A Sense of Doubt blog post #2963 - BASEBALL IS BACK!! Hello 2023 MLB season!
Welcome back Baseball!!
Welcome back Baseball!!
Usually, on the first day of Baseball season, I try to be home and watching my favorite teams (Tigers and Cubs) on TV with the radio broadcast overlay for audio (as I prefer the radio announcers over the TV ones for my favorite teams ... and for most teams).
However, today, I am at a conference in Renton (near Seattle) for online learning systems -- WA Annual Canvas Conference (WACC) 2023 -- and I am currently in a session with the Tigers game (muted) streaming on my phone.
It's been a long layoff since daily Baseball (since September), and now, for the next six months, there will almost always be some Baseball somewhere and my favorite teams will play 162 games. I will watch/listen to the majority of them.
Here's a video from ESPN that was inspiring for me to get me fired up about the season. I am following that video with three former posts that I published on the opening day of Baseball season in 2019, 2017, and 2016.
Here's a video from ESPN that was inspiring for me to get me fired up about the season. I am following that video with three former posts that I published on the opening day of Baseball season in 2019, 2017, and 2016.
BTW, I capitalize Baseball because I consider it my personal religion. I am somewhat tongue-in-cheek about the religion thing (not really but really).
Excited to have Baseball back in my daily life.
Excited to have Baseball back in my daily life.
Thanks for tuning in.
A Sense of Doubt blog post #1498 - Welcome Back Baseball - 2019 - I need you
Baseball started today, officially. There were two games in Japan last week, and though those count, they do not count as Tigers or Cubs games but as Mariners or Athletics games, and so for me, the 2019 Baseball season just began.
Baseball.
I need it in my life.
Hey, Baseball, thank you for existing.
"Well -- it's our game; that's the chief connection with it: America's game; it has the snap, go, fling of the American atmosphere; it belongs as much to our institutions, fits into them as significantly as our Constitution's laws; is just as important in the sum total of our historic life." ~ Walt Whitman
"Baseball," the poet Donald Hall told us in a filmed interview, "because of its continuity over the space of America and the time of America, is a place where memory gathers."
"The story of Baseball is also the story of race in America, of immigration and assimilation; of the struggle between labor and management, of popular culture and advertising, of myth and the nature of heroes, villains, and buffoons; of the role of women and class and wealth in our society. The game is a repository of age-old American verities, of standards, against which we continually measure ourselves, and yet at the same time a mirror of the present moment in our modern culture -- including all of our most contemporary failings.
"But we were hardly prepared for the complex emotions the game summoned up. The accumulated stories and biographies, the life-lessons and tragedies, dramatic moments and classic confrontations that we encountered daily began to suggest even more compelling themes. As Jacques Barzun has written, "Whoever wants to know the heart and mind of America had better learn baseball"
(Burns and Lynn Novick, xviii, preface, Baseball, an Illustrated History 1994).
"The historian Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. has remarked that we suffer today from "too much pluribus and not enough unum." Fe things survive in these cynical days to remind us of the Union from which so many of our personal and collective blessings flow, and it is hard not to wonder, in an age when the present moment consumes and overshadows all else -- our bright past and our dim, unknown future -- what finally does endure? What encodes and stores the genetic material of our civilization -- passing down to the next generation the best of us, what we hope will mutate into betterness for our children and our posterity? Baseball provides one answer. Nothing in our daily life offers more of the comfort of continuity, the generational connection of belonging to a vast and complicated American family, the powerful sense of home, the freedom from time's constraints, and the great gift of accumulated memory than does our National pastime" (Burns and Lynn Novick, xviii, preface, Baseball, an Illustrated History 1994).
"I miss my father... God, I love baseball." from Roy Hobbes in The Natural
2006 Detroit Tigers win American League Championship and advance to the WORLD SERIES.
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- Bloggery committed by chris tower - 1903.28 - 10:10
- Days ago = 1363 days ago
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Hey, Mom! Talking to My Mother #634 - Welcome Back Baseball
Hi Mom,
April Fool's!! Tomorrow is actually the start of Baseball season.
I went out to visit Dad today, and we walked to the church. We visited your Memorial, Mom, and where we buried your ashes.
Then we had breakfast and did some things back at the condo.
We talked about how we missed you, Mom, and how we wish we had diagnosed you better in 2000 to avoid all of this that happened to you.
I miss Baseball, too, but it's hardly the same. Not even in the same league. heh.
Still, Baseball is an easy thing to miss because it always comes back in the spring. My, my, how metaphorical. It dies in the Fall and is reborn in the Spring. Gee wiz.
Whizbang.
I am still on a Cubs kick because, well, you know, THEY WON THE WORLD SERIES!!
Tigers and Cubs.
These are my two favorite teams in both Baseball and in all of sports.
As a long suffering fan of both, I had seen only TWO World Series championships before last year. So, now it's three:
2017 Chicago Cubs
1984 Detroit Tigers
1968 Detroit Tigers
And I was pretty young in 1968. I really enjoyed that 1968 championship more when I got into Baseball around 1970-71.
Anyway, now I am a fan (a long suffering fan) of the WORLD CHAMPIONS.
It feels really good.
But I am not counting on a repeat.
Repeats are hard.
But Baseball is back. The Cubs have their first game of the 2017 season tomorrow, Sunday, night, against the Cardinals in St. Louis. The Tigers open the season Monday afternoon (4:10 p.m.) in Chicago against the White Sox.
I wish my teams well.
In celebration of the return of Baseball season, here's TWO T-shirts reprints. I could edit them and take out text about the T-shirt blog process, but I didn't; I won't.
These were originally presented in:
T-shirt #341 - Chicago Cubs Blue Long Sleeved
As I count down to March 22nd, when it all began last year for this blog, there's going to be quite a few Baseball shirts (which if you recall I deify with a capital letter). Since I already shared all but one of my Detroit Tigers shirts, and I am saving that last Tigers shirt for the final week, you will probably see several CUBS T-shirts, as I have quite a few remaining.
Also, given that I am still behind, I am trying to avoid falling farther behind by not posting any more incomplete entries. To accomplish this goal, I have to keep it short and simple.
Baseball's spring training has begun. Players have reported and games begin soon.
I am starting to get excited again for Baseball season.
I am a bit of a stats nut, as I have mentioned before, so getting ready for Baseball season again means pouring over stats and planning my FANTASY BASEBALL TEAMS.
USA Today did a smart thing by hiring Ron Shandler and launching its own exclusive chats service with
BASEBALL HQ.
I am a subscriber both to this service, which means I receive the stats-tastic excellence of the BASEBALL FORECASTER book, AND a subscriber to SPORTS WEEKLY, which used to be Baseball Weekly, which I can now read on my tablet as well as in paper form.
