Entries Tagged 'Baseball' ↓

The Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, NY announced the selection of 18 former players and executives, including 17 from the Negro Leagues and pre-Negro League era, as this year�s class of inductees. Included in the group is the Hall�s first female inductee, Effa Manley, a White woman who passed as Black, and who along with Black husband Abe, owned the Newark Eagles franchise in the Negro Leagues.

This is the largest group of inductees in any single year, and also includes relief pitcher Bruce Sutter of the St. Louis Cardinals.

Baseball Hall of Fame Elects First Woman (ABC News)

Negro Leaguers called to Hall (Philadelphia Daily News)

Baseball Hall of Fame Inductees (Kansas City Star)

The Kid�s in the Hall (Bejata.com)

It may never be my good luck to become rich, but I can honestly say I�ve done some interesting and varied things in my life of which I am quite proud. Saturday I added another accomplishment.

First the back story. As some of you know, at one point in my life I was a full-time starving actor and voiceover announcer. For about 11 years I derived almost my entire living from that, while living in upstate New York. I continue to act today, but on a part-time basis when the spirit hits me.

Ironically, my career upstate was far more successful than it has ever been here in NYC. There I was a big fish in a small pond, much sought after for voiceover work in commercials and industrials, in addition to doing theatre and on-camera commercial work. I got most of my work without auditioning. Here, I�m just one in about 15,000 out of work actors. Take a number and get in line. (Consequently, I hold a full-time non-show biz job, with salary and benefits.)

Back in 1997, it was my good fortune to get hired by the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum in Cooperstown, NY to narrate several segments of a then new exhibit they were installing, Pride and Passion, about the Negro Leagues. They liked my work and since that year was also the 50th Anniversary of Jackie Robinson�s breaking Major League Baseball�s color barrier, they asked me to narrate the special commemorative exhibit on Robinson as well as the permanent installation on his life. They have told me his widow Rachel Robinson is quite pleased with it and has used it during Jackie Robinson Foundation events.

Around 2001, after I had moved to New York, they called me again. The Hall of Fame and museums in 10 major cities were combining their efforts on a touring exhibit on baseball�s impact on the nation, called Baseball As America. I narrated several segments of that show, which is now on its final stop, in Detroit.

So I was pleasantly surprised when I got an email a few weeks ago from my contact at the museum inquiring about my availability to do some more work. This year (this week in fact) new inductees will be announced for the Negro League section of the Hall, with additional players from that era as well as Black players who predate the formation of the league under consideration.

Last Saturday, I traveled back upstate and added my dulcet tones to revised pieces for Pride and Passion as well as new segments for all of the 39 possible inductees. While there, they also asked me to narrate the feature on Bruce Sutter, a more contemporary player who goes into the Hall this year as well.

It is quite a personal honor to be associated with this bit of history, albeit peripherally. Many of these players I heard about from my father growing up, or read about in books, or in many cases had never heard of before. Reading their bios helped to educate me and I in turn help to educate future museum visitors who will view these exhibits.

The National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum is, in my opinion, one of America�s great museums. It is just a fun place to tour, even if you only know a little bit about the game itself. In April there will be a ceremony for the Negro League inductees and I may get back up there to see it first hand.

I felt like a kid again.

In a throwback to a bygone era, I took a day off from work Thursday and went to a baseball game. A not-so-guilty pleasure I’ve never experienced before, but one I certainly hope I can repeat.

In past times, the national past-time scheduled most games during weekday hours, causing the gainfully employed to choose between work and play on a regular basis. Kids skipped school, with or without their parents’ permission, to sneak off to games and sit in then affordable bleacher seats. But round about 30 years ago, Major League Baseball shifted more games to the evenings to capitalize on a larger television viewing audience, ticket prices started creaping ever upward, and a great tradition was nearly lost.

Thankfully, some teams keep an occasional mid-week day game on the calendar. With the tickets I won at a charity auction in February, my buddy Mark and I made the trip out to Queens to see New York’s best baseball team–the Mets, in case you haven’t looked at the standings lately–take on the visiting Philadelphia Phillies. The tickets belong to a season ticket holder who has great seats. No, I mean GREAT seats. The blue section, right behind home plate, Loge level. You can see everything close up, but with the perspective that comes from being up higher than the field level seats. But we were also close enough that when foul balls came ripping back, as at least three did, you had to stay alert. This was the no napping section.

