Sergeant Shriver died the other day at age 95. He was an honorable fellow who took on many unpleasant but noble government-type duties in the 1960s and 1970s. President Kennedy tapped him to start and run the Peace Corps. He did great work for President Johnson, too. Later, he ran for Vice President. All in all, a very good man.
For the last several years of his life, he battled Alzheimer's disease. Understandably, on the few occasions he was seen in public, he didn't look anything like the handsome man I remembered as a kid. I shuddered when I saw those pictures.
The other day, most of the pics ran in accordance with stories about his life, were from the 1960s and 1970s. But one network (I can't remember which) ran a terrible shot taken a few years ago. His hair was messy and he looked confused. It is, sadly, what often happens with patients who suffer from Alzheimer's. I had that old feeling. Wy do this to a good man? Did we really need to see this picture? Of the literally thousands of pictures of this public man, what was gained by running one that showed him in a less than complimentary light.
A year ago, Lynne and I were in California for a few days. One morning, we drove up to see an old woman who was a longtime friend of Lynne's family. She lived by herself near Yucaipa. She seemed to be doing okay for a woman of her age. We had a wonderful visit. I asked Lynne if she wanted to take a picture with the woman to bring home to show to her sisters. Lynne sighed and said no. She had a good picture of her already that she was taking home with her. The woman we were looking at now was not the woman she knew as a kid. She preferred to remember her that way.
It was a kind and thoughtful gesture. We are entitled to remember things our way.
The fact is we will grow older. We will not look as good as we did when were younger. Fine. But we are also entitled to our dignity. And when (or if) the time comes when we don't look so good, well. we can only hope folks with cameras will be judicious in their choices of pictures.
In my mind's eye, for example, Rocky Colavito, a terrific ballplayer for Detroit in the 1960s, will always be a sleek fellow with a full head of coal black hair who had a great arm and swung a solid bat. He will always be 30 years old.
Colavito is now 77 years old. A little part of me would love to sit and talk with him about his days in Detroit (and Cleveland). However, another part of me has no desire to see a current picture of him ... or worse, see him in person. I am afraid to discover he has a pot belly, is bald and wears coke-type glasses.
If so, it would be too heartbreaking to know.
Like my wife wishes to remember her old family friend, I want the Colavito in my mind's eye.
Anybody think that is a bad thing?
Sunday, January 23, 2011
Tuesday, January 11, 2011
Thanks, Jon. That was well said.
It has been three days since our nation's sensibilities were shaken ... again. The terrible business that occurred last Saturday in Tucson still seemed unreal ... even to those of us who have gone through a series of assassinations that robbed us of some of the country's brightest and best.
What happened in that store was bad enough. What happened next -- the bad reporting and the sadly predictable blaming of each side for the acts of a madman -- probably surprised no one.
Take the reporting first. Yes, it was a Saturday afternoon -- when the TV version of the backup catchers were on duty. That still doesn't excuse the cable folks who reported people were dead when they weren't. I could only imagine Chet Huntley, David Brinkley, Walter Cronkhite and all the brilliant journalism teacher (like my college prof, Father Whalen) shaking their heads in disbelief as they watched from above. TV cable news offers little journalism these days. Instead, they are entertainers with political points of view ... and those points of view seem to always come first and foremost before giving us the facts.
As for the blame game, what did we expect? Did we really think that Sean Hannity or Rush Limbaugh or Glenn Beck would miss a chance to nail those who disagree with them with a form of blame? Did we really think that a gasbag like Ed Schultz or the many bloggers who lean left would resist the urge to blame this on the wild, biased rhetoric Fox spins out? The answer, of course, is no. Most of today's talkers are interested in only one thing -- getting attention for themselves. Getting attention gets them ratings. Ratings translate into money. The rest of it is simply collateral damage ... something they can find a way to ignore.
It is likely most of the talkers wouldn't know Gabrielle Giffords, the Arizona congresswoman who was shot, from Frank Gifford, the former football player. (Well, some of them might know Frank is married to Kathie Lee.) Nor would it matter to them. The names are interchangeable. It is the policy and the ideas -- whether they be conservative or liberal -- that seem to matter most.
