Nettles diagnosed with prostate cancer

I loved him when I was a kid. One of my dad's favorite stories still... He used to take me to the Stadium and we'd get there early, stand by the players' entrance and then stand outside until the gates opened so I could watch batting practice. When I was nine, we were waiting to get in before a game. This was the Bronx is Burning era, so even right around the Stadium, it had that urban-decay 1970s NYC feel, and you never quite felt safe. My dad hated being around there until we would actually get inside the Stadium, but I took to it. There I was 9-years-old, waiting outside the stadium with my baseball glove, and arguing with a whino who was getting angrier by the minute about who was the better player -- Graig Nettles or George Brett.

The drunk was right.

My dad couldn't have been happier when the gates opened and he could get me away. To hear him tell it, I was minutes away from a malt liquor bottle cracking my skull. It's been a joke my whole life, though... "Hey Ragu (no, people don't call me Ragu), who was better, George Brett or Craig Nettles?"

By the way--not to make light of a guy with prostate cancer--but let's all hope that Nettle gets a Jewish surgeon.

 

Be nice, Bubbler. We are all family here. Besides, buckweaver spent most of '79 coked out, so it's unfair to expect him to remember little things like that.

 

In 1979, we ALL were on the '79 Pirates... Hell, I was only 11, and I was flying higher than a gob of dirt Earl Weaver was kicking at an umpire.

 

A little more reminiscent of Dale Berra. But with more power.