was no longer a prospect. Hitting .265 at AA when you are a first baseman/right fielder and not a power hitter is not exactly going to win you a job in the show.

But it was fun covering him. In the first game I covered, John Kruk was rehabbing with the Reading Phillies. Now THAT was an entertaining weekend. I was the only member of the media zoo for whom Krukker was a sidebar story.”

“Uh, geo, she was one of the groupies! :-) (do you think my mom reads these threads?)

I was destined to be a major leaguer, at least in my mind at age 13. That's about the time I failed to make the frosh-soph team in high school! As a grownup, I still enjoyed playing softball for fun for many years until plantar fasciitis made it too painful to play any more. Now I get to do some little league coaching, which is a lot of fun.”

“BB, don't think less of me, but I haven't made it to the Negro League museum yet. I will though, I will. It's easy to see Buck O'Neil if you are around Kansas City at all. He is invited to every function, and must love them because he always shows up. He would be proud to hear that you consider him to be the ambassador of baseball.
I wish more players had his attitude. Baseball would still be the national pastime if that were the case.
Baseball, besides being fun to play, is a thinking person's game. I love the rythm of the game, and the possibility for anything to happen with each pitch.”

“Check yer email, geo....”

“The first exhibition game of the spring is on. In his first at-bat, Thome hits one out.

Life is good.”

“Sweet!!! Go Devil Rays!!

snickering!!!”

“With Travis Lee on the team, it will be "Go to sleep Devil Rays!"”

“Lou might spark some life into the team though. I'll go to at least a few games.. seeing as the tickets are super-duper cheap (unlike Bucs tickets)!”

“Life into Travis Lee, hmmmmm, ....., life, ..., naw, can't happen!”

“Randy Wolf had a great first inning.”

“Ah ha, just did some research. Lee is a former Philly, no wonder you know about him! :-) Just looked at his stats, which are far from impressive. Definitely no Jason Giambi.”

“Not even Jeremy Giambi!

Brandon Duckworth also pitched to only three batters.”

“He better keep it up if wants to have an ERA of less than last year's 5.41! :-)”

“They took Thome out of the game already. Sheesh!

Our pitching should be vastly improved this year with Joe Kerrigan as pitching coach.”

“The subs didn't treat the poor Pyrites any better. Final was 6-3, Fightins!”

“The Yankers come a-calling tomorrow (Friday).”

“"Godzilla" hit one out of the park also today..”