Interestingly, and probably understandably, seats in this section don’t see many Black faces. We got there in time to catch the tail end of batting practice, when fans typically move closer to catch a glimpse of their favorite players. When it had ended and the grounds crew was getting the field ready for the start of the game, an usher came down to tell us we needed to move up to where he assumed we belonged. We weren’t having it. First, I showed him my ticket, then Mark and I gave him the third degree about why he immediately assumed we were someplace we weren’t suppose to be. It was fun watching him sweat for a few minutes, making up his flimsy excuses. Sad part, he was an older Latino, not much lighter in complexion than I, who I guess we hoped should have known better than to engage in such profiling.

Nevertheless we didn’t let it spoil our enjoyment of the day. The game, covered over in the Sports section, was a success for the Mets. They won 7-5 to take 3 of their 4 games with the Phillies. In the all important Jimmy Rollins vs Jose Reyes battle of the hot shortstops, Rollins went 2-4, including a three run home run to win the on-field competition. But both of them fill out a baseball uniform so well as to make it too hard to declare a clear winner.

The characters in that section of the stadium are a trip. There was a woman to our right sitting by herself, who can best be described as a real broad. A big woman with a mop of blond hair, who mentioned she had been in the Marines, she was chatty and had one of those real hard, New Yawk dialects. She kept a scorecard, was charting every pitch and had something to say about most every player.

To our left, a few seats over, were “the guys.” Four men who looked like co-workers maybe, in some blue collar environment. The type of guys who like to have 3 or 4 beers…an inning! Think drunk and loud by about the 7th. They were amusing yet harmless, but I hope there was a designated driver.

This was my first trip out to Shea since 1973, and the game that marked Willie Mays’ return to New York as a Met. They went to the World Series that year. The way they’ve improved since last season, perhaps this trip was an omen. I can hope, anyway.

In my lifetime, I have seen man walk on the moon.

I have seen apartheid end in South Africa and the fall of the Berlin Wall.

I’ve seen television go from black and white to living color, the creation of 200 cable networks and the birth of the Internet.

But I never thought I’d live to see or say it.

The Boston Red Sox are World Series Champions.

Wednesday, October 27, 2004.

I have witnessed history.

*I guess I got it wrong.

Let’s see now…the New England Patriots won the Super Bowl…Red Sox just won the World Series…who else is from Massachusetts and needs to win big…?

There is a quiet hanging over New York City this morning.

Thursday, downside of the week, is typically subdued but today more than usual. You can feel it on the street, you could hear it on the subway with the absence of baseball talk. You could see it in the faraway look and vacant stares of those few Yankee fans still proud enough to wear their hats. What happened last night was unimaginable.

The Yankees lost the American League Championship Series, but worse than that, they lost in 7 games. Worse still, they were up 3 games to none with plenty of chances to close it out and they didn’t. The absolute, positively worst aspect, it was to the Boston Red Sox, their favorite, perennial whipping boys. Like the changing of the leaves, a Yankee humiliation of the Boston franchise (and their fans) was an annual fall occurrence. Last night the unthinkable happened and New Yorkers are now trying to wrap their brains around it. Are they canceling Christmas this year too?

Where I live, in upper Manhattan, several blocks west of the Stadium, I heard a sound I’ve never heard before following the conclusion of the game; Boston fans actually celebrating in our streets. So exhilarated, so emboldened by the team’s accomplishments, fans were brazen enough to drive down Broadway whooping and hollering. Shortly afterwards, police sirens could also be heard, and I can only surmise that New Yorkers reminded them of where they were.

Truth be told, I am a Mets fan. Have been my whole life. But I am a New Yorker first, so I sided with the “other” home team in what has become our near annual act of civic loyalty. Being a Mets fan has taught me how to accept losing in ways Yankee fans can’t fully comprehend. They are devastated. I am resigned and philosophical. They are questioning if the sun still sets in the west. I accept this as the inevitable end of the season for baseball in New York. I know that next year both teams will try again, hopefully with better results. They are already talking about off season acquisitions.

Ironically, I can probably relate to Boston fans moreso than my crosstown compatriots. The Bronx Bombers operate with a machine-like precision that leaves other teams in shock and awe. Beating the Yankees in the manner in which they did is a tremendous accomplishment, one for the record books. But Red Sox Nation needs to keep their eyes on the prize.

Destroying the evil empire mustn’t be the goal. They can’t let down now. Winning the World Series is the goal, and if they fail to do that, the miraculous come from behind ALCS victory will be little comfort. Yankee fans will still get to chant “1918″ next year, when they no doubt face each other again.