Baseball

Baseball card defacing and old timey baseball roots.

Next Saturday is April 1st. My mother’s birthday. Also, first day of Major League Baseball. I never had the family backing of a team in baseball. We lived in Erie. Cleveland, OH and it’s teams were only 100 miles away. Buffalo, NY was about 100 miles away. Pittsburgh was a 2.5 hour drive south. I guess we could pick whatever team caught our collective eye.

Baseball card defacing. I recommend it along with your favorite beverage.

My earliest memory of baseball was my brief attempted tryout for a little league team one summer. I never even got to the point of demonstrating my six or seven year old abilities. The other kids I met there were no one I had ever seen in school and they all seemed older and mean. I think I just walked home since I was there with a fellow neighbor and our parents weren’t there. My parents didn’t think to push me toward baseball.

More defacing.

My grandmother, grandma Gretch, was the baseball fan. Her and my grandfather lived in Ellwood City, PA, just north of Pittsburgh. It was the mid to late 70’s and the Pittsburgh Pirates would eventually win the World Series in 1979. Willie Stargell was a real life superhero. My family would usually take my sister and I to visit after school let out for summer break in May or June. When visiting, there was always going to be a period of time that grandma wouldn’t be available because she’d be in her chair smoking and listening to the game on the radio.

Cosplay baseball. I saw a baseball game played by the original rules from the 1800’s while at Governors Island a bunch of years ago.

My mother picked up the affinity for the Pirates. I loosely followed their plight every year since the 70’s. I was already a night owl in my early teens and would watch the west coast games that would last until 1AM EST. I would draw while the game went on but I don’t remember caring a whole lot who won. I moved to NYC in the 90’s and by ‘95 I got a roommate who was a big Yankees fan. We started going to Yankee games. We had a Friday games package at Yankee Stadium in ‘95 and ‘96 and my roommate even waited overnight with a million other Yankee fans on the sidewalk in the Bronx for World Series tickets in ‘96. I’m happy to say I got to see a World Series for 25 dollars, unfortunately it was game 2 when the Atlanta Braves destroyed them in a hopeless rout as we sat in the bleachers during a drizzling rain in November that lasted the entire game. But I was a Yankees fan ever after.

All the clothing from this game was researched for historical accuracy. Right down to the bats. I didn’t ask about jock straps.

The World Trade Center was almost finished on the horizon. A nice contrast between the past and the present.

A-Rod. I knew too much about him to really like him. He made me realize that having an over the top super star wasn’t usually worth it. And then there’s that whole steroids controversy.

Go baseball!