Because this happened on a Saturday afternoon, it took a while to get the network anchors in action. When they got on the job, a form of sanity returned to the airwaves. There is a reason why guys like Bill O'Reilly and the rest of the cable bombthrowers don't work for ABC, CBS, NBC, or PBS. (Some of them used to.)
Their shtick wouldn't pass muster there.
Ironically, it was Jon Stewart, who works for Comedy Central, who offered the proper perspective n how we should view this situation. His opening monologue on Monday was one of the best speeches I have heard in a long time. (The link is here: http://tv.gawker.com/5730178/watch-jon-stewarts-poignant-speech-on-the-arizona-shooting.) It ranks up there with Ronald Reagan's speech the day of the Challenger disaster and Bobby Kennedy's speech the day after Martin Luther King was killed.
Stewart came out and said what many of us felt. The time has come to simply admit madmen were just that ... nothing more, nothing less. Furthermore, there have been madmen before and there will be madmen in our future. We simply cannot escape them.
But we can do something to limit their access. We can quit using rhetoric that gives them ideas. We can have civil dissent, dammit. It's isn't sexy and it doesn't produce ratings. More than ever, however, it is what we need to do these days.
Thanks, Jon, for injecting a note of common sense. After two days of bluster and blame, his should be the only cable comment we should be listening to.
What happened in that store was bad enough. What happened next -- the bad reporting and the sadly predictable blaming of each side for the acts of a madman -- probably surprised no one.
Take the reporting first. Yes, it was a Saturday afternoon -- when the TV version of the backup catchers were on duty. That still doesn't excuse the cable folks who reported people were dead when they weren't. I could only imagine Chet Huntley, David Brinkley, Walter Cronkhite and all the brilliant journalism teacher (like my college prof, Father Whalen) shaking their heads in disbelief as they watched from above. TV cable news offers little journalism these days. Instead, they are entertainers with political points of view ... and those points of view seem to always come first and foremost before giving us the facts.
As for the blame game, what did we expect? Did we really think that Sean Hannity or Rush Limbaugh or Glenn Beck would miss a chance to nail those who disagree with them with a form of blame? Did we really think that a gasbag like Ed Schultz or the many bloggers who lean left would resist the urge to blame this on the wild, biased rhetoric Fox spins out? The answer, of course, is no. Most of today's talkers are interested in only one thing -- getting attention for themselves. Getting attention gets them ratings. Ratings translate into money. The rest of it is simply collateral damage ... something they can find a way to ignore.
It is likely most of the talkers wouldn't know Gabrielle Giffords, the Arizona congresswoman who was shot, from Frank Gifford, the former football player. (Well, some of them might know Frank is married to Kathie Lee.) Nor would it matter to them. The names are interchangeable. It is the policy and the ideas -- whether they be conservative or liberal -- that seem to matter most.
Because this happened on a Saturday afternoon, it took a while to get the network anchors in action. When they got on the job, a form of sanity returned to the airwaves. There is a reason why guys like Bill O'Reilly and the rest of the cable bombthrowers don't work for ABC, CBS, NBC, or PBS. (Some of them used to.)
Their shtick wouldn't pass muster there.
Ironically, it was Jon Stewart, who works for Comedy Central, who offered the proper perspective n how we should view this situation. His opening monologue on Monday was one of the best speeches I have heard in a long time. (The link is here: http://tv.gawker.com/5730178/watch-jon-stewarts-poignant-speech-on-the-arizona-shooting.) It ranks up there with Ronald Reagan's speech the day of the Challenger disaster and Bobby Kennedy's speech the day after Martin Luther King was killed.
Stewart came out and said what many of us felt. The time has come to simply admit madmen were just that ... nothing more, nothing less. Furthermore, there have been madmen before and there will be madmen in our future. We simply cannot escape them.
But we can do something to limit their access. We can quit using rhetoric that gives them ideas. We can have civil dissent, dammit. It's isn't sexy and it doesn't produce ratings. More than ever, however, it is what we need to do these days.
Thanks, Jon, for injecting a note of common sense. After two days of bluster and blame, his should be the only cable comment we should be listening to.
