Play Ball

ACB

Time for some BASEBALL!

fels

CO Rockies - start 2 wins look in trouble in third game

Dr GO

The Cincinnati Red Legs started it all, and while this isn't an opening day game ball, it has special meaning to me. In the 1965 mid-season, Ronnie Dale, the organist at Crosley Field for the Reds asked me to play a seventh inning stretch at a home game. This is a picture of the ball the team autographed for me in the dugout at the end of the game. On that ball, among many amazing stars you will note the names of Frank Robinson and Pete Rose. Off to the left side is a picture I use to back up this ball which is me playing the Hammond B3 at the club where Ronnie Dale played the organ when he was not playing for the Reds.

mafields627

Great playing, but way too peppy for us Braves fans! #needabullpen

ACB

Sox are looking rough... but the season is early!

Kehaulani

I've got a personally autographed ball too - the BROOKLYN Dodgers. Mid 50s. Includes an autograph of my role model at the time, Roy Campanella.

BigDub

@Kehaulani said in Play Ball:

I've got a personally autographed ball too - the BROOKLYN Dodgers. Mid 50s. Includes an autograph of my role model at the time, Roy Campanella.

My Dad was the biggest Brooklyn Dodger fan. Jackie Robinson was his favorite, but when Roy Campanella had the accident right near our home on Long Island, he was devastated. My brother and I were very young at the time
and thought someone very close to him had died. We didn’t understand the significance at the time.

ButchA

Baseball?

I was born, bred, and raised, and diehard NY Mets fan!

As a kid growing up in upstate New York (Poughkeepsie) -- roughly 2 hours, including traffic, from NYC, we would always go down to Shea Stadium (now Citi Field) and see the Mets play ball. So many wonderful memories!

Edit (to make this trumpet related): Can you imagine playing trumpet in the stadium, out on the field at 2nd base or something? Or play like The Beatles did back in the day, and have so many screaming fans, that you can't even hear yourself play? LOL...

LET'S GO METS!!!

NY.Mets.jpg

Tobylou8

@ButchA said in Play Ball:

Baseball?

I was born, bred, and raised, and diehard NY Mets fan!

As a kid growing up in upstate New York (Poughkeepsie) -- roughly 2 hours, including traffic, from NYC, we would always go down to Shea Stadium (now Citi Field) and see the Mets play ball. So many wonderful memories!

Edit (to make this trumpet related): Can you imagine playing trumpet in the stadium, out on the field at 2nd base or something? Or play like The Beatles did back in the day, and have so many screaming fans, that you can't even hear yourself play? LOL...

LET'S GO METS!!!

I remember watching the Phillies and Mets on Philly channel 17 in June of '69 with my grandfather. We really didn't watch much baseball growing up and I didn't know all the teams, but to a me, the Mets name sounded cooler than the Phillies. Grandpa (who was from Philly) asked me who I was rooting for and I said , "The Mets"! "Humph, they're terrible", was his reply!

Robrtx

World Champion Boston Red Sox !

BigDub

@ButchA said in Play Ball:

Baseball?

I was born, bred, and raised, and diehard NY Mets fan!

As a kid growing up in upstate New York (Poughkeepsie) -- roughly 2 hours, including traffic, from NYC, we would always go down to Shea Stadium (now Citi Field) and see the Mets play ball. So many wonderful memories!

Edit (to make this trumpet related): Can you imagine playing trumpet in the stadium, out on the field at 2nd base or something? Or play like The Beatles did back in the day, and have so many screaming fans, that you can't even hear yourself play? LOL...

LET'S GO METS!!!

Me, too. Diehard Mets fan. They actually look like there is some Hope this year. Though I say this same thing every year around this time......I was originally a Yankee fan until my idol Mickey Mantle started to decline and in my young idealistic mind thought he was not hustling any more. I disgustedly turned to the Mets and was quite entertained by them. I had no expectations and they were met....pun intended. Now I am incurable. Help!

