Streaming in the Rain

This piece will appear to be a stream of consciousness that somehow will wend its way back to baseball. I know this because I encountered this stream this morning, and am, as they say, just reporting the facts, mam.

I was about to head out for some tennis this morning when the rains began. Even with clay courts at the OC, tennis was immediately history. So I flipped on the tube, and ended up watching on HBO a 1993 Peter Bagdonovich movie “The Thing Called Love” starring River Phoenix and Samantha Mathis. IMDB describes the plot: “a group of newcomers to the country music business seek love and stardom.”

I’m not much of a country music nut, though over the past couple of years I’ve started to dip my toe, having actually purched a couple of Lyle Lovett and Chris Issac CD’s. I did enjoy the movie, and I very much liked the music in it, particularly a song called “Blame it on Your Heart” with the following tag line: “Hey blame it on your lying, cheating, cold, deadbeating, two-timing, double dealing, mean, mistreating, loving heart.” Now them’s some lyrics.

Anyway, when the movie was over I hit the showers and started thinking of country music and movies, and ultimately thought of a wonderful season in my personal favorite baseball movie, Billy Crystal’s 61*. There is a quiet scene in the movie where Roger Maris is in his bedroom, alternately sitting quietly and doing exercises like pull-ups on the door jam. In the background is the Lyle Lovett song “Nobody Knows Me.” That’s the song that got me curious about Lovett.

I love that movie because as a 9 year old Yankee fan in New York in 1961, I followed Mickey and Roger and the Babe all summer. I gave out dvd copies of the movie to the poker boys a couple of years ago. The first time I saw the movie, I was stopped dead because there is actually a scene in the movie which features the first baseball game I ever attended. Everyone’s first game is one of the greatest, but mine really was an incredible game.

It was Michael Ellner’s 9th birthday, and his dad and my dad (dead 14 months later at 35 of a heart attack) took Michael and my brother Noah and me to Yankee Stadium on the Friday night before Labor Day. On the way in we passed a couple of nuns collecting for their church, one of which came up to my father, held out her can, and said “It’s Mickey Mantle! Mickey can you give a little?” I don’t remember if he gave her anything, but I do remember I was stunned that she thought my father was Mickey Mantle.

We had seats on the first base side out in right field, a little closer to home plate than Ken’s seats at SBC. Going to your first game at Yankee Stadium is incredibly dramatic at a night game with the lights spot-lighting the green outfield expanse. The game was the first of a 4 game showdown with the Tigers, with the Yanks ahead by about ½ game and the pennant on the line. Whitey was pitching that night, in a season that he finished something like 25-4.

He was up against Don Mossi, who went 15-7 for the Tigers that year with a 2.96 ERA. He was the ugliest man ever to play major league baseball, but he was clearly the star of the night, with a 2 hit shutout going into the bottom of the ninth. Whitey went out with an injury in around the 5th, but the Yankee bullpen kept the Tigers shut out through the top of the 9th. Roger and then Mickey came up to start the 9th for the Yanks. Mossi struck them both out. Then Elston Howard and Yogi Berra both singled. Moose Skowron singled into right field, in our direction, between the 1st and 2nd basemen to win the game 1-0 with 2 out in the 9th. Pretty good first game, eh?

The Yanks went on to sweep the series and blew out the Tigers and the AL in September, and beat the Reds 4-1 in the Series. Roger of course topped the Babe on the last day of the season. I saw that one, on TV live. 4th inning, he lasered it into the right field seats with only about 20,000 at the game, most of whom were in those right field stands. I still get chills when I see the replay. By the way, the final score of that game was 1-0, a bit of trivia few remember. Crystal’s movie is a faithful reenactment of a magical season. Highly recommended.

So I told you I’d get around to baseball.