I have spent many long hours considering complex measures of hitting and pitching to optimize playing Fantasy Baseball games which I do for free and for which I earn no money. Seems a bit crazy. I love it.
A friend of my wife's and mine is trying to engage in political debate on Facebook, and I care for very little for that debate or politics compared to Baseball.
Time for Baseball.
Let's PLAY BALL!!
THE BLOG'S FUTURE
Lastly, I have made an executive decision about the blog about which I plan to expound in future entries. This decision has to do with focusing almost exclusively on shirts I already owned when I started the blog to finish out my remaining, as of today, 24 entries. I over-indulged in asking for gifts of T-shirts for Christmas and my Birthday, and I now have far more T-shirts than I need to complete my remaining 24 daily entries.
So what's next? For the next three weeks and three days, I will continue to post with T-shirts from my collection for the most part from the time I started the blog. I cannot promise that I will not be inspired to share a new shirt, but I want to take my time with many of these longer essays that I have been planning and do not seem to be able to complete, especially since I am having trouble even keeping up with short to moderate daily entries.
Once I reach March 22nd, daily entries will cease. I will begin to work on these longer entries on the newer shirts and the remaining shirts that do not get posted and share them with you on a weekly basis. At least that's the plan. I may get inspired and post more often. I may also take a break before the next T-shirt post. I suspect I will be a bit worn out after posting one T-shirt a day for 365 days straight!!
I am also going to devote myself more regularly to fiction writing, which will become part of my new blog and Internet presence post the year of T-shirts. This will also mean more regular blog entries (short bits) from the source blog, SENSE OF DOUBT.
Stay Tuned!
HIATUS TEXT: REVISED 1402.18: I have been trying to maintain a hiatus from large or over involved blog posts beginning with the start date of my hiatus on January 20th (almost a month ago) during which time I logged 21 posts, which I consider "Hiatus Shirts." By this term, Hiatus Shirt, I mean the shirt is not one that would cause me to write a great deal on the subject it features. These are shirts about which I can write anything, either a lot or a very little. The hiatus will continue, though as it has for the last few weeks, not consecutively as I will continue to mix Hiatus and Non-Hiatus shirts. The blog's year (365 shirts) draws close to a close. (I like the double word use in that previous sentence.) I hope to finish strong with some good entries with high quality content and imagery on some beloved subjects. To earn this time, I will need to intersperse shirts of little consequence, what I have come to call Hiatus Shirts.
My original goal of working ahead remains. I need time to write the enormously lengthy text to complete the extensive love letter to certain beloved popular culture icons featured on my many special shirts. Even with "Hiatus Shirts," I will try to share some worthy content as I have either an idea, a new suggestion of something to read/look at/listen to, or another installment of my various features, such as the WHY T-SHIRTS item, the WEEKLY COMIC BOOK LISTS, and the SHIRT I AM ACTUALLY WEARING TODAY among others. BTW, this is the standard HIATUS TEXT that I will include in every "hiatus shirt" entry.
Thanks for reading. I am always honored that people have taken some of their valuable time to look at my ongoing web writing project. Keep checking this address. I promise to make it worthwhile.
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COUNTDOWN TO END OF THE BLOG YEAR - 24 shirts remaining
- chris tower - 1402.25 - 19:49
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T-shirt #352 - Cub Fan - Bart Man
Baseball season is upon us, and I am making my nefarious plans for my Fantasy Baseball Empire with my first draft tonight.
Actually, I am going to wing it. I don't have time to prepare my own stats log and analysis, so I am going with the work of Baseball Forecaster and my own reasonable intuition for this league, in which I placed eighth of twelve last year. I think I can beat that record.
I did not win any of my leagues last year. The best I finished was second out of eight. I finished fourth in the league I run (TIGER TOWNE), third of eight in a league run by my friend Craig, and sixth of twelve in a New England league. I was kicked out of a rotisserie league run by a crazy madman, so I decided to reboot his league with the other players who may well be disgruntled.
Today, I am renewing the "hiatus shirt" mandate in order to possibly catch up by Monday on the seven incomplete blog entries found elsewhere via my main address. They are now sufficiently buried so as not be so persistent to my psyche's wellness, and yet, I know they are there.
Several gravitational anomalies aligned in the galaxy to produce this blog, which originally had been schedule as not one other but two other shirts.
And then I saw this: 365 Days of KirbyTech, Day 66: The Finkatronic Ray, which reminded me of my Cub Fan Bart Man T-shirt as a herald (get it? If you're a comic geek given my picture of Homer-Galactus below, you will get it.) of SPRING and BASEBALL SEASON.
I have given shouts to both the BULLY SAYS COMICS OUGHTA BE FUN and the wonderful Pencil Ink blog, and this morning I decided to let those bloggers know of my appreciation for their efforts with comments on their sites.
Bully is doing a 365 Days of Kirby Tech series, which, yesterday, manifested as tech from the Simpsons comic. Wonderful stuff. Here's one of the pics he shared from Panels from "Captain Cupcake and Pieboy!" in Simpsons Super Spectacular #5 (July 2007), script by Mike W. Barr, pencils by James Lloyd, inks by Andrew Pepoy, colors by Rick Reese, letters by Karen Bates.
Meanwhile, I decided to post -- pretty much -- just pictures today. So here, we go (with a little text in between, D'oh!!) Okay, Don't have a cow, man.
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There are 21 entries (including today's) in my Baseball category, which is a sport name that -- as you may or may not know -- I like to deify with a capital letter.
I featured the shirt that goes with this hat in T-shirt #182.
Here's some text from that blog:
T-shirt #80: Detroit Tigers est. 1901 may be my best Baseball post so far, though T-shirt #115: Chicago Cubs est. 1876 also shares a great deal of good Baseball stuff. I love the sense of history. I love the stats. I love my teams.
But it's all best summed up by this quote from the great Ernie Harwell:
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When I saw this T-shirt, I had to have one. I like the Simpsons, but I would not characterize myself as a massive Simpsons fan like some folks.
"Don't Have a Cow, Harry!" refers to Harry Caray, former announcer for the Chicago Cubs, who always used to say "Holy Cow!" and since Bart Simpson often says "Don't Have a Cow, Man" then this is a great joke connection.
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Harry Caray died in 1998. Here's a little weird irony: in the 2003 playoffs, one of the Cubs few post-season appearances in the last 20 years. In October of 2003, the Cubs were playing in the National League Championship series against the Florida Marlins (who won the World Series that year), there's one incident that is defined as the losing moment for that Cubs team, preventing them from advancing to the World Series. It has come to be known as the STEVE BARTMAN INCIDENT.