Tobylou8

@Robrtx said in Play Ball:

World Champion Boston Red Sox !

Yaz was the man when I was a kid! Triple Crown winner in '67!

administrator

I advocate a change to the lyrics of the "baseball song" to make it more relevant:

"For it's root, root root for the home team!
If they don't win let's ****ing riot
For it's 1! 2! 3 shots you're dead at the old, ball game!"

BigDub

@ButchA
I was born a little too early to be a Mets fan. There were no Mets, Mariners, Orioles, at least by that name in Baltimore, Angels, Astros, Brewers, Rockies, Expos, Toronto Blue Jays, Nationals , Twins, or Marlins when I was born, either.
I think the Phillies were the Blue Jays very, very early on, by the way. I have visited the Baseball hall of fame at least three times, and I try to read everything in front of me!

BigDub

@BigDub while on the subject of Play Ball, here are some thoughts: I feel a batter does not deserve to get to run to first base when he has just struck out, as in when the third strike is dropped by the catcher. It’s not like he accomplished something. He missed the ball. He didn’t hit it. This just happened. And it was someone from my team that made it safely to first base.
If that can be done, why can’t the batter tag up on his own fly ball out? Now that would make things interesting!

ButchA

@BigDub

I was always a Mets fan. My whole family was. Before I was born (1961) everyone rooted for the Brooklyn Dodgers. If you rooted for the Yankees, you were almost ostracized and cut out of a will! LOL!!

I have been to Yankee Stadium only one time when I was a kid, and that was just for historical purposes, just to say "I've been there". We didn't root for either team, but were there marveling at the stadium and how rabid the fans were.

See, in New York, you can only be a Mets fan or a Yankees fan -- you can't be both. I have seen the Mets so many times over the years, and sat all over the stadium. The best seats (going back to the days of Shea Stadium) we always tried to get were the 2nd level above the Mets dugout, along 1st base. We always brought along our baseball gloves too, in hopes of catching a foul ball. Plus with me playing varsity baseball in HS (right field), I always watched the 1st baseman (lefty) and the right fielder (lefty), since I was sort of an odd-ball in my baseball stance, where I batted righty but threw lefty. It always threw the opposing team at first, since they assumed I batted lefty, but I'd step up to the plate righty and their fielders would immediately have to reposition themselves. LOL...

So many fond memories of baseball! What I wouldn't give to be here!

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BigDub

@ButchA
I am sad to say there are some folks who like both the Mets and the Yankees.....in my mind, I agree with you, Butch, if you are a true met fan, you should really hate the Yankees.
Historically, there were no bigger Yankee haters than were Brooklyn Dodger Fans, with good reason! Yankees beat the, in the series far too many times! My Dad was a life long Brooklyn Dodger fan and never recovered when they moved to LA. He never once showed a liking for them and couldn’t seem to land on any other team to like. He became sort of a Cubs fan, since they seemed to have a similar fate with World Series failure and such. I usually tell people that I have two favorite teams: the Mets, and anyone who happens to be playing the Yankees on a given day! I actually had an opportunity to go to a Yankees pre game locker room chapel service. I did not avail myself of such an opportunity. I felt I would feel as though I was being a total phony and would feel as though I betrayed my beloved Mets.

Speaking of Mets. The Miracle Mets of 1969 had three players from Mobile Alabama in the outfield. Tommie Agee, Cleon Jones, and Amos Otis. A few days ago the National ABC new media was in Mobile interviewing Cleon over the finding of the wreck of the ship Clotilda. He was among one of a handful of people long supporting Africa Town and the search for the Clotilda. It was obvious the reporter didn't know who Cleon was....guess it was ancient history the Mets winning a World Series. Why shouldn't they have taken notice? Sad in a way though. The Coltilda was the last ship to bring African slaves to the US , illegally by all laws at the time, thirty or more years before the Civil War. It was done as a bet by one rich man to show that he could do it. The "illegal" contraband colonized what is known as Africa Town as a section of North Mobile.