Wednesday, January 5, 2011
Farewell, Foul Ball King
It was a small story neat the bottom of the page. "Ex-Manager, Player Steve Boros dies."
Sigh. Another blast from the past was no more.
Viewed in the overall scheme of things, Boros was no big deal. He only played a couple of seasons. His career batting average .242 was no great shakes. He hit a mere 22 home runs in 422 MLB games. He was an adequate fielder but nothing special.
But you never forget your first great love. And my first great baseball love was the 1961 Detroit Tigers. I remember them all -- from batting champ Norm Cash to sub Dick Gernert (whose only hit that season with the team was a pinch-hit home run against the Angels). The Tigers kept pace with the mighty Yankees most of the season, finally giving way in the last two weeks of the year. They finished the season with a gaudy total of 101 victories but eight games out of first place. Today, that would earn you a playoff spot and a chance at redemption. In 1961, all it got you was a handshake and a sincere wish to win more games next year.
Boros was the regular third baseman on that team. He was justifiably overlooked on a team that had two superb starting pitchers (Frank Lary, Jim Bunning), a dependable third wheel in Don Mossi and a solid finisher in Terry Fox. The outfield of Rocky Colavito, Billy Bruton and Al Kaline was top notch. (Charley Maxwell, the first backup flychaser, was no slouch, either.)
The infield was Cash, speedy Jake Wood at second base, the erratic but exciting Chico Fernandez at shortstop and the plodding Boros at third base.
Of all those players, Boros seemed to be the one who was cursed with the most dreaded of all baseball ailments.
He had potential.
He looked bigger than his listed height of six feet. He seemed to have broad shoulders. He was not a fast runner. But he didn't strike out much and drew a surprisingly high total of walks.
Oddly, I can't remember any of his hits that season. What I do remember, however, was that he hit some of the longest foul balls I have ever seen.
I can't place the date but I distinctly remember a Saturday afternoon that year when he hit three balls that went all the way over the left field roof at old Tiger Stadium. Naturally, they were slightly left of the foul pole and counted for nothing more than a loud strike. It may be 49 years ago but I can still see Boros simply sigh and resolve to do better next time. My memory is he didn't get a hit after any of those mighty blows. (In the 87-year history of the old ballpark, only three balls ever went over the left field roof in fair territory. Harmon Killebrew, Frank Howard and Cecil Fielder did the honors.)
To the unerring eye of a rabid eight-year old baseball know-it-all, it seemed that Boros was on the verge of joining Colavito as a 40-home run man. If only he could straighten a few of those balls out, the Tigers could catch Mantle, Maris, Whitey Ford and the rest of those hated varmints from the big city Yankees.
Of course, it didn't turn out that way. Boros only hit five home runs the entire season and finished with a .270 batting average. The next year, he showed more power (16 home runs) but the batting average fell to .228. (By then, I was 10 years old and infinitely more knowledgeable about baseball. I simply knew Boros was never going to amount to much. I suspect I said so to anyone who asked me ... or even if they didn't ask.)
Accordingly, no one was particularly upset when the Tigers shipped him to the Chicago Cubs and inserted a shopworn fellow named Bubba Phillips at third base. (Later that year, they called up a rookie named Don Wert. By the end of the season, he was the regular third baseman. He stayed in that role for the next seven seasons and is best remembered around town as the guy who singled in the winning run the night the Tigers won the 1968 pennant.)
But our first loves always stand tall in our memory. They will always be 25 years old or so. They will always have a smile on their face.
So it is that Rocky Colavito will always be the original Italian Stallion, a limber hitter with a gun for an arm in left field. Al Kaline will always be the mechanically sound fellow who ate fast balls for lunch and missed nothing in right field. Norm Cash will always seem to be lunging off balance as he swatted a ball into the upper deck in center field. Jim Bunning will always seem to be falling into the third base dugout as he threw a nasty curve ball past a hitter for strike three.
And Steve Boros will always seem to be standing tall and resolute as he walked back to the batter's box, determined that the next time he hit the ball, it would go three feet to the right of the foul pole for a home run.
That is the way I saw it in 1961.
