WARNING. This blog is about baseball. You have been warned.
Gerry and I grew up in South Central Illinois which was St. Louis Cardinal country and also had some diehard Chicago Cub fans. For some reason, I took a liking to the Pirates and have been a fan of theirs since I was about 13 years old. Over the years they have been one of the worst, best and somewhere in the middle.
I remember well listening to Bob Prince broadcast their games on KDKA (which claims to be the first commerical radio station in the world and was created on Nov 2, 1920). He had a very distinctive voice and was well liked by the players since he didn't second guess or criticize them, unlike the aggressive style of modern day announcers. We lived in the Washington, DC area during the late 1950s and late at night I could get the games on radio if they were playing west of the Mississippi river.
Nat Albright of the Brooklyn Dodgers ( yes Brooklyn) read ticker tapes and made up the game as it went along. He was always an inning or two behind, but at least you could hear what was going on in the game. One night a friend was listening to Bob Prince live and Smoky Burgess hit a pinch hit home run to win the game against the Dodgers. He went downstairs in his apartment building to tell a fellow Pirate fan they had won the game. Wins were scarce about this time. The friend downstairs was listening to the ticker tape broadcast and it was only in the 8th inning. Friend one bet the other that Burgess would pinch hit and get a home run. Easiest $5 he ever made.
It is hard to imagine how different it was then before ESPN, the internet, MLB Network, Cable and all the offerings of today. It was somehow more exciting to hear the game and visualize what was going on. Maybe that is where I got my imagination.
Anyway, the Pirates are now 1/2 game out of 1st place in their division and playing good baseball. They have a team salary of $63 million, while the Yankees team salary is $198 million. I love to see those overpaid teams get beaten by the lower budget teams. .
Sabillasville, Maryland farm
Clark Travels
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http://www.travbuddy.com/maps/6730401
I have been getting more and more spam from bloggers since I let anyone respond to the blog. One way to stop the spam is to cut off anonymous comments. It is very easy and painless to get a Gmail email account and use it to post on blogs. You don't have to actually use the account, but it gives you a portal into my blog.
NOTE: Double click photos to enlarge them and links will also be shown in red.
http://www.travbuddy.com/maps/6730401
I have been getting more and more spam from bloggers since I let anyone respond to the blog. One way to stop the spam is to cut off anonymous comments. It is very easy and painless to get a Gmail email account and use it to post on blogs. You don't have to actually use the account, but it gives you a portal into my blog.
NOTE: Double click photos to enlarge them and links will also be shown in red.
Me, too.
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