Lifelong Cubs fan Steve Bartman interfered with a catch by Cubs outfielder Moisés Alou. Had Alou caught that ball for the out, the Cubs would have been four outs from the National League title and the World Series. As it turned out, the Cubs lost the game and eventually the series.
Get it? The shirt is "Bart Man" and is from Cubs merchandise no later than 1998 and possibly earlier, and yet it foreshadows the infamous "villain" of the Cubs' 2003 loss. Really, it's a sad thing. Steve Bartman is a well meaning Cubs fan who got caught up in the excitement of a ball coming his way and made a mistake, like we all do (make mistakes that is). It just so happened to be a mistake that is believed to have cost the Cubs a National League title and a shot at winning the World Series.
Remember how in yesterday's blog I mentioned saving time for date night with my lovely wife? Well, here's our sashimi/sushi dinner from Friday the 7th of March using a gift certificate given to use for Christmas.
We love delicious sashimi/sushi at KUMO.
YUM.
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OFFICIAL BOILERPLATE TEXT OF THE LAST TWENTY POSTS COUNTDOWN: Hi. Thanks for reading. I am posting this "boilerplate" text everyday for the last TWENTY posts in the T-SHIRT blog year, which started on March 22, 2013. I will close out daily transmission on March 21st, day 365 of my T-shirt blog-tastic extravaganza spectacular. I will give myself a short hiatus of total non-transmission or publication for an as yet undetermined period of time, though I am estimating about two weeks. After my blog vacation hiatus, I will resume T-shirt posts on a regular basis, also as yet to be determined (weekly? Twice monthly?) to finish blogging about all the T-shirts that were not featured in the blog year. At some point, once I feel I am rolling along nicely, I will begin regular posting through my main blog: SENSE OF DOUBT. T-shirt posts will direct to the T-shirt blog from SENSE OF DOUBT. I will continue to post THE WEEKLY COMIC LIST, the features of occasional T-SHIRTS I AM WEARING THIS WEEK, book reviews, comic book reviews, and other popular culture nonsense as I have been for a year now but all will go up at SENSE OF DOUBT and some will direct back here to 365 T-SHIRTS. Ultimately, I will begin Internet publication of my fiction, primarily the comic book satire episodic story called POP! among other projects. So, in summary, 365 T-SHIRTS will continue though intermittently. SENSE OF DOUBT will host my main blog presence and fiction writing as well as links to any T-shirt posts shared here. I hope you will continue to follow me in my journey as a writer and a content provider. Thank you for your kind attention and time you have spent with me on this and/or any other day this year. I am humbled and blessed by your readership. - chris tower, blogger, originated 1403.02
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Thanks for reading. I am always honored that people have taken some of their valuable time to look at my ongoing web writing project. Keep checking this address. I promise to make it worthwhile.
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COUNTDOWN TO END OF THE BLOG YEAR - 13 shirts remaining
- chris tower - 1403.08 - 13:11
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Reflect and connect.
Have someone give you a kiss, and tell you that I love you.
I miss you so very much, Mom.
Talk to you tomorrow, Mom.
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- Days ago = 636 days ago
- Bloggery committed by chris tower - 1704.01 - 10:10
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Hey, Mom! Talking to My Mother #272 - Baseball is back! (I miss you, Ron Santo)
Hi Mom,
So, here we are again with something I inflicted on you all your life in so many ways, my greatest sports love, my religion, my church, BASEBALL.
Though there was a game last night (Sunday April 3rd), today is the first official day of Baseball season, and the Detroit Tigers, my favorite team, have the first game of the season tomorrow (Tuesday). Dad, the Big Guy, and I are going to Opening Day, the first game in Detroit, on Friday, so surely I will have a report (or reports) about that game.
Meanwhile, tonight, the Cubs play the first game of the season in California against the Los Angeles Angels. Since I am writing this entry in the future, on Tuesday, I am watching the first Tigers game, and I already know that the Cubs beat the Angels 9-0 behind the amazing pitching of Jake Arieta, a pitcher I grabbed a couple of years ago in fantasy, who may now be the best pitcher in the game.
I know that my default position when I am behind schedule is to post a T-shirt reprint, and I have had more than usual lately with Hey Mom #271 on Jung, Pooh, and teaching and Hey Mom #260 on Embrace Uncertainty. This is another T-shirt reprint, from original T-shirt #115, in which I wrote a long love letter to legendary Cubs third baseman Ron Santo (RIP) and of Baseball in general.
Oddly, this did not make my top ten list, which is actually a top 12 of the T-shirts posts - TOP TEN (12) T-SHIRT BLOGS. But hey, out of 365, it's tough to pick ten let alone 12 entries.
I am partial to this entry, and I think it's a worthy re-post to commemorate the start of Baseball season.
Hello, Baseball. I missed you.
I miss you, too, Mom, and a lot more than I missed Baseball, obviously.
I miss Ron Santo, too. He and I would have been friends. I know it. I would invite him to THE DINNER PARTY. It's mentioned in the T-shirt blog, as well, that he would be invited.
And now I am off to go to bed and listen to the Detroit Tigers on the radio!
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T-shirt #115: Chicago Cubs Est.1876
I love listening to Baseball on the radio.
This is one of the central truths of my love for Baseball. It is presented in its most classic form on the radio. I grew up listening to the Detroit Tigers on the radio, the sonorous voice of Ernie Harwell crackling across my AM band, hand-sized transistor late into the night.
I have already blogged about my beloved Detroit Tigers seven times (see categories index) and I am not done yet with my Tigers shirts. More to come.
And I have more to write about Ernie and that handheld transistor with the fake leather case next to my pillow at bed time.
As a kid who loved Baseball, it should be no surprise that I collected Baseball cards. In fact, I did not like bubble gum, and I was a bit annoyed at how the gum would discolor (if not melt and stick to) one card, often the card that I most wanted to collect.
As a lover and collector of Baseball cards, I bought many of my packs on the summer vacations of my youth in Traverse City at a little liquor store at the top of a hill between Traverse and Long Lake.
The store is still there.
I wrote about this and other nostalgic childhood activities in T-Shirt #85: Up North.
As a boy loving Baseball, it seemed a travesty to love only one team when there were so many to choose from. My fandom really started to kick in at the age of eight (1970) when Major League Baseball fielded twenty-four teams. I loved the Detroit Tigers, and I kept hoping they would win another World Series since I was not a huge Baseball fan and much younger (six years old) when they won in 1968, though I had read all about the games and the team was still intact in many ways in 1970.
But I wanted another favorite team. The next closest city to Kalamazoo (other than Detroit) is Chicago.
