The National Pastime takes on an added dimension when your group is doing effectively, changing into a soul-massaging diversion from the ever-present dangerous information of the day. The Orioles’ latest success has shaken unfastened reminiscences of glory days passed by — and spurred hope for the longer term.
Sitting with my grandkids on a muggy summer season day, I recall going to my first recreation, in 1953, a minor-league affair within the outdated one-level Municipal Stadium on thirty third Street. I had simply turned 10. The Orioles have been taking part in birds of a special feather, the Rochester Red Wings. I felt a light burst of anticipation as I walked up the grey concrete ramp, and a slight sense of wonderment on the sudden sight of a vividly emerald-green area and a rickety outdated scoreboard.
At that age, I actually wasn’t conscious that Baltimore had been a minor-league powerhouse within the nineteenth century, each within the American Association and later the National League, which received championships in three consecutive seasons (1894 to 1896). Nor was I aware of the truth that, for the primary half of the twentieth century, Baltimore was strictly a minor-league city. But in 1954 Mayor Thomas D’Alesandro and different civic leaders, who had longed for a modicum of nationwide recognition, persuaded Bill Veeck, then proprietor of the hapless St. Louis Browns, to maneuver his group right here. Veeck was hardly a reluctant suitor, anxious to flee the crosstown shadow of the decidedly extra profitable Cardinals.
A brand-new higher deck was rapidly added to Baltimore’s ramshackle Municipal Stadium, which was renamed Memorial Stadium in honor of all fallen American servicemen. The renovations have been accomplished simply in time for Opening Day in 1954: Thursday, April fifteenth.
It was an particularly momentous event, aided in no small measure by 70 diploma climate and considerable sunshine. Schools have been closed, and 1000’s of Baltimoreans younger and outdated jammed metropolis streets for a 90-minute parade up Charles Street from downtown. The fledgling Birds’ sat atop old style floats as they rode to their new dwelling, all alongside the way in which signing autographs, handing out pictures and tossing Styrofoam balls to the jubilant crowd.
The recreation began quickly afterward, earlier than a full home of 46,000 — about the identical quantity of people that packed Camden Yards final weekend.
The Opening Day starters have been largely journeymen: Bob Turley (pitching), Clint Courtney (catching), Eddie Waitkus (first base), Bobby Young (second base), Vern Stephens (third base), Billy Hunter (shortstop), Gil Coan (heart area), Sam Mele (left area), Vic Wirtz (proper area). The roster additionally included the group’s first Black participant, a left-handed pitcher named Jehosie Heard.
In the third inning Courtney, the Orioles’ squat, stocky and bespectacled catcher, hit the primary dwelling run in trendy group historical past, a solo shot within the third inning. And the Orioles went on to beat the Chicago White Sox, 3-1, thereby ending the day in a tie for first place within the American League. They ended the season in final, although, successful 54 video games and dropping 100.
But probably the most memorable spotlight that yr needed to be the Orioles’ midseason 10-0 shellacking of the long-reviled Yankees. Being born in Baltimore meant that you just disdained the so-called Bronx Bombers, that someway you’d been tutored in utero about how New York had stolen the outdated minor-league champion groups of the late nineteenth century and renamed them the Yankees — as evil a deed again then as when Robert Irsay absconded with the beloved Colts soccer franchise 30 years later in 1984.
There have been so many moments over time: Jim Palmer’s no-hitter; Gus Triandos attempting to catch Hoyt Wilhelm’s magical-butterfly knuckleballs with a comically outsized mitt; or Wilhelm himself dodging a swarm of mosquitoes in the course of a muggy summer season night time recreation. I listened to iconic announcer Chuck Thompson’s velvety voice calling Jim Gentile’s two bases-loaded dwelling runs in consecutive innings in May of 1961 and noticed Frank Robinson change into the primary and solely participant ever to hit a house run fully out of Memorial Stadium, some 540 toes, in May of 1966 (the precise spot quickly marked by an orange and black flag studying “HERE”). I additionally witnessed that yr’s “Baby Birds” demolish Dodger aces Sandy Koufax and Don Drysdale on their approach to successful 4 straight video games of the 1966 World Series and fortunately gawked at Brooks Robinson making a one-man defensive spotlight reel on his approach to successful the MVP award throughout the 1970 World Series towards the Cincinnati Reds.
A couple of months in the past I’d idly promised my grandkids that I’d take all of them to the World Series if the Orioles made it there this yr. Fat probability, I believed again then, what with a flock of no-name new Baby Birds: Cano and Cowser, Mateo and Mullins and Mountcastle, Hays and Henderson, Rutchman and Santander.
But right here we’re in first place, of all locations. If we do make the collection, I’ll fortunately purchase the most effective seats I can get, and all of the refreshments they need.
Kenneth Lasson ([email protected]) is an emeritus professor of regulation on the University of Baltimore.
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Source: www.bostonherald.com