50 years later, nothing has happened to make me change my mind.
R.I.P. Big Steve
Sigh. Another blast from the past was no more.
Viewed in the overall scheme of things, Boros was no big deal. He only played a couple of seasons. His career batting average .242 was no great shakes. He hit a mere 22 home runs in 422 MLB games. He was an adequate fielder but nothing special.
But you never forget your first great love. And my first great baseball love was the 1961 Detroit Tigers. I remember them all -- from batting champ Norm Cash to sub Dick Gernert (whose only hit that season with the team was a pinch-hit home run against the Angels). The Tigers kept pace with the mighty Yankees most of the season, finally giving way in the last two weeks of the year. They finished the season with a gaudy total of 101 victories but eight games out of first place. Today, that would earn you a playoff spot and a chance at redemption. In 1961, all it got you was a handshake and a sincere wish to win more games next year.
Boros was the regular third baseman on that team. He was justifiably overlooked on a team that had two superb starting pitchers (Frank Lary, Jim Bunning), a dependable third wheel in Don Mossi and a solid finisher in Terry Fox. The outfield of Rocky Colavito, Billy Bruton and Al Kaline was top notch. (Charley Maxwell, the first backup flychaser, was no slouch, either.)
The infield was Cash, speedy Jake Wood at second base, the erratic but exciting Chico Fernandez at shortstop and the plodding Boros at third base.
Of all those players, Boros seemed to be the one who was cursed with the most dreaded of all baseball ailments.
He had potential.
He looked bigger than his listed height of six feet. He seemed to have broad shoulders. He was not a fast runner. But he didn't strike out much and drew a surprisingly high total of walks.
Oddly, I can't remember any of his hits that season. What I do remember, however, was that he hit some of the longest foul balls I have ever seen.
I can't place the date but I distinctly remember a Saturday afternoon that year when he hit three balls that went all the way over the left field roof at old Tiger Stadium. Naturally, they were slightly left of the foul pole and counted for nothing more than a loud strike. It may be 49 years ago but I can still see Boros simply sigh and resolve to do better next time. My memory is he didn't get a hit after any of those mighty blows. (In the 87-year history of the old ballpark, only three balls ever went over the left field roof in fair territory. Harmon Killebrew, Frank Howard and Cecil Fielder did the honors.)
To the unerring eye of a rabid eight-year old baseball know-it-all, it seemed that Boros was on the verge of joining Colavito as a 40-home run man. If only he could straighten a few of those balls out, the Tigers could catch Mantle, Maris, Whitey Ford and the rest of those hated varmints from the big city Yankees.
Of course, it didn't turn out that way. Boros only hit five home runs the entire season and finished with a .270 batting average. The next year, he showed more power (16 home runs) but the batting average fell to .228. (By then, I was 10 years old and infinitely more knowledgeable about baseball. I simply knew Boros was never going to amount to much. I suspect I said so to anyone who asked me ... or even if they didn't ask.)
Accordingly, no one was particularly upset when the Tigers shipped him to the Chicago Cubs and inserted a shopworn fellow named Bubba Phillips at third base. (Later that year, they called up a rookie named Don Wert. By the end of the season, he was the regular third baseman. He stayed in that role for the next seven seasons and is best remembered around town as the guy who singled in the winning run the night the Tigers won the 1968 pennant.)
But our first loves always stand tall in our memory. They will always be 25 years old or so. They will always have a smile on their face.
So it is that Rocky Colavito will always be the original Italian Stallion, a limber hitter with a gun for an arm in left field. Al Kaline will always be the mechanically sound fellow who ate fast balls for lunch and missed nothing in right field. Norm Cash will always seem to be lunging off balance as he swatted a ball into the upper deck in center field. Jim Bunning will always seem to be falling into the third base dugout as he threw a nasty curve ball past a hitter for strike three.
And Steve Boros will always seem to be standing tall and resolute as he walked back to the batter's box, determined that the next time he hit the ball, it would go three feet to the right of the foul pole for a home run.
That is the way I saw it in 1961.
50 years later, nothing has happened to make me change my mind.
R.I.P. Big Steve
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