I could not like the Chicago White Sox as they were division rivals to the Tigers. So I decided to like the Chicago Cubs. After all, they had a cool name. They were the young team, the babies, the Cubs to the football Bears, which I thought was cute. I liked the team colors (red, white, and blue), and they had many cool players as I saw in many of my 1970 season Baseball cards, such as Ernie Banks, Randy Hundley, Billy Williams, Fergie Jenkins, Milt Pappas, Joe Pepitone, and guys with neat names who I had many Baseball cards for but who did not play much, like Boots Day and Roe Skidmore.
I may not be the Number One Cubs fan ever, but I am going to write about one.
Most of all, I loved Ron Santo. He started his Baseball career before I was born (in 1960) and by the time I was an ardent fan, Ron Santo was in the twilight of his Baseball playing career. But I loved him. He played the way I liked people to play: with everything he had in him. He liked to jump and click his heels as he took the field. And the stats on the backs of his Baseball cards showed that not only could he field (five time consecutive Gold Glove winner), but he could HIT, leading the league in walks four times, in OBP twice, and even once in triples (my favorite hit in Baseball). He hit over 300 home runs in his career, a feat only one other third baseman ever managed (Eddie Mathews).
Santo was dynamite. For sure, he would be elected to the Hall of Fame when he first appeared on the ballot after his 1974 retirement. But then, nothing. By the time, Santo was eligible for the Hall of Fame ballot (1980), I was filled with teenaged hormones and had quite forgotten how much I loved Baseball. I had moved on to performing magic, doing theater, playing role playing games, and hanging out with friends, none of whom liked sports. And then came college and girls. Since things like Baseball were the province of the "popular" kids, I eschewed all things sports from about 1976-1984, when the winning seasons of both the Detroit Tigers and the Chicago Cubs promised a possible World Series between my two favorite clubs, a legacy that was narrowly missed when the San Diego Padres edged the Cubs in the five-game NLCS three games to two, taking the decisive Game Five 6-3 with Cubs ace Rick Sutcliffe taking the heart-breaking loss.
By 1984, when I re-discovered my love for the Chicago Cubs, I also discovered the joys of cable television and the strong signal of WGN Radio that I could pick up much better in Kalamazoo than in Richland. And soon, I discovered that I did not always have to tune into WGN from Chicago because a local radio station would broadcast the Cubs games, such as WQSN 1360 AM. Though some days, especially in Richland, the WGN signal was stronger than the local broadcast's signal.
After graduating from college, cable television was finally available in my "rural" area of Richland, and I began to watch many Chicago Cubs games that were televised on WGN television. I was excited about a new rookie who joined the team with Ryne Sandberg, Andre Dawson, and Rick Sutcliffe who debuted in 1988: Mark Grace. Others soon followed, such as Shawon Dunston, Greg Maddux, and Jerome Walton. Eventually, the team featured one of its most dynamic players: Sammy Sosa.
I was an avid listener/watcher. I liked Harry Caray (the TV announcer), but in 1990, third base Cubs legend Ron Santo joined Pat Hughes on WGN radio and I was hooked. Ron and Pat were hilarious. As much as I loved Ernie Harwell and Paul Carey, Pat and Ron were more engaging and more entertaining. I became a more fervent advocate for Ron's election in the Hall of Fame as both a player and a broadcaster. His candidacy seemed even more important when I learned that he had played his entire career with diabetes, which he kept secret. Though he revealed his diabetes in 1971 on "Ron Santo Day," I was not aware of it until it was openly discussed in the many Cubs radio broadcasts to which I listened.
I would listen in the car throughout the state of Michigan as WGN's signal is so strong that it covers most of Michigan. And while taking my own vacations in Traverse City as an adult, I would often go out to my car, which could pick up the WGN radio signal easily from its parking spot on the Old Mission Peninsula.
It became clear to me that Ron Santo was cheated out of his rightful place in the Hall of Fame. Much to Ron's chagrin, Pat Hughes would openly and vocally tout Ron's merits for the Hall of Fame based on his excellence as a player. (I also think Ron deserves election as a broadcaster.)
In the mid-1990s, I discovered Bill James and the greater world of statistical analysis in Baseball beyond looking at Batting Average and Earned Run Average. Bill James ranks Santo sixth on the the all-time greatest third basemen in history with only Home Run Baker, Wade Boggs, Eddie Mathews, George Brett, and Mike Schmidt ahead of him. Bill James writes an excellent entry in his Historical Baseball Abstract about Santo's merits for the Hall of Fame. It's quite a funny section as he leads it off with a letter from a disgruntled TV viewer who heard James advocate for Santo's candidacy and claim that there are fewer third baseman in the Hall than players at any other position. The viewer took this the wrong way thinking we should elect all these second-rate players to bring up the number of third sackers. Rather, James had meant that Santo should be elected because, among the small number of third basemen in the Hall, he was a better player than many of them. James specifically names George Kell (a Detroit Tiger) who he ranked 30th all time among third basemen and Fred Lindstrom, who he ranked 43rd, who are both in the Hall of Fame, and Santo is not.
I enjoyed listening to Ron Santo's brilliant comedy as a radio host, his vast knowledge of Baseball, and his absolute, unequivocal love of all things Chicago Cub for 20 years, until Diabetes finally caught up with him, and he died in 2010 at the age of 70. Ron Santo had lost both of his lower legs, which were amputated below the knee, one in 2001 and the other in 2002, due to his Diabetes. And by the end, he also struggled with Bladder Cancer.
Santo should have been elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in his lifetime. Santo's Hall of Fame election came in 2011 for the Class of 2012. He received 15 of a possible 16 votes by the Golden Era Committee, which formed in 2011, and elected Santo as its first act. The Golden Era Committee features such players as Al Kaline, Hank Aaron, Brooks Robinson (7th on James' list right after Santo), and Billy Williams, who made an impassioned plea for Santo's induction.
Another accolade described here also should have happened in his lifetime, but he was taken too soon: "On Wednesday, August 10, 2011, Ron Santo was memorialized and "immortalized" at Wrigley Field with the presentation of a statue in his likeness. The statue is a portrayal of a young Ron Santo playing defense at third base, leaning to his right while throwing a ball" ("Ron Santo," Wikipedia, 2013).
I still listen to Pat Hughes and his new partner Keith Moreland, who are quite good, but nowhere near as wonderful as Pat and Ron with all their running jokes as well as Ron's elation when the Cubs did something exciting and his abject despondency or even anger when things did not go the Cubs' way.
SOME GOOD LINKS
RON SANTO BASEBALL ALMANAC
RON SANTO - BASEBALL REFERENCE
RON SANTO WIKI
RON SANTO DIES
PAT HUGHES' EULOGY FOR RON SANTO
This is what I am talking about in the videos that follow... great Pat and Ron stuff. There's several if you search on You Tube. Here's three. The first is a good assortment of clips (five minutes). The second is a single hilarious episode (short - 2:34), and the last is a good short memory (41 seconds).
