My Love Affair with Baseball
Take me out to the Ballgame . . . Any Ballgame !!
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Hear Harry Sing! I was raised in the suburbs of New Orleans. Baseball in the Big Easy consisted only of the Pelicans --- a Pirate farm club in the Southern Association. For me, Baseball was (1) the Mutual Radio Network's "Game of the Day"; (2) Harry Caray and Joe Garagiola on the Cardinals radio network (KWKH in Shreveport); (3) Dizzy Dean and Buddy Blattner (and later on, Pee Wee Reese) on the Falstaff Saturday "Game of the Week"; (4) the New York Yankee broadcasts with Red Barber --- when I could get them. My dad built me a 40-foot high AM antenna so we could get the Yankee night games on some station in Ballantine? New York.
The White Sox had an affiliate in New Orleans; but I got so sick of Bob Elston singing the praises of Nellie Fox and "Little Looie" Aparicio in the Summer of '59, I refused to listen to Pale Hose games unless they were playing my beloved Yankees. The biggest Baseball thrill of my pre-APBA youth was the night my uncle took my cousin and me to a Pelicans vs Chattanooga Lookouts game to celebrate the last week of old Pelican Stadium. I don't remember the year, but I'll never forget the night! A Lookout was awarded a ground rule double when his line drive into the rightfield corner went through a rotten board!! Two weeks later, Pelican Stadium was demolished and Baseball died in New Orleans.
I couldn't get enough of Baseball. My friend, Ronnie Schexnayder, and I would go to the Rexall Drug Store and read The Sporting News till they kicked us out. We "invented" a baseball game made from two decks of cards, played an entire season, and kept batting averages using a book The Sporting News used to publish. We bought a five-dollar slide rule and learned how to use it for slugging averages and ERA's. When I wasn't playing "real" baseball, I was listening to games and fantasizing while we played our "cardball" game.
The Summer of 1960 dragged by. The White Sox had beat out the Yankees for the '59 AL pennant so I refused to listen to their games. I blamed the Pirates for the demise of the Pelicans, and they captured the NL flag. I had to get eyeglasses and ruined my career as a thirdbaseman. Then came the darkest hour of my youth ... that bastard Ralph Terry threw the gopher ball to Mazeroski!!! I decided that if I had been managing the Yankees, they would have crushed the traitorous Pirates. Ronnie and I cut out an APBA ad from The Sporting News world series wrap-up issue. We sent off for the free sample card and the "full color" brochure. We pooled our money and pre-ordered the 1961 version of the game so that we would have it for Opening Day.
