Web Page of Lemuel Skidmore

 

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I Love Baseball!

 

My team is the New York Mets. The Mets folded terribly again this year, but they're still my Mets.  2008 could be interesting...I hope so.  I am a fan (as opposed to a spectator, like those who use the Yankees as compensation for some deficiency or those who wallow in self-pity like Boston fans). Boston could have kept the Braves and been a real baseball town, but they'd rather feel sorry for themselves. 

Yes, the Red Sox have a good team. After all the dumb things Boston management has done over the years they seem to have put together a solid group.  The Yankees couldn't get past the flies in Cleveland and as a Yankee hater, as any REAL baseball fan would be, I was glad to see that.

I was brought up to be a real fan--as in National League.  No Junior Circuit gimmicks like the DH, just real history like Willie Mays.  Yes, that's Willie on the Home Page, making his incredible catch of Vic Wertz' fly ball at the Polo Grounds in Game 1 of the 1954 World Series.

My father brought me up a NY Giants fan and Yankee hater.  I stuck with the Giants through the early '60s, even though I supported the Mets from their birth in 1962.  The 60's happened and I lost my passion for baseball, even though the 1969 Mets were a major event in my life. 

It was really the 1973 Mets that brought me back into baseball.  The Mets came from last place in August through a 5 team race to win the division with a 82-79 record, beat Cincinnati (who had won 108 games that year) in the playoffs (despite Pete Rose's assault on Bud Harrelson at second base), and lost to Oakland in a 7-game Series. I lived in rural Colorado that fall, and the Mets were my only tie to Civilization.  For four years after that I lived in Indiana, where I could hear the Mets on the Radio when they played Cincinnati,  Chicago, or St. Louis.  That was 48 games.  If you want to learn baseball, and learn whether you like it or not, spend time listening on the radio.  I was hooked, and I still am.

My father loved baseball, and in his last years it was something that we could share. Baseball is like that.

My all-time great team (retired players I have seen play):

C      Roy Campanella

1B    Willie McCovey

2B    Joe Morgan (close with Ryne Sandberg)

3B     Mike Schmidt

SS    Ozzie Smith

LF     Hank Aaron

CF    Willie Mays

RF    Stan Musial

RHP  Tom Seaver (OK, that's sentimental--it's a tough call)

LHP   Sandy Koufax

 

Some Yankee fans will whine that Mickey Mantle isn't there--he might make a second string outfield with Ted Williams and Roberto Clemente.

 

Pete Rose?  Yes he deserves to be in the Hall of Fame, but he can't make this team.

 

DH? Not even in softball, where they have 10 people on a team (even in softball everyone has to play a whole game).

 

I am wavering on adding Barry Bonds when he retires. Steroids may be an issue...but if it's that easy to hit 700 home runs, why doesn't everyone? To hit that many while playing in Candlestick and not seeing pitches is a feat.  I'll have to decide what kind of feat. One of the current great shortstops will probably replace Ozzie. Cal Ripken can't crack this group. I'm softening on Cal, and I may change my mind eventually.

 

My all-time great moments (have to be in person to count):

  1. Game 7 of the 1986 World Series to see the Mets beat the Red Sox.

  2. Opening Day, 1983 when Tom Seaver came back to the Mets. Tom had the class to walk on the field from the bullpen to the mound to acknowledge the fans, rather than go through the tunnel.

  3. Game 3 of the 1986 playoffs against Houston, when Lenny Dykstra hit a 2-run walk-off homer in the bottom of the 9th, putting the Mets up 2 games to 1.

  4. Tom Seaver Day at Shea Stadium, acknowledging what he meant to the fans and to the franchise.

  5. Cal Ripken's 3,000th hit.  I was in Minnesota for a college visit with my younger daughter, and we decided to see a game. The Orioles came into town with Cal at 2,996. He got one hit one Friday night, so he needed 3 the night we were there. He did not get a hit in his first at bat, but he then got three hits in a row.

  6. Being in St. Louis in 1987, seeing all the games of a 3-game sweep.  Added bonuses:  that was the series where Whitey Herzog accused Howard Johnson of corking his bat and Howard had to wrestle with the St. Louis bat boy who wanted his bat; it was also the series where a local radio station had a "Mets are pond scum" t-shirt giveaway; and several Mets hung out in the bar in the hotel where I was staying--I got several autographs and also met Ralph Kiner. It was Met Heaven.

  7. My first game. The Brooklyn Dodgers at the NY Giants at the Polo Grounds in 1956.  I remember trying to get Rueben Gomez to give me an autograph--he didn't. I also remember eating a lot of ballbark food.

 

Note that the 1986 Game 6 Bill Buckner game is not here. First, I wasn't at the game.  Second, to refer to it as Buckner's failure is slander, and only shows ignorance.

  1. If Buckner fielded the ball, he or the pitcher still would have had to beat Mookie to the bag--and that was unlikely.

  2. If he did make the play, the game would not have been over-it was tied.

  3. Even after they lost, there was another game (and the Red Sox blew a 3-0 lead in Game 7).

  4. There were 2 out and nobody on in that inning.  Two different pitchers gave up 3 hits and Rich Gedman had a passed ball (it was ruled a wild pitch, but Gedman should have made the play). It was the passed ball that allowed Kevin Mitchell to score the tying run and moved Ray Knight into position where he could score the winning run on the error.

So, it was not Buckner. It was a team failure.

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01/27/2008 04:56 PM -0500