Favorite Ron Santo Moment
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- Bloggery committed by chris tower - 2303.30 - 10:10
- Days ago = 2827 days ago
- New note - On 1807.06, I ceased daily transmission of my Hey Mom feature after three years of daily conversations. I plan to continue Hey Mom posts at least twice per week but will continue to post the days since ("Days Ago") count on my blog each day. The blog entry numbering in the title has changed to reflect total Sense of Doubt posts since I began the blog on 0705.04, which include Hey Mom posts, Daily Bowie posts, and Sense of Doubt posts. Hey Mom posts will still be numbered sequentially. New Hey Mom posts will use the same format as all the other Hey Mom posts; all other posts will feature this format seen here.
Thursday, March 28, 2019
A Sense of Doubt blog post #1498 - Welcome Back Baseball - 2019 - I need you
Baseball started today, officially. There were two games in Japan last week, and though those count, they do not count as Tigers or Cubs games but as Mariners or Athletics games, and so for me, the 2019 Baseball season just began.
Baseball.
I need it in my life.
Hey, Baseball, thank you for existing.
"Well -- it's our game; that's the chief connection with it: America's game; it has the snap, go, fling of the American atmosphere; it belongs as much to our institutions, fits into them as significantly as our Constitution's laws; is just as important in the sum total of our historic life." ~ Walt Whitman
"Several years ago, as documentary filmmakers engaged in trying to evoke America's most defining moment, the Civil War, for the widest possible audience, we became aware of what a powerful metaphor the game of baseball also represented for all Americans on nearly every level. Now after more than four years of work, we have produced a twenty-hour filmed history of the game for National Public Television, and, as the arc of the life of Ebbets Field, which opens our film and begins this preface suggests, our interest in the game has gone well beyond a round-up of baseball highlights." ~ Ken Burns, Baseball, an Illustrated History 1994.
"Baseball," the poet Donald Hall told us in a filmed interview, "because of its continuity over the space of America and the time of America, is a place where memory gathers."
"The story of Baseball is also the story of race in America, of immigration and assimilation; of the struggle between labor and management, of popular culture and advertising, of myth and the nature of heroes, villains, and buffoons; of the role of women and class and wealth in our society. The game is a repository of age-old American verities, of standards, against which we continually measure ourselves, and yet at the same time a mirror of the present moment in our modern culture -- including all of our most contemporary failings.
"But we were hardly prepared for the complex emotions the game summoned up. The accumulated stories and biographies, the life-lessons and tragedies, dramatic moments and classic confrontations that we encountered daily began to suggest even more compelling themes. As Jacques Barzun has written, "Whoever wants to know the heart and mind of America had better learn baseball"
(Burns and Lynn Novick, xviii, preface, Baseball, an Illustrated History 1994).
"The historian Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. has remarked that we suffer today from "too much pluribus and not enough unum." Fe things survive in these cynical days to remind us of the Union from which so many of our personal and collective blessings flow, and it is hard not to wonder, in an age when the present moment consumes and overshadows all else -- our bright past and our dim, unknown future -- what finally does endure? What encodes and stores the genetic material of our civilization -- passing down to the next generation the best of us, what we hope will mutate into betterness for our children and our posterity? Baseball provides one answer. Nothing in our daily life offers more of the comfort of continuity, the generational connection of belonging to a vast and complicated American family, the powerful sense of home, the freedom from time's constraints, and the great gift of accumulated memory than does our National pastime" (Burns and Lynn Novick, xviii, preface, Baseball, an Illustrated History 1994).
"I miss my father... God, I love baseball." from Roy Hobbes in The Natural
2006 Detroit Tigers win American League Championship and advance to the WORLD SERIES.
For me, Baseball charts the story of my life and the story from before my life.
It has been my soundtrack and my comfort in the darkness.
It has brought me joy and grief, even though it's just a game.
Like anything, it's very important and really not that important at all.
But I am glad it exists, and every year when it resumes, I am reborn in it and my heart swells with love and hope and promise and happiness.
Thank you baseball, now go out there and get some runs!
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- Bloggery committed by chris tower - 1903.28 - 10:10
- Days ago = 1363 days ago
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Saturday, April 1, 2017
Hey, Mom! Talking to My Mother #634 - Welcome Back Baseball
Hi Mom,
April Fool's!! Tomorrow is actually the start of Baseball season.
I went out to visit Dad today, and we walked to the church. We visited your Memorial, Mom, and where we buried your ashes.
Then we had breakfast and did some things back at the condo.
We talked about how we missed you, Mom, and how we wish we had diagnosed you better in 2000 to avoid all of this that happened to you.
I miss Baseball, too, but it's hardly the same. Not even in the same league. heh.
Still, Baseball is an easy thing to miss because it always comes back in the spring. My, my, how metaphorical. It dies in the Fall and is reborn in the Spring. Gee wiz.
Whizbang.
I am still on a Cubs kick because, well, you know, THEY WON THE WORLD SERIES!!
Tigers and Cubs.
These are my two favorite teams in both Baseball and in all of sports.
As a long suffering fan of both, I had seen only TWO World Series championships before last year. So, now it's three:
2017 Chicago Cubs
1984 Detroit Tigers
1968 Detroit Tigers
And I was pretty young in 1968. I really enjoyed that 1968 championship more when I got into Baseball around 1970-71.
Anyway, now I am a fan (a long suffering fan) of the WORLD CHAMPIONS.
It feels really good.
But I am not counting on a repeat.
Repeats are hard.
But Baseball is back. The Cubs have their first game of the 2017 season tomorrow, Sunday, night, against the Cardinals in St. Louis. The Tigers open the season Monday afternoon (4:10 p.m.) in Chicago against the White Sox.
I wish my teams well.
In celebration of the return of Baseball season, here's TWO T-shirts reprints. I could edit them and take out text about the T-shirt blog process, but I didn't; I won't.
These were originally presented in:
Saturday, March 8, 2014
T-shirt #352 - Cub Fan - Bart Man
Tuesday, February 25, 2014
As I count down to March 22nd, when it all began last year for this blog, there's going to be quite a few Baseball shirts (which if you recall I deify with a capital letter). Since I already shared all but one of my Detroit Tigers shirts, and I am saving that last Tigers shirt for the final week, you will probably see several CUBS T-shirts, as I have quite a few remaining.
Also, given that I am still behind, I am trying to avoid falling farther behind by not posting any more incomplete entries. To accomplish this goal, I have to keep it short and simple.Baseball's spring training has begun. Players have reported and games begin soon.
I am starting to get excited again for Baseball season.
