Last week, I went to a Double-A game here in Richmond with some friends. The Richmond Flying Squirrels were playing. They are the farm club of the SF Giants.
One of my friends, from MA, comes a long line of 'Sox fans. The lore in this fan's household is that the night he was born, his mother was ready to go the hospital. His father was listening to the 'Sox on the radio. When told that "it was time", the father's response was "Wait just a few minutes. Pesky is up and we have runners in scoring position". The mother-to-be was not pleased. I suspect that Pesky's at bat had to wait that night. BTW, my friend was not named after Johnny Pesky.
My grandfather, from Haverhill, MA, and was a true Diehard. He used to keep score of the game and kept previous game scores on a clipboard. I could not understand the codes he used but they made sense to him. He tried to teach me but I found the code to difficult to comprehend (plus, I was only 5 at the time). he used to listen to the game on an old radio. My father bought him a new one the last time he saw his father alive. My grandfather passed away in 1969. He passed quietly in his sleep. Before going to lay down that night, he checked in with my uncle as to the score. 'Sox were ahead. 'Yaz had just hit an HR. That made him happy. So, he went to bed that night knowing that the 'Sox were ahead.
He worked in FDR's WPA and enjoyed the simple things in life: the Redsox, smoking his pipe, Cod fish cakes, and playing solitaire (he tried to teach me that, too, but I never liked cards).
These were some of the stories we shared with each other at the Flying Squirrels' game last week. Baseball is so rich with such stories.
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As a historian-to-be, I have a true appreciation for the "old days" and stories like yours, SHSAGE. My Dad's played ball his whole life and he has a lot of stories too. He remembers all the old greats. This is the one thing I can't bring to this game. I live for the here and the now and what's going on at the moment with the guys. I remember names of players from the recent past, like the 1980s. But to have a true love of the game and a deep sense of the history is the true definition of a fan. I appreciate the history more when I'm actually in Boston. If you're ever in Boston, I highly recommend a dinner at McGreevy's on Boylston. Turn of the century baseball comes alive. They have so many old pictures from back in the day. They appreciate the modern-day Sox too, but they really do justice to Nuf Ced and the Rooters. Peter Nash's "Boston's Royal Rooters" book is an excellent snapshot of our team from the good old days.
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