Your favorite player growing up

Hack Wilson

Posts: 333
Joined: Thu Aug 23, 2012 5:16 pm
Re: Your favorite player growing up
Unread postWed Feb 28, 2018 8:02 pm

Roberto Clemente, then Willie Stargell.

When does growing up end?

Only when we die. Then, if we go where the climate is good, we'll be greeted by Gehrig, Musial, Jackie at the autograph table. If we go where society is good, we'll be greeted at the table by Mantle, Ruth, and Rose. Can't lose either way!

Pete Rose.

Charlie Hustle represented the 'do the best with what you have' ethic embedded in those beyond Hope (British Columbia, that is)

The dismay of witnessing the ever downward spiral of a fallen hero is a great reminder of the fickle nature of existence.

All that said: through the years, as I grow older and not up, the players I hold as favourites are, in general chronological order:
Ernie Banks, Johnny Bench, Steve Rogers, Andre Dawson (with the added pox on bud selig and all his houses), Barry Bonds, Pedro (that would be Martinez), Junior (the Ken Griffey variety), Mariano Rivera, and that Harper kid playing for the Washington Expos.

Easy one. Mickey Mantle. We share the same Birthday.

Mickey Mantle.

I grew up in rural Oregon, where the nearest MLB team was in San Francisco...after the Giants moved there from NY.

So my MLB experience was limited to sports pages and watching the CBS Baseball Game of the Week on Saturdays, the only baseball on TV in those ancient times. (We were lucky enough to have a "TV set".) The Yankees were almost always one of the teams, and Mantle almost always hit a home run, if not two.

Very sad in 1961 when his late-season injury took him out of the race with Maris for 61 homers.

I also liked "Diamond" Jim Gentile, who usually hit a home run for the Orioles, one of the Yankees' frequent TV opponents.

Those TV games were called by (retired) Dizzy Dean and Pee Wee Reese, my favorite announcer team ever. I think Dizzy was only semi-literate, but his drawling commentary could be hilarious. If you are old enough, you might recall when Diz was fired by CBS.

I saw the game that resulted in his firing. During a rain delay, the camera was panning the crowd, and paused on a young couple making out in the bleachers. Pee Wee commented that they seemed to be enjoying the game, and Dizzy enthusiastically agreed, saying yup, he kisses her on the strikes, and she kisses him on the balls. I was too young to fully get the joke at the time, but it was the last straw for CBS, and Diz was gone.

I had a love-hate relationship with the Yankees...like most folks, I hated them for always winning, but they were "my" team, the only team I really knew, so I had to love them for that.

Continued over the years...loved the Yankee players and managers, but hated that they always won the pennant, if not the Series. Except for 1978(?), when they were well past their prime, but came from something like 18 games back to take the pennant in the final days, with Guidry's arm leading the way. That I loved.

I finally got to see Mantle in person in his final season (1969?), when I was in college, in a game against the Red Sox at Fenway. He pinch-hit late in the game. His knees were so bad he could barely get to the plate. No home run this time, just a mile-high infield popout, but one I still remember.

Ps to Tony Best: I also heard Mazeroski's homer to beat the Yankees on the radio. I was in school, but had a little transistor radio in my pocket, wired to an earplug, so I was able to listen to the World Series during class...the nuns never caught me!

I saw the game that resulted in his firing. During a rain delay, the camera was panning the crowd, and paused on a young couple making out in the bleachers. Pee Wee commented that they seemed to be enjoying the game, and Dizzy enthusiastically agreed, saying yup, he kisses her on the strikes, and she kisses him on the balls.

Sorry for the digression, but your Diz story reminded me of a hilarious Curt Gowdy blooper during a Pirates playoff game in the '70's. Stargell came to the plate late in the game in the middle of a Pirate rally. First pitch was outside and the Pirates fans roar. Second pitch was high and the Pirates fans roar even louder. Then Gowdy declares "Two big balls on Willie Stargell!" And there was silence in the booth for about two minutes. I think Gowdy and his partner must have hit the mute button while they rolled on the floor over his slip-up.

Gil Hodges was my favorite player, as a kid, growing up in Southern California.

You can't imagine the thrill in 1957, when we first heard the grumblings about the Dodgers moving to Los Angeles.

I wasn't a Brooklyn Dodger fan, but when they moved here, it was like a dream come true, for an eight year old.
We would finally have our own team, to follow. No more having to follow a St. Louis Cardinal team, which was the closest, but seemed like a whole country, away.

Gil, was my instant hero. I knew his best years were spent in Brooklyn, but he gave me a childhood of baseball memories.

When the Dodgers traded him in 1961, I was crushed. I still followed him with the Mets, then managing the Senators and finally managing the Miracle Mets to the World Series victory in 1969.

I still can't fathom why he is not in the Hall of Fame. I won't travel back to the Hall, until the Vets vote him in, like he should have been, years ago! It seems I am destined not to go back to Cooperstown and that's is a shame on them!

J.C. Martin backup catcher for the 1969 Mets and later played for Durocher with the Cubs said that the Cubs would of won the pennant under Hodges. Reason being Hodges never panicked, platooned and rested his players and was a very good mentor for young players whereas Leo was short tempered, ran his starters into the ground and had no use for young guys. Case in point Tommy Agee. Despite his awful 1968 season and slow start to 1969 Gil never lost faith in him. Adolpho Phillips got injured and Leo wrote him off leaving a huge hole in CF.

Nelson Fox, last of the place hitters. A diminutive artist with his bottle neck bat, Fox put seeing eye singles through the right side of the infield while Aparicio streaked to 3rd and sometimes home. He always had a huge chaw of tobacco in his cheek and every kid in the Chicago area little leagues had 3 or 4 pieces of Topps bubble gum in his mouth to emulate him. He was a wizard at 2nd base. His double plays in combination with Aparicio were poetry in motion. Nellie Fox was a baseball player.

Roberto.

I was an Expos/Jays fan so it was Dawson, Raines, Stieb, Fernandez. But the 80s were such a great time to be a young fan. I followed Mattingly, Boggs, Ripken, Murray, Evans, Whitaker, Trammell, Gibson, Murphy, Sandberg, Schmidt, Guerrero and so on like they were home players.

George Brett. One of the best clutch hitters I have seen.