I am a bit of a stats nut, as I have mentioned before, so getting ready for Baseball season again means pouring over stats and planning my FANTASY BASEBALL TEAMS.
USA Today did a smart thing by hiring Ron Shandler and launching its own exclusive chats service with
BASEBALL HQ.
I am a subscriber both to this service, which means I receive the stats-tastic excellence of the BASEBALL FORECASTER book, AND a subscriber to SPORTS WEEKLY, which used to be Baseball Weekly, which I can now read on my tablet as well as in paper form.I have spent many long hours considering complex measures of hitting and pitching to optimize playing Fantasy Baseball games which I do for free and for which I earn no money. Seems a bit crazy. I love it.
A friend of my wife's and mine is trying to engage in political debate on Facebook, and I care for very little for that debate or politics compared to Baseball.
Time for Baseball.
Let's PLAY BALL!!
THE BLOG'S FUTURE
Lastly, I have made an executive decision about the blog about which I plan to expound in future entries. This decision has to do with focusing almost exclusively on shirts I already owned when I started the blog to finish out my remaining, as of today, 24 entries. I over-indulged in asking for gifts of T-shirts for Christmas and my Birthday, and I now have far more T-shirts than I need to complete my remaining 24 daily entries.
So what's next? For the next three weeks and three days, I will continue to post with T-shirts from my collection for the most part from the time I started the blog. I cannot promise that I will not be inspired to share a new shirt, but I want to take my time with many of these longer essays that I have been planning and do not seem to be able to complete, especially since I am having trouble even keeping up with short to moderate daily entries.
Once I reach March 22nd, daily entries will cease. I will begin to work on these longer entries on the newer shirts and the remaining shirts that do not get posted and share them with you on a weekly basis. At least that's the plan. I may get inspired and post more often. I may also take a break before the next T-shirt post. I suspect I will be a bit worn out after posting one T-shirt a day for 365 days straight!!
I am also going to devote myself more regularly to fiction writing, which will become part of my new blog and Internet presence post the year of T-shirts. This will also mean more regular blog entries (short bits) from the source blog, SENSE OF DOUBT.
Stay Tuned!
HIATUS TEXT: REVISED 1402.18: I have been trying to maintain a hiatus from large or over involved blog posts beginning with the start date of my hiatus on January 20th (almost a month ago) during which time I logged 21 posts, which I consider "Hiatus Shirts." By this term, Hiatus Shirt, I mean the shirt is not one that would cause me to write a great deal on the subject it features. These are shirts about which I can write anything, either a lot or a very little. The hiatus will continue, though as it has for the last few weeks, not consecutively as I will continue to mix Hiatus and Non-Hiatus shirts. The blog's year (365 shirts) draws close to a close. (I like the double word use in that previous sentence.) I hope to finish strong with some good entries with high quality content and imagery on some beloved subjects. To earn this time, I will need to intersperse shirts of little consequence, what I have come to call Hiatus Shirts.
My original goal of working ahead remains. I need time to write the enormously lengthy text to complete the extensive love letter to certain beloved popular culture icons featured on my many special shirts. Even with "Hiatus Shirts," I will try to share some worthy content as I have either an idea, a new suggestion of something to read/look at/listen to, or another installment of my various features, such as the WHY T-SHIRTS item, the WEEKLY COMIC BOOK LISTS, and the SHIRT I AM ACTUALLY WEARING TODAY among others. BTW, this is the standard HIATUS TEXT that I will include in every "hiatus shirt" entry.
Thanks for reading. I am always honored that people have taken some of their valuable time to look at my ongoing web writing project. Keep checking this address. I promise to make it worthwhile.
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COUNTDOWN TO END OF THE BLOG YEAR - 24 shirts remaining
- chris tower - 1402.25 - 19:49
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TODAY'S COUNT: 13 blog posts remaining in the T-shirt year!!
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T-shirt #352 - Cub Fan - Bart Man
Baseball season is upon us, and I am making my nefarious plans for my Fantasy Baseball Empire with my first draft tonight.
Actually, I am going to wing it. I don't have time to prepare my own stats log and analysis, so I am going with the work of Baseball Forecaster and my own reasonable intuition for this league, in which I placed eighth of twelve last year. I think I can beat that record.
I did not win any of my leagues last year. The best I finished was second out of eight. I finished fourth in the league I run (TIGER TOWNE), third of eight in a league run by my friend Craig, and sixth of twelve in a New England league. I was kicked out of a rotisserie league run by a crazy madman, so I decided to reboot his league with the other players who may well be disgruntled.
Today, I am renewing the "hiatus shirt" mandate in order to possibly catch up by Monday on the seven incomplete blog entries found elsewhere via my main address. They are now sufficiently buried so as not be so persistent to my psyche's wellness, and yet, I know they are there.
Several gravitational anomalies aligned in the galaxy to produce this blog, which originally had been schedule as not one other but two other shirts.
And then I saw this: 365 Days of KirbyTech, Day 66: The Finkatronic Ray, which reminded me of my Cub Fan Bart Man T-shirt as a herald (get it? If you're a comic geek given my picture of Homer-Galactus below, you will get it.) of SPRING and BASEBALL SEASON.
I have given shouts to both the BULLY SAYS COMICS OUGHTA BE FUN and the wonderful Pencil Ink blog, and this morning I decided to let those bloggers know of my appreciation for their efforts with comments on their sites.
Bully is doing a 365 Days of Kirby Tech series, which, yesterday, manifested as tech from the Simpsons comic. Wonderful stuff. Here's one of the pics he shared from Panels from "Captain Cupcake and Pieboy!" in Simpsons Super Spectacular #5 (July 2007), script by Mike W. Barr, pencils by James Lloyd, inks by Andrew Pepoy, colors by Rick Reese, letters by Karen Bates.
Meanwhile, I decided to post -- pretty much -- just pictures today. So here, we go (with a little text in between, D'oh!!) Okay, Don't have a cow, man.
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There are 21 entries (including today's) in my Baseball category, which is a sport name that -- as you may or may not know -- I like to deify with a capital letter.
I featured the shirt that goes with this hat in T-shirt #182.
Here's some text from that blog:
T-shirt #80: Detroit Tigers est. 1901 may be my best Baseball post so far, though T-shirt #115: Chicago Cubs est. 1876 also shares a great deal of good Baseball stuff. I love the sense of history. I love the stats. I love my teams.
But it's all best summed up by this quote from the great Ernie Harwell:
"Baseball is a ballet without music. Drama without words. A carnival without kewpie dolls. Baseball is continuity. Pitch to pitch. Inning to inning. Season to season."
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When I saw this T-shirt, I had to have one. I like the Simpsons, but I would not characterize myself as a massive Simpsons fan like some folks.
