All about me

By now I have a grand total of 12 people that semi - follow my scribblings on a routine basis, so while I have topics ready for delivery, this day I wanted to write about what makes me tick.

I am 54 years old, and still collect the odd baseball card, still trying desperately to recapture what was discarded in my youth.

You see I did not grow up with the Internet, or cable TV, or MLB TV, or any of those immediate media outlets.

I grew up with the radio, the daily newspaper, and the NBC Saturday Game of the Week with Curt Gowdy and Tony Kubek. In black and white mind you.

The Chicago White Sox had really White Sox, and the Yankees road grey uniforms were just that, grey and dirty. Then in 1969 we lucky folks Canada got our first team, and hell, it had to be in Montreal, but give Jean Drapeau and the Quebec government credit. Still I now had 2 games to watch, thanks to the CBC.

In my memory the World Series was played during the day, and if we were lucky, we would get home before the game was over, eat and then go out play ball hockey until the school lights were off. My first colour TV came in 1971, and suddenly the Cincinnati Reds were red, so was were the Red Sox, and the game changed.

I had those small samples of players in uniform in the form of Topps or Opee Chee and felt ripped off when a player had just a head shot, it was the only time I saw what they looked like.

So other than these cardboard images, we had only the sports section of the Toronto Star.

Until one day I ventured further and bought my first Sports

Illustrated, and Street & Smith. Colour pictures, and articles about Pete Rose, Frank Robinson, Canada's own Fergie Jenkins, and Rusty Staub and the Expos.

So about me again, I had the passion for hockey that is bred into every Canadian boy as a birthright, but I had a love for baseball that allowed me to find a true year round balance.

Hockey starts in October, just as baseball finishes, and hockey finished in April, early May, just as baseball begins. A nice balance for me. I tossed in my Argos, my lovable losers, and I was set. For a short while I even adopted the Buffalo Braves basketball team, but they moved west and became the Clippers of LA, and well that ended that.

Baseball was different than hockey, and as it turned out better for me, as I was a poor skater. I found out you just cannot play the game on concrete the same way you can on ice.

However baseball, and softball allowed me the chance that hockey couldn't, a chance to participate, and even excel. I could hit, and even better I could run, and I could field, so important if you want to avoid getting picked last.

What is my deepest love, it is my wife and kids, and having them in my life is thee most important thing in the world.

I have though this wonderful love of the old past time, and now I write about it, how lucky I am to have the opportunity to say what makes the game grand to me.

People have asked me why I do not write about hockey, and it is a hard one to answer, but it might come down to a few simple numbers, and why they stick out.

56

714

1.12

42

3000

I recognise all these numbers,

56 - DiMaggio's hitting streak

714- Ruth retired with 714 home runs

1.12 - Bob Gibson's 1968 earned run average

42 - Jackie Robinson wore that jersey number

3000 - it is a mark of excellence, but in my mind it represents the number of hits Clemente finished with.

Throw out the hockey numbers, how many goals did Howe or Orr finish with ?

What was Bobby Hull's 1st jersey # ?

What is the # of consecutive scoring ?

The only 2 numbers I still have is 103, which was Terry Sawchuck's shutouts and 14, Dave Keon's number, neither truly memorable

What makes me tick, I guess it is the ability to conger up something fabulous baseball wise in my head and when it happened, and replay it at my leisure.

Stats, columns, moments, and history of baseball make me tick, and always will.