The Pecan Park Eagle

Archive for 2013

My Favorite Houston MLB Uniform

February 26, 2013

The 1965 Shooting Star is my all time favorite Astros uniform design.

As I first wrote last fall, I’m in the camp of those who like the return of the Astros to their more traditional uniform fonts, the closed star, the big “H”, and the colors orange and navy blue. That’s how we started and that’s how we’ll always be in my own mind-time for this sort of thing. In fact, the color match is now an even greater natural. If you are going to play in a ballpark called Minute Maid Park, one that features a train load of pumpkin-sized oranges on the tracks high above left field, how can you not fly the color orange in the uniform scheme of things – especially in light of the fact that half the fans are hanging “The Juicer” on the place as their first choice for the venue’s identity.

I fell in love with the shooting star design that came along with the 1965 christening of the new domed stadium forevermore as the Astrodome and the change of the club’s name from Colt .45’s to Astros. Although I liked the old Colt .45 jersey style, I just really took to the sight of that star blazing across the jersey of the new club from outer space. It simply spoke aloud for the high hopes and aspirations of most Houston baseball fans.

If you had appeared as a psychic prior to that first-ever game against the Yankees on April 9, 1965 and told all of us Astros fans that our future over the next 48 years would include only one World Series appearance and no wins, we probably would have laughed you out-of-town with a free Greyhound bus ticket. I shudder to even think what might have happened had you also told us as a 1965 psychic version of Johnny Carson’s “Beyondo” that our brand new Astros would be moved to the American League before we ever even got our second still unforeseen in 2013 shot at a second World Series.

Now, had you wanted to have built credibility as a psychic in 1965, you could have done so with this simple forecast: “Over the next half century, Houston will continue to build and widen its current system of freeways and cross-town avenues, but any journey to and from the Galleria area shall remain a four-hour round trip from anyplace located within thirty miles of the famous shopping center.”

Shooting stars are great. Unfortunately, they only look good on uniforms and they have nothing to do with the long-term delivery of dreams.

Tags:astros shooting star uniform
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Once Upon a Time ‘Neath a Summer Night Sky…

February 25, 2013

THe Bronco Drive In Theater in Beeville, Texas fell into ruin in the 1970s.

…We had a thing called drive in movie theaters. They were places for families with young children and also havens for young couples who liked to cuddle. They were all over America and, by 1951, they were starting to be the answer to TV’s damage to the indoor movie house market.

With the coming of TV to places like Houston in 1949, people started staying at home more, watching moving characters on the small screen for nothing and maybe saving enough money on movie tickets to move up rom a 10″ black and white screen to one of those new 14″ – or even 17″ – really big TV screen sets.

The problem was quickly apparent. Watching TV did not fulfill the need that most able-bodied younger people have for getting out of the house. And you couldn’t take small kids to a good indoor movie theater anyway – and date nights for teens didn’t work at all if you had to build them around staying home and watching TV with your parents and your girl friend.

Then some marketing genius came up with an alternative that served as the answer for a while – that answer was the invention of the usually suburban or way out in the country drive in movie theater. The trick was to find some cheap land that was not too effected by the lights of the city or heavy highway traffic lights. Then you built a screen that was big enough to handle hundreds of cars with room enough left over near the screen for a playground and a concession stand in the same building that housed the projector. Each car space would then be set up with its own speaker on a wire that the driver could bring inside and adjust for volume. (The sound quality was Grade F Crapola, but we didn’t know any better back then. If you are too young to remember, be glad. You should have heard how bad the sound was for television in the beginning.)

These were also the pre-AC days in most Houston homes, so, the drive in movie theater was also a chance to enjoy the gulf breezes by rolling all your car windows down. The downside in Houston’s summer nights was dealing with the mosquitoes. Our major remedy for these pests was a product we bought at the concession stand, a little green coil of some smokey combustibility that you burned inside the car like a mind-altering incense. They called it “Pic” and it killed and repelled the bugs away very effectively. I’m not sure what it did to our lungs because back in the day, we just assumed that no American manufacturer would make an insect repellent that was also harmful to humans. Heck! We even had a cockroach killer at home called “J.O.” It was a pasty green substance inside a little toilet roll-like container that you placed on the floor at night; it was a material that also glowed in the dark that almost killed any roach that came near it – and totally wiped out all that dared to have a bite. – As they say today sometimes – “What’s up with that?”

