AMERICA’S PAST TIME

By Suzanne Sparrow Watson

October means only one thing: we are in the midst of the “golden hour” of sports, with almost every major league playing games.  It’s a lovely thing for those of us who want to watch something other than the news.  Perhaps the most exciting is the MLB playoffs.  Not because baseball is intrinsically interesting, but because, in my opinion, playoffs in any sport are worth watching.  My grandmother, an avid SF Giants fan, would sit in her living room with her Giant’s cap on, and listen to every regular season game on the radio.  I did not inherit that gene. I don’t watch baseball or hockey all year until they start playing for the hardware.  Then, I choose a team (sometimes for ridiculous reasons, like their team colors) and I tune in.  On the other hand, I watch pro and college football games even when I don’t really have a reason to root for either team.  I think it’s because football season is relatively short, so each game is to be savored.  I know that all too soon it will be February and I’ll be stuck with basketball and hockey, who start their seasons in October and don’t wrap up until June!  JUNE!  That is ridiculous! My love for football, and waning interest in baseball, corresponds to the national trend: 53% of people say football is America’s sport, compared to just 27% for baseball. But this being MLB playoff season, I thought I’d dig up some famous moments from our former favorite past time.

Babe Ruth Calls His Shot – One of the most famous home runs in baseball history occurred in the 1932 World Series between the Chicago Cubs and the New York Yankees. At the top of the fifth inning, Yankees slugger Babe Ruth, with two balls and two strikes, pointed toward the outfield, and when the next pitch came, he hit a towering home run to center field. It proved to be the winning hit for the Yankees.  In the newspapers the next day, ecstatic reporters announced that Ruth had “called his shot,” and that his gesture toward the bleachers was a prediction of the home run. For years there was some doubt as to the legitimacy of this claim, but in 2020 an old radio interview was unearthed in which Lou Gehrig, who witnessed the event from the on-deck circle, confirmed that “the Bambino” really had called the shot.

Lou Gehrig Gives a Retirement Speech for the Ages – Speaking of Lou Gehrig, his career, and his retirement speech, still have a lasting legacy within the sport.  When Gehrig announced his retirement in 1939, it shocked the baseball world. During his career, Gehrig’s seemingly endless endurance had allowed him to play in 2,130 consecutive games (a record that stood for nearly 60 years), earning him the nickname “the Iron Horse.” However, in 1939, when Gehrig was diagnosed with the neurodegenerative disease ALS (which became commonly known as Lou Gehrig’s disease), the Iron Horse was finally forced to end his baseball career. In the retirement speech he delivered at Yankee Stadium on July 4, 1939, Gehrig told the crowd that despite his “bad break,” he considered himself “the luckiest man on the face of the Earth.” This iconic phrase, emblematic of Gehrig’s grace and humility, remains famous today, and his speech is often recognized as one of the greatest in sports history.

Hank Aaron Breaks Babe Ruth’s Home Run Record – In yet another Ruth connection, for nearly four decades after his retirement, he was hailed as the undisputed home run king. His 714 career home runs stood as a monument to his unrivaled power at the plate. Then Hank Aaron arrived. Since his MLB debut in 1954, Aaron had been an extremely consistent slugger, and he led the league in home runs four separate times. The years of steady power hitting paid off on April 8, 1974, when Aaron hit his 715th career home run and surpassed Ruth to inherit one of baseball’s most hallowed records. Aaron’s historic career continued for another three seasons, during which time he added 40 homers to his career total, retiring with a staggering 755 home runs. This record was eventually surpassed by Barry Bonds in 2007, but to this day Aaron remains celebrated as the first player to surpass the Sultan of Swat as the home run champion. And, let’s face it, Aaron didn’t have a hint of steroids in his achievement.

Willie Mays Makes “the Catch” – In deference to my grandmother, I couldn’t end this piece about baseball without including one of the Giants’ best players – Willie Mays, although his most famous play came when the Giants were still in New York, before the team came west and garnered my grandmother’s attention. Mays’ stunning play came during the 1954 World Series — it became known to history simply as “the Catch” (not to be confused with 49er Dwight Clark’s catch in the 1982 playoff game against the hated Cowgirls). Mays made the play in the eighth inning of Game 1, with the score tied 2-2 between Mays’ New York Giants and the Cleveland Indians. Cleveland slugger Vic Wertz hit a long fly ball toward Mays in center field. Mays turned and sprinted backward, making a miraculous over-the-shoulder catch 425 feet from home plate. As if that wasn’t a stunning-enough achievement, Mays completed the play by spinning around and making an incredible throw from the outfield to prevent Cleveland’s baserunners from getting home. The play saved the game for the Giants, who went on to sweep Cleveland in four games to become World Series champions.

