Baseball Stories

[HeinekenMan]

I just read a short column in the local rag. Some old guy was talking about growing up in New York and following the Yankees.

It reminded me of the stories my grandpa, a St. Louis Cardinals fan, once told me. My family lived in Germany from ages 3-5. So I didn't really meet my grandfather until I was 6. I can't remember much about him, but I'll always remember him talking about Stan Musial, the Dean brothers, Bob Gibson and Lou Brock and the '68 Cards.

Despite two kidney transplants, he died when I was 8 in 1981. The following summer, the Cardinals won the World Series. I remember thinking of him as the players stormed the field.

What baseball stories do you remember from your parents and grandparents? There must be some great ones.

 

[Flying Headbutt]

Last time I saw my grandpa I asked him about Cy Young, since they were from the same town. Everyone respected Cy he told me as a player, but thought he was a fool always running back along those dirt roads. Like he was trying to get out of doing any work.

Incidentally I just finished Cal Fussman's book "After Jackie" which talked to a bunch of former Negro Leaguers and others and basically just had them tell stories and he printed them in the book. Very conversational. Great, great read.

 

[HeinekenMan]

I'll have to check that out. Can't imagine hearing stories about Cy Young.

 

[Flying Headbutt]

His career in the big leagues was over before my grandpa was born, but still managed to keep around years afterwards.

 

[Cadet]

Good topic, HM. Unfortunately, neither of my grandfathers were sports fans. My dad was kind of a Cardinals fan but lived half a country away in BFE and has never attended a game. I grew up hearing more about high school sports in my state than any professional sports.

 

[MartinEnigmatica]

My high school geometry teacher would occasionally bring in these unbelievable pieces of merchandise, mainly on Fridays. He'd come in one week wearing Richie Ashburn's jersey, bring uncut sheets of baseball cards in another. And he always wore this enormous ring from the Whiz Kids' NL pennant season. He never played pro ball, but was old enough to have known some of them.

I never got the chance to ask him where he got it, because in the summer before my senior year, he died while at a Phillies game. So bittersweet, but so fitting.

 

[Starman]

My mother's mother was born in 1896, and lived in downtown Detroit most of her childhood.

Her father, quite a well-off lumber company owner, used to take her to Tiger games when she was in grade school (somewhat unusual at the time), in the 1900s. They would sit in the grandstand and "hear words they never heard before" from a young kid from Georgia who had just come up to the team. :o :o :o She said, 80+ years later, "I still don't know what half of them mean."

 

[buckweaver]

Cool story, starman. My father's father was from suburban Detroit, and he used to tell me stories about watching Greenberg and Gehringer and Cochrane -- and even better stories of Red Wings games before they built the glass above the boards. He said it used to be a chain-link or chicken-wire fence.

His favorite Tiger as a kid was Billy Rogell and, later, Prince Hal.

My aunt has a picture of him as a high school B.M.O.C., playing in an all-star baseball game at Briggs (Tiger) Stadium. He stood in once against Billy Pierce, the future White Sox left-hander, three years older than him, and said Pierce was the fastest pitcher he ever faced. Said he could only manage a dribbler to first base off him. ... And he was uber-proud of me for getting a groundout against the future big-leaguer that I faced. Even though he was 10x the player I was, he made it sound like I was his equal in talent. Not even close.

 

[Huggy]

The first job I had out of high school, one of the managers was a 60ish chap who was a huge sports fan.

Sometimes we'd eat lunch together and he'd tell me about his days watching the old Toronto Maple leafs of the International League. There was a book published during the Blue Jays first season about the history of baseball in Toronto and I brought it in one day for him to look at. He must have spent a week's worth of lunch hours remembering the Leafs and many of their opponents, including Jackie Robinson. Great, great stuff.

A few years back my wife's company had a box at the SkyDome and her department would get to go to one Jays game a year in the box. She took me and one of her co-workers always brought her mother who was a huge baseball fan. One year I was sitting watching the game with her and she told me when her and her husband were first married they lived in the same Montreal apartment building as the Robinsons and became quite friendly with them because they were huge baseball fans. She said they exchanged Christmas cards for years.

