AP story on Robinson's first game

I think he was being facetious, buckdub. Unless said scenario really happened.

 

This place was a hoot even in 1947, was my point.

 

Well, it wasn't your fault. There were posts that got in the way, posts about other stories in other decades. If I had been quicker on the draw with my post, it would have brought down the house.




Or at least you would have gotten it.

 

buckdub, you get a year's worth of free passes. You bring the goods to 99.8 percent of the posts you post.

 

You know what kind of free pass would totally kick ass? An MLB gold card. Lifetime pass to any major league game.

I don't know if there's ever been a list compiled of the individuals who have been granted gold passes by MLB/commissioner's office. I know the most famous example is the Iran hostages -- Bowie Kuhn said then that he'd be "hard-pressed" to remember any other time he had given out a lifetime pass, but this 2006 WaPo <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/01/26/AR2006012601907.html">letter to the editor</a> came from the son of a Vietnam POW; he said Kuhn gave one to his father after he was liberated from the Hanoi Hilton in 1973.

Here's something else; not a lifetime pass, but a pretty cool season pass nonetheless:

 

The NYT game story didn't mention race. Robinson's name is in it once, buried in play by play without identification other than to say he became a baserunner by putting down a bunt. The morning of the game, though, Arthur Daley devoted half his column to the moment. He called Robinson "a pioneer" and "the first Negro in modern times to get a chance to become a big-leaguer." Also said Robinson "almost has to another DiMaggio" from the start to meet expectations. "It's his burden to carry from now on and he must carry it alone," Daley wrote.

 

SJ ripped the shit out of Bill Simmons' ten-page telegram on Robinson's first game. I remember it well. Simmons was a little too enamored with Clara Bow and Charleston dance references, not to mention his preference for silent movies and aversion to "talkies" which was embarassing by '47. His child of the 20s, it was better before the Depression, life was more fun with Prohibition act was wearing way thin.

It was a quaint time. SJ Masturbation Nation made due with pinup girls, Olive Oyl from Popeye, radio commercials ("that chick in the Studebaker commercial? Damn ... her voice gets me haaaard!"), and Fox Movietone newsreels ("Eleanor Roosevelt. Listen bub, she ain't the prettiest dame in the cantina, but brother, let me tell ya. The minute I unzip my chinos, she'd have a new deal of a different kind! She wouldn't have to go to the United Nations to know what Dirty Sanchez is if you catch my drift, fella.)

 

But take a look at Rice's obit for Babe Ruth. Remarkable short, I think, yet still powerful.

 

Buck, do you have lots of Black Sox memorabilia? I'm jealous.

 

USA Today had a nice story on its front that day.

Joke.