TRIVIA WINNER: Congrats to Dan Taguchi of Los Angeles,
who correctly identified 1965 as the year the Beatles played Shea Stadium. The Prize: Starbucks Gift Card.
NEW TRIVIA CONTEST: By answering the TRIVIA QUESTION CORRECTLY you are automatically entered into a weekly drawing for a Starbucks Gift Card. Please enter via brillpro@gmail.com and please put your mailing address in with the answer so we can send you the gift card in the mail.
ANSWER to the Trivia question in the previous column: The Beatles played Shea Stadium in August 1965.
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NEW TRIVIA QUESTION: Three of the four players listed in the column below all played in what same city during their career?
We are going to do something a little different this week. Reading our column has brought back some fun memories for some folks, so we thought we'd highlight a few.
Lin Christensen Bentrup, of Yankton, SD, relayed this story.
You
recently asked for favorite 1960's players. I loved all of the TWINS,
but Bob Allison was the first of "my boys." We were behind, Bob was
due up. This 11 year old yelled "Hit a homer Bob!" & just like that
it was over the Old Met score board! I KNEW he'd done it just for me! I
finally met him years later with my 2 kids & related the story. The
always kind gentleman signed his card to me & allowed us to pose
with him for pix. The following year God called him home. Thanks for
letting me tell that story once again.
Samuel Barrett of Phenix City, AL, sent us this story.
You may be interested to hear about a very
interesting family connection on my dad's side with a talented player
who debuted with your Pirates in the late 60's.
My
Pop (Grandfather) was in the Air Force back in the 60's when shortstop
Freddie Patek was, and he was even in my Pop's "group." Patek was
playing for the Air Force baseball team when he came to my Pop and
requested a hardship discharge to take care of a family business. My Pop
granted it and got it through pretty quickly, so Patek went home.
Not
too long after that, the manager of the Air Force team came into my
Pop's office mad because he discharged the star shortstop. Pop told him
that he needed to help with the family business. The manager said
"That's not what he's doing. He's been drafted by the Pittsburgh Pirates
and is going to play baseball!" My Pop, smart man he is, replied "Well,
he'll probably be making more money there than he is here."
I
wrote a letter explaining this story to Patek a couple months ago. He
doesn't typically respond through the mail, but 4 days later he called
me and talked to me for 10 minutes about the story and my Pop. He and my
Pop have since talked on the phone, and I will call him back soon to
talk baseball.
Bob Ibach of Chicago, IL told us this story.
My
dad was personnel director for Grand Union supermarkets when I resided
in Rockville, MD as a kid. In the middle 1960s, they had an outing at
the Senators ballpark and Frank Howard was out in the bullpen before the
game with our group, giving us tips.
I became a Senators usher when attending college. I got a chance
to chat with Frank on occasion. In 1969, I had an internship with the
Washington Post and was assigned to cover a Senators game--and guess
what, I interviewed Howard after the game, much to his bewilderment.
That's because in the later 1960s, in addition to my usher job at the
park, I worked part time on the weekends at Grand Union as a bag boy,
putting groceries in the car. Frank lived just blocks away from
our store and on Saturdays, I'd let him in EARLY before
we opened and helped push a shopping cart around inside the store so he
could load up for his family of 7
kids.
So
when Frank saw me that day in the Senators locker
room, he greeted me with this bewildered look and said, "they let bag
boys in here now?" We both shared a laugh.
In the 1970s I had gone on to the Baltimore Evening Sun and was the
beat reporter covering the Orioles. So when Frank would play the O's I'd see him again in the locker
room. "Man, you've been shadowing me for a decade," he would greet me
saying. "When you gonna give it a rest?"
In the 1980s, I was the Cubs PR director and I'd see Frank around the league. We'd sit
and chat. After my boss, GM Dallas Green left the Cubs and went to
become the Yankees manager, one evening I went up to nearby Milwaukee
cause the Yanks were in town. Dallas invited me to dinner after a day
game. So I'm sitting down for dinner
and who walks in to join us? Frank Howard, who was
also a Yankees coach. He saw me and laughed out loud--"Oh my God,
Dallas, this guy has been following me since the early 1960s!"
When the Washington Nationals made it into the WS a few
years ago. My son Kevin, who works for
MLB got the two of us tickets for 2
WS games in DC. Sitting in the lower grandstands, not far from
the Nationals dugout before that first game, who comes out from the
dugout area, now in a wheelchair? None other than Frank Howard. I
couldn't believe my eyes. He had been chosen to toss out the first
ball.
I
yelled out to Hondo and he looked around at me, started to laugh, and
yelled back "will you ever give it a rest?" Then he saluted me and my
son. I had tears in my eyes, seeing him in a wheelchair at this stage
of his life. But that smile we shared for a moment that night made me
feel good inside. Our journey through baseball had come to this, a
beautiful ending that had gone on for over 50 years.
And finally this one from E J Caine of Los Angeles.
I'm from Indianapolis, and I met Don Rudolph when I was a kid and he would come into my Dad's little drug store and pick up scripts for his wife, Patti (Waggin).
My first encounter with Don Rudolph was through my father, Jack Caine,
in the early summer of 1961. I was 9 years old, and my father was a
pharmacist in downtown Indianapolis. His store was located
very close to the Fox Theatre, probably the best-known burlesque theatre
in Indianapolis. Patti was a dancer there, and Don was the star
pitcher for the Indianapolis Indians, then the AAA farm team for the
Chicago White Sox. One time, my
father phoned home while Don was in his store, and had me speak to him.
At the time, this was probably the most thrilling thing to have
happened to me. The rest of the summer, for me, was a continuance of
that: being allowed into the Indians' club house, getting a team
autographed baseball, meeting Don on various occasions.
Don was probably the star pitcher of the American Association (the
AAA league that the Indians belonged to) in 1961, going 18-9 with an ERA
well below 3.00, and getting a lot of local press. When he pitched the
next season for the Senators, the local press would also make a big
deal of the games that he pitched. I think that he may have had a
streak of 26 or 27 innings of shutout ball in 1962. He would send me
postcards throughout the seasons of 1962 and '63. As well, during the
holiday season, our family would get a card from his family for a couple
of years. I can remember getting a postcard from him at the end of the '63 season, saying something like, "I guess my prediction for a 20
game winning season went the other way."He went 7-19 for the Senators that year. He invited my family up to
Comiskey Park for the last game between the
White Sox and the Senators. I can remember that he spoke with us for a
few minutes, and that was the last time that we saw or spoke to him.
T