"Don't Have a Cow, Harry!" refers to Harry Caray, former announcer for the Chicago Cubs, who always used to say "Holy Cow!" and since Bart Simpson often says "Don't Have a Cow, Man" then this is a great joke connection.
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Harry Caray died in 1998. Here's a little weird irony: in the 2003 playoffs, one of the Cubs few post-season appearances in the last 20 years. In October of 2003, the Cubs were playing in the National League Championship series against the Florida Marlins (who won the World Series that year), there's one incident that is defined as the losing moment for that Cubs team, preventing them from advancing to the World Series. It has come to be known as the STEVE BARTMAN INCIDENT.
Lifelong Cubs fan Steve Bartman interfered with a catch by Cubs outfielder Moisés Alou. Had Alou caught that ball for the out, the Cubs would have been four outs from the National League title and the World Series. As it turned out, the Cubs lost the game and eventually the series.
Get it? The shirt is "Bart Man" and is from Cubs merchandise no later than 1998 and possibly earlier, and yet it foreshadows the infamous "villain" of the Cubs' 2003 loss. Really, it's a sad thing. Steve Bartman is a well meaning Cubs fan who got caught up in the excitement of a ball coming his way and made a mistake, like we all do (make mistakes that is). It just so happened to be a mistake that is believed to have cost the Cubs a National League title and a shot at winning the World Series.
Remember how in yesterday's blog I mentioned saving time for date night with my lovely wife? Well, here's our sashimi/sushi dinner from Friday the 7th of March using a gift certificate given to use for Christmas.
We love delicious sashimi/sushi at KUMO.
YUM.
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| This is the shirt I am actually wearing today |
HIATUS TEXT: REVISED 1402.18: I have been trying to maintain a hiatus from large or over involved blog posts beginning with the start date of my hiatus on January 20th (almost a month ago) during which time I logged 21 posts, which I consider "Hiatus Shirts." By this term, Hiatus Shirt, I mean the shirt is not one that would cause me to write a great deal on the subject it features. These are shirts about which I can write anything, either a lot or a very little. The hiatus will continue, though as it has for the last few weeks, not consecutively as I will continue to mix Hiatus and Non-Hiatus shirts. The blog's year (365 shirts) draws close to a close. (I like the double word use in that previous sentence.) I hope to finish strong with some good entries with high quality content and imagery on some beloved subjects. To earn this time, I will need to intersperse shirts of little consequence, what I have come to call Hiatus Shirts.
My original goal of working ahead remains. I need time to write the enormously lengthy text to complete the extensive love letter to certain beloved popular culture icons featured on my many special shirts. Even with "Hiatus Shirts," I will try to share some worthy content as I have either an idea, a new suggestion of something to read/look at/listen to, or another installment of my various features, such as the WHY T-SHIRTS item, the WEEKLY COMIC BOOK LISTS, and the SHIRT I AM ACTUALLY WEARING TODAY among others. BTW, this is the standard HIATUS TEXT that I will include in every "hiatus shirt" entry.Thanks for reading. I am always honored that people have taken some of their valuable time to look at my ongoing web writing project. Keep checking this address. I promise to make it worthwhile.
- chris tower - 1403.08 - 13:11
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Reflect and connect.
Have someone give you a kiss, and tell you that I love you.
I miss you so very much, Mom.
Talk to you tomorrow, Mom.
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- Days ago = 636 days ago
- Bloggery committed by chris tower - 1704.01 - 10:10
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Monday, April 4, 2016
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| Listening to Baseball on the radio - Damn, 720 WGN has a good signal! |
Hey, Mom! Talking to My Mother #272 - Baseball is back! (I miss you, Ron Santo)
Hi Mom,
So, here we are again with something I inflicted on you all your life in so many ways, my greatest sports love, my religion, my church, BASEBALL.
Though there was a game last night (Sunday April 3rd), today is the first official day of Baseball season, and the Detroit Tigers, my favorite team, have the first game of the season tomorrow (Tuesday). Dad, the Big Guy, and I are going to Opening Day, the first game in Detroit, on Friday, so surely I will have a report (or reports) about that game.
Meanwhile, tonight, the Cubs play the first game of the season in California against the Los Angeles Angels. Since I am writing this entry in the future, on Tuesday, I am watching the first Tigers game, and I already know that the Cubs beat the Angels 9-0 behind the amazing pitching of Jake Arieta, a pitcher I grabbed a couple of years ago in fantasy, who may now be the best pitcher in the game.
I know that my default position when I am behind schedule is to post a T-shirt reprint, and I have had more than usual lately with Hey Mom #271 on Jung, Pooh, and teaching and Hey Mom #260 on Embrace Uncertainty. This is another T-shirt reprint, from original T-shirt #115, in which I wrote a long love letter to legendary Cubs third baseman Ron Santo (RIP) and of Baseball in general.
Oddly, this did not make my top ten list, which is actually a top 12 of the T-shirts posts - TOP TEN (12) T-SHIRT BLOGS. But hey, out of 365, it's tough to pick ten let alone 12 entries.
I am partial to this entry, and I think it's a worthy re-post to commemorate the start of Baseball season.
Hello, Baseball. I missed you.
I miss you, too, Mom, and a lot more than I missed Baseball, obviously.
I miss Ron Santo, too. He and I would have been friends. I know it. I would invite him to THE DINNER PARTY. It's mentioned in the T-shirt blog, as well, that he would be invited.
And now I am off to go to bed and listen to the Detroit Tigers on the radio!
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| Listening to Baseball on the radio - Damn, 720 WGN has a good signal! |
I love listening to Baseball on the radio.
This is one of the central truths of my love for Baseball. It is presented in its most classic form on the radio. I grew up listening to the Detroit Tigers on the radio, the sonorous voice of Ernie Harwell crackling across my AM band, hand-sized transistor late into the night.
I have already blogged about my beloved Detroit Tigers seven times (see categories index) and I am not done yet with my Tigers shirts. More to come.
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| Wearing my "dressy" Cubs shirt and my 1914 Vintage "Cubby" hat |
As a kid who loved Baseball, it should be no surprise that I collected Baseball cards. In fact, I did not like bubble gum, and I was a bit annoyed at how the gum would discolor (if not melt and stick to) one card, often the card that I most wanted to collect.
As a lover and collector of Baseball cards, I bought many of my packs on the summer vacations of my youth in Traverse City at a little liquor store at the top of a hill between Traverse and Long Lake.
The store is still there.
I wrote about this and other nostalgic childhood activities in T-Shirt #85: Up North.
As a boy loving Baseball, it seemed a travesty to love only one team when there were so many to choose from. My fandom really started to kick in at the age of eight (1970) when Major League Baseball fielded twenty-four teams. I loved the Detroit Tigers, and I kept hoping they would win another World Series since I was not a huge Baseball fan and much younger (six years old) when they won in 1968, though I had read all about the games and the team was still intact in many ways in 1970.
