I recently worked on updating my blog header and asked if it should read, as a faithful commenter once said about me, “she loved God, her family and baseball.”

Can’t wait to read more about your story. BTW, one of the main influences on me has been my 20 yods who studied “post Evangelicalism” and Thomas Merton long before me. One of the things he really wanted to do was make a “pilgrimage” to the Gethsemane (sp?) monastery before he left for college. We’re about 3 hours away and travel to Georgetown occasionally with dh on business.

Blessings,

Sandy

My favorite road trip involves a summer weekend in the 1990’s. Three fans (me, my brother, and a good friend from college), three games in 28 hours (2 at Wrigley, 1 at Milwaukee County Stadium), five hours of sleep, and each game with memories of it’s own.

And I love how every fan can love it’s own broadcaster. Of course, I am partial to Harry Kalas, though he isn’t what he used to be. The Phillies even have Chuck Brodsky, who writes and records baseball folk music, with half the songs being about Phillies, and the other half about the rest of the league.

It doesnt surprise me that you’re a baseball guy, and it further explains why I always come back to your blog.

Tom Hamilton may be a great baseball announcer, and you are lucky to have him there in Cleveland.

But I must say with all do respect, that Vin Sculley has been a gift from God for Dodger fans and baseball in general.

For 55 years Vin has been painting masterpieces in the Summertime.

In my mind, there will never be another like him.

Thank you Lord for Vin Sculley!

- Steve

Spiezo certainly has one of the Top 10 home runs in World Series history with the 3-run dinger in Game 6 against the Giants with the Angels down 5 runs in the 7th after the Rally Monkey made his appearance. I was at the Big A that night and it was so loud that I could not hear my brother-in-law screaming in my ear. Angels go on to win game and series. Largest come-from-behind victory in the WS history in an elimination game.

Pray for Scott and his family.

Sigh…

From a hopeless Cleveland Indians fan who totally gets where this post is coming from.

Baseball season is when my son and I connect in so many ways, with so many memories of talks while we listen to the games together. I hope when I am gone someday and he still listens, he will remember his dad and smile.

By the way, we have Tom Hamilton on the radio. There simply is NOOOOO other announcer like him on the globe. After one listen, there is no way you could say the Baseball is boring. I swear the man is going to have a stroke, heart attack, or both if the Indians win a World Series with a walk-off home run in the 9th of the 7th Game.

So will I.

Of course, now that I live in Baltimore, much the same can be said of Orioles fans.

Ah, just the mention of the subject takes me to my usual seat above third base at Dodger Stadium, or as I like to call it, “The Happiest Place on Earth,” Dodger Dog and beer in hand. And if you know anything about the Dodgers since 1988, you’ll know it’s about the place and the experience, not how the team is doing.

Jeff in Ohio, if I was around during that summer day, it was in newborn diapers. Living in the dorms at Fresno State in 1988, when scores of giants frontrunners became fair-weather Oakland fans watching in the TV rooms for a couple of weeks was sweet indeed for this lonely LA fan when Eckersley dealt that 3-2 slider to Kirk Gibson. As sweet as the series win itself.

My grandparents heard or saw all the great and not-so-great Dodger moments from the ’30’s on. The one I would have loved to accompanied them to was September 9, 1965 and Sandy’s gem against Jeff’s Cubs.

Y’all ever notice how many of the great moments in baseball history came at the expense of the Dodgers?

Lest you think I’m only about LA, I love it all. Especially anyone playing SF or the damn Yankees. I’ll watch any game and in some ways like a little league game just as much, in spite of coaches and parents’ attempts to wring the last drop of innocence from that venue, too. I’d enjoy college ball more if it weren’t for the infernal DINK of the aluminum bats. Real bats go CRACK!

Looking forward to seeing what Joe Torre does this season, no matter the incongruity of seeing him in a Dodgers uniform. When I can’t be at Chavez Ravine, I’ll be sitting in the stadium seats, bought during the recent renovation, in my garage, with a Bud in one hand and the transistor radio in the other, and imagine Grandpa is beside me.

A summer day, a pennant race — Fergie Jenkins pitching to Randy Hundley;
Joe Pepitone, Glenn Becker, Don Kessinger, Ron Santo;
Billy Williams, Jose Cardenal, Ernie “Let’s Play Two!” Banks; Leo Durocher in the dugout, Jack Brickhouse in the WGN booth. Park district bus tours to 1 pm weekday games, coming back with mini-bats (kids, don’t swing those at each other!) and real cloth baseball caps in Cubbie blue. Vienna red hots, and Heilmann’s Old Style beer scent on our sneakers, even as we drove past the steel mills (still operating, still erupting smoke and flame) on the way home.

There is an angel with a flaming sword standing between me and that Wrigley Field scene.

In ‘92 there was Francisco Cabrera’s hit and Sid Bream’s slide in the bottom of the 9th inning, with two outs, in Game 7 of the NLCS to beat the Pirates.

1993 featured the last great pennant race ever between the Braves and Giants (Giants won 103 games and didn’t go to the playoffs).

One of my worst memories would have to be seeing Chipper Jones injure his knee in Spring Training (against the Yankees, who trained in Ft. Lauderdale at the time) before the 1994 season (it would’ve been his rookie year - the strike wiped the season out, though). It was the first time I’d ever been to Spring Training.

1995 was the Braves World Series Championship year, and I was fortunate to be able to attend Games One and Six in Atlanta. Maddux and Glavine started those two games, and the Indians had three hits combined in the two games (Glavine’s was 8 innings, one hit, in the clincher). If you know baseball, you know how good that Indians team was offensively - until they ran into the Braves, of course.

1996 = Jim Leyritz homer of of Mark Wohlers in the World Series. I still get sick thinking about it. That launched the Yankees into their dynasty years, and the Braves have never been the same.

Another great moment was sitting with my dad behind Hank Aaron in right field for an “Old-Timers” game in the now destroyed Atlanta Fulton-County Stadium. That must’ve been around 1988 or so. Good times. I love baseball.

Seriously, I spent over a decade glued to the TV or trying to go to as many games as I could because the Braves were always so good. And in the early nineties it seemed like the entire season hinged upon every single pitch. Maybe you had to be there…

best memory would probably be a on july 4th a few years back when the braves beat the red sox in extra innings. nick green (a utility infielder) did terrible all game striking out several times, then ended up hitting a walk-off homer to win the game.

irony/tragedy? . . . try being a braves’ fan in october for the last 17 years.