 

[lantaur]

My grandfather played semi-pro ball in Pennsylvania and every year they'd go see the A's play, and they'd do it when the Yankees came to town.

The one story I remember him telling me was how he saw Babe Ruth come up to bat .. and bunt for a hit.

 

[mike311gd]

I posted this in the running baseball thread a couple weeks ago, but it's my favorite baseball story from my grandpa.

He played in the minors with the Poughkeepsie Giants in the 40s and 50s. There, he played against Don Drysdale, Nellie Fox, among others and broke eight different fingers behind the dish.

One game, his team was playing Don Drysdale and some dude launched a ball out of the park and watched it a little bit. My grandpa stepped to the plate, and all he heard was Drysdale yelling, "Boy, you better duck." Sure enough, the next pitch was at my grandpa's head. He made sure to duck.

 

[buckweaver]

I posted this in the running baseball thread a couple weeks ago, but it's my favorite baseball story from my grandpa.

He played in the minors with the Poughkeepsie Giants in the 40s and 50s. There, he played against Don Drysdale, Nellie Fox, among others and broke eight different fingers behind the dish.

One game, his team was playing Don Drysdale and some dude launched a ball out of the park and watched it a little bit. My grandpa stepped to the plate, and all he heard was Drysdale yelling, "Boy, you better duck." Sure enough, the next pitch was at my grandpa's head. He made sure to duck.

Hey ump, how 'bout a warning?

Sure, kid. ... Watch out ya don't get killed. :D

 

[mike311gd]

I posted this in the running baseball thread a couple weeks ago, but it's my favorite baseball story from my grandpa.

He played in the minors with the Poughkeepsie Giants in the 40s and 50s. There, he played against Don Drysdale, Nellie Fox, among others and broke eight different fingers behind the dish.

One game, his team was playing Don Drysdale and some dude launched a ball out of the park and watched it a little bit. My grandpa stepped to the plate, and all he heard was Drysdale yelling, "Boy, you better duck." Sure enough, the next pitch was at my grandpa's head. He made sure to duck.

Hey ump, how 'bout a warning?

Sure, kid. ... Watch out ya don't get killed. :D

Basically. And they didn't even wear helmets, let alone several pounds of armor. Players back then weren't a bunch of pussies. Of course, I've got nothing against wearing a helmet. Just like this guy ...

 

[CentralIllinoisan]

My grandfather was dying of emphysema in late 1992, and in his living room sat a hospital bed from which he lived out his days. He'd watch little more than the news and St. Louis Cardinals games. Lee Smith, the Cardinals shaky closer, would give my grandfather more consternation than he needed in his weakened state.

My sisters, eight years old at the time, purchased their Christmas gifts from the annual "Santa's Workshop" at school. They'd get a few dollars from my mother, and spend a little on each of us. A pair of work gloves for dad; a pot holder for mom. That year, Amber bought my grandfather a miniature St. Louis Cardinals helmet for the television tray beside his bed. Autumn bought him a small compass, a suction cup affixed at the bottom.

After giving him the gifts, Autumn said something to the effect, "When you go away you know where you're going." And Amber added, "And I you'll always be able to think about the Cardinals."

Those gifts remained, side-by-side, at that table, unmoved until his death the following year. My family then realized my sisters were special people. And that their grandfather appreciated it.

 

[HeinekenMan]

Wow. Some great stories here. Thanks, everyone, for sharing.

I think one of the most exciting things in my life was when I went to watch the Cal Ripken World Series at the park where I played my Little League games, which were actually called Bambino League games in those days.

I am something of a legend on that field, or at least I was for a few years. Let's just say that I came to be known as Rainbow Ronnie.

Anyway, a helicopter landed on the mound where I had thrown my ephus pitch, and out hopped Lou Brock. I never saw him play, but it was sort of surreal to see him there in a little old Midwestern city standing on my pitching mound. Hell, I threw so slow he probably could have stolen two bases at once on me without a throw.