Enjoy the MLB playoffs, relish the second half of football season and gird your loins for the endless basketball and hockey games that will loom until next summer.

 

Fond Baseball Memories

by Bob Sparrow

(Details for this blog came from a one-page account that my father wrote about his baseball experience in the 40s and brother Jack’s recollections) 

Dad, Jack & me about the time we started playing catch

The crack of the bat, the smell of freshly cut grass, the ‘pop’ of a hardball hitting a leather glove. Baseball’s spring training has started with the regular season just around the corner. Baseball is still called America’s pastime, but as far as popularity goes, statistically football, basketball and NASCAR get more viewers.

But I still have a more personal connection to baseball, even though I only played Little League for two years and one year in high school and not that well. That connection came from my Dad, who started throwing a baseball with Jack and me from the time we were old enough to . . . catch it.

Dad loved baseball. As a freshman at Willows High School in northern California, he made the varsity squad as a second baseman, but it was the pre-Depression era and his father made him get a job instead of playing baseball. He was heartbroken. He did get to play high school baseball when his family moved to San Rafael and played well enough to get offered a tryout with the Sacramento Solons of the Pacific Coast League, but his dad again insisted that he get a job, as they were now deep into the Depression. I’m sure this experience weighed heavily on Dad’s decision later in life to make sure that Jack and I had every opportunity to play high school sports.

However, Dad did get to play baseball again. Our hometown of Novato had a semi-pro ‘Merchants League’ made up of 20-30 year olds from town that played other teams from the surrounding area, including a team from San Quentin prison, who only played ‘home’ games! At Novato home games, several of the wives would ‘pass the hat’ in order to pay for the umpire and some baseballs and bats; brother Jack was the ‘Bat Boy’ for the team. After the home games, win or lose, the team would go to the local watering hole, ‘The Village Inn’ where the owner, Lydia Quarg would buy them their first drink and the kids had a table in the back room where we had sodas and popcorn.  During hot games Lydia would send a case of cold beer into the dugout for the team to enjoy.

Dad was a great fielder, had great hands and could turn a double play from second base with the best of them, and he could also hit fairly well, not the long ball, but lots of singles; some that could have been doubles, but due to his slowness of foot, he had to stop at first. His teammates in Noavato kidded him by saying, “Maybe he doesn’t know that you don’t have to stop at first, that you can turn left.” Dad was one of the older players on the team and after several seasons he was getting a little ‘long in the tooth’, but because he was such a nice guy, the team didn’t really know how to tell him it was time for him to retire. They knew he had a great sense of humor, so the last home game of the season, before he got to the game his teammates put a rocking chair out at the second base position. When he got there, he took one look, laughed and played his last game. Such a great memory.

Dad’s love of baseball included taking us to games in San Francisco to watch the San Francisco Seals in Pacific Coast League play at Seals Stadium. I remember the first game we saw was against the Oakland Oaks and I can remember to this day several of the Seals players – Roy Nicely, Les Fleming, Dario Lodigiani and Cliff ‘Ears’ Melton. When the Giants moved from New York to San Francisco in 1958, they first played in Seals Stadium until their new stadium was finished and Dad took us to a number of Giants games where we got to watch the great Willie Mays play.

Willie Mays at Seals Stadium

So spring practice is when hope springs eternal and every team is saying, ‘This is the year’. I’ve been lucky as a lifelong fan of the San Francisco Giants that they’ve had recent World Series wins in 2010, 2012 and 2014. I know they’re hopeful this year as it’s Bruce Bochy’s final season as their manager.

Whether the Giants win another one this year remains to be seen, but as a new season gets under way, I’m reminded once again of playing catch with Dad and Jack in our yard and watching Dad play for the Novato Merchants – truly great baseball memories.

 

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