But I wanted another favorite team. The next closest city to Kalamazoo (other than Detroit) is Chicago.
I could not like the Chicago White Sox as they were division rivals to the Tigers. So I decided to like the Chicago Cubs. After all, they had a cool name. They were the young team, the babies, the Cubs to the football Bears, which I thought was cute. I liked the team colors (red, white, and blue), and they had many cool players as I saw in many of my 1970 season Baseball cards, such as Ernie Banks, Randy Hundley, Billy Williams, Fergie Jenkins, Milt Pappas, Joe Pepitone, and guys with neat names who I had many Baseball cards for but who did not play much, like Boots Day and Roe Skidmore.I may not be the Number One Cubs fan ever, but I am going to write about one.
Santo was dynamite. For sure, he would be elected to the Hall of Fame when he first appeared on the ballot after his 1974 retirement. But then, nothing. By the time, Santo was eligible for the Hall of Fame ballot (1980), I was filled with teenaged hormones and had quite forgotten how much I loved Baseball. I had moved on to performing magic, doing theater, playing role playing games, and hanging out with friends, none of whom liked sports. And then came college and girls. Since things like Baseball were the province of the "popular" kids, I eschewed all things sports from about 1976-1984, when the winning seasons of both the Detroit Tigers and the Chicago Cubs promised a possible World Series between my two favorite clubs, a legacy that was narrowly missed when the San Diego Padres edged the Cubs in the five-game NLCS three games to two, taking the decisive Game Five 6-3 with Cubs ace Rick Sutcliffe taking the heart-breaking loss.
By 1984, when I re-discovered my love for the Chicago Cubs, I also discovered the joys of cable television and the strong signal of WGN Radio that I could pick up much better in Kalamazoo than in Richland. And soon, I discovered that I did not always have to tune into WGN from Chicago because a local radio station would broadcast the Cubs games, such as WQSN 1360 AM. Though some days, especially in Richland, the WGN signal was stronger than the local broadcast's signal.
After graduating from college, cable television was finally available in my "rural" area of Richland, and I began to watch many Chicago Cubs games that were televised on WGN television. I was excited about a new rookie who joined the team with Ryne Sandberg, Andre Dawson, and Rick Sutcliffe who debuted in 1988: Mark Grace. Others soon followed, such as Shawon Dunston, Greg Maddux, and Jerome Walton. Eventually, the team featured one of its most dynamic players: Sammy Sosa.
I would listen in the car throughout the state of Michigan as WGN's signal is so strong that it covers most of Michigan. And while taking my own vacations in Traverse City as an adult, I would often go out to my car, which could pick up the WGN radio signal easily from its parking spot on the Old Mission Peninsula.
It became clear to me that Ron Santo was cheated out of his rightful place in the Hall of Fame. Much to Ron's chagrin, Pat Hughes would openly and vocally tout Ron's merits for the Hall of Fame based on his excellence as a player. (I also think Ron deserves election as a broadcaster.)
In the mid-1990s, I discovered Bill James and the greater world of statistical analysis in Baseball beyond looking at Batting Average and Earned Run Average. Bill James ranks Santo sixth on the the all-time greatest third basemen in history with only Home Run Baker, Wade Boggs, Eddie Mathews, George Brett, and Mike Schmidt ahead of him. Bill James writes an excellent entry in his Historical Baseball Abstract about Santo's merits for the Hall of Fame. It's quite a funny section as he leads it off with a letter from a disgruntled TV viewer who heard James advocate for Santo's candidacy and claim that there are fewer third baseman in the Hall than players at any other position. The viewer took this the wrong way thinking we should elect all these second-rate players to bring up the number of third sackers. Rather, James had meant that Santo should be elected because, among the small number of third basemen in the Hall, he was a better player than many of them. James specifically names George Kell (a Detroit Tiger) who he ranked 30th all time among third basemen and Fred Lindstrom, who he ranked 43rd, who are both in the Hall of Fame, and Santo is not.
I enjoyed listening to Ron Santo's brilliant comedy as a radio host, his vast knowledge of Baseball, and his absolute, unequivocal love of all things Chicago Cub for 20 years, until Diabetes finally caught up with him, and he died in 2010 at the age of 70. Ron Santo had lost both of his lower legs, which were amputated below the knee, one in 2001 and the other in 2002, due to his Diabetes. And by the end, he also struggled with Bladder Cancer.
Santo should have been elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in his lifetime. Santo's Hall of Fame election came in 2011 for the Class of 2012. He received 15 of a possible 16 votes by the Golden Era Committee, which formed in 2011, and elected Santo as its first act. The Golden Era Committee features such players as Al Kaline, Hank Aaron, Brooks Robinson (7th on James' list right after Santo), and Billy Williams, who made an impassioned plea for Santo's induction.
Another accolade described here also should have happened in his lifetime, but he was taken too soon: "On Wednesday, August 10, 2011, Ron Santo was memorialized and "immortalized" at Wrigley Field with the presentation of a statue in his likeness. The statue is a portrayal of a young Ron Santo playing defense at third base, leaning to his right while throwing a ball" ("Ron Santo," Wikipedia, 2013).
I still listen to Pat Hughes and his new partner Keith Moreland, who are quite good, but nowhere near as wonderful as Pat and Ron with all their running jokes as well as Ron's elation when the Cubs did something exciting and his abject despondency or even anger when things did not go the Cubs' way.
SOME GOOD LINKS
RON SANTO BASEBALL ALMANAC
RON SANTO - BASEBALL REFERENCE
RON SANTO WIKI
RON SANTO DIES
PAT HUGHES' EULOGY FOR RON SANTO
This is what I am talking about in the videos that follow... great Pat and Ron stuff. There's several if you search on You Tube. Here's three. The first is a good assortment of clips (five minutes). The second is a single hilarious episode (short - 2:34), and the last is a good short memory (41 seconds).
Favorite Ron Santo Moment
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- Days ago = 274 days ago
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- Bloggery committed by chris tower - 2303.30 - 10:10
- Days ago = 2827 days ago
- New note - On 1807.06, I ceased daily transmission of my Hey Mom feature after three years of daily conversations. I plan to continue Hey Mom posts at least twice per week but will continue to post the days since ("Days Ago") count on my blog each day. The blog entry numbering in the title has changed to reflect total Sense of Doubt posts since I began the blog on 0705.04, which include Hey Mom posts, Daily Bowie posts, and Sense of Doubt posts. Hey Mom posts will still be numbered sequentially. New Hey Mom posts will use the same format as all the other Hey Mom posts; all other posts will feature this format seen here.
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