At any rate, the drive ins were a neat retreat from the small quarters of home life with no privacy and a great place to cuddle for teen couples. In fact, the desire for closeness among teens drove the film industry into the creation of a genre we now often think of as “drive in movie.” These were the fright films that literally drove girls into the protective arms of their always protective boy friends. Several of these classics have been discussed here recently in The Pecan Park Eagle. The ones that stand out in my memory are “Invasion of the Body Snatchers” (1956), “Creature from the Black Lagoon” (1954), and “The Thing From Another World” (1951). I was too young for date night on the “The Thing’s” first go-round, but it kept coming back for years because of its great matchmaking power over young people.

My main Houston drive in movie theaters included the Winkler, only a mile from my Pecan Park home; the King Center on South Park (now MLK), the Hi Nabor on Mykawa Road, the Trail on O.S.T., and the South Main on South Main. There were many, many others in our town. Perhaps, you have a favorite that I haven’t listed.

Closing Note: I even had my own “Wake Up, Little Susie” moment once at the Trail. It was a Friday summer night and both my girl friend and I had worked hard all day, but we still decided to go to the Trail for one movie in an all night monster film festival. We both went to sleep in the front seat, but some pedestrian finally wakened me when he slammed his hand on my front fender on the way to the concession stand. I looked at my watch. It was 3:42 AM.

Holy Crap! My 16 year old version of “Susie” was supposed to be home by midnight. What was 16 year old me to do?

“WAKE UP, LITTLE SUSIE ! – WAKE UP!”

“Susie’s” mom ripped me pretty good by the time I got her daughter home. Fortunately for me, Susie’s mom did not know how to reach my own parents that night and I was to get home and sneak into the house without anyone there ever knowing.

As for how Susie did after that night, I really couldn’t tell you. Her mom imposed a probation upon contact between us after that night and the clock is still running on that one. I think she said it would be OK for me to call again on the day before the crack of doom.

Tags:the drive in movie theater
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ROOTS 6: Fly Ball Problem, Take 2

February 24, 2013

Bud Bentley contributed this cartoon to Mickey Herskowitz’s article in the Houston Post on April 10, 1965, entitled: “Dome Puzzle Deepens: As Advice Pours In.”

We recently wrote our first Astros “ROOTS” column on “The Day it Rained Baseballs” because of day game visual problems for outfielders particularly with fly balls at the new Astrodome. Today we go at the subject again, this time from a Houston Post perspective on the first weekend of play, April 9-11, 1965.

Forty-eight years later, every Houston baseball fan who was around when the Astrodome opened is both aware of the original problem of seeing fly balls during day games and its eventual solution a little thing called paint the ceiling, kill the grass, put in “Astroturf” as our human contribution to nature’s mutating design, but on April 11, 1965, the answers, results, consequences, and the boon that this issue eventually would become for Monsanto wasn’t quite so clear.

Here’s how Houston Post Sports Editor Mickey Herskowitz described the status of things in the Houston Post on Saturday, April 10, 1965: “The keenest intellects within and without baseball were still dumfounded Friday by the plight of the Houston Astros. – No solution had appeared yet to that one great mystery in the sky, namely how to apprehend a fly ball in the daytime in the Domed Stadium. – During the afternoon hours the sun and the Dome’s grand design reduce an outfielder to the status of a helpless pedestrian.”

According to Herskowitz, the “DuPONT COMPANY, developers of the Lucite (Astrodome) ceiling, rushed a research team here (to Houston) by plane to study the problem. ‘Just be patient,’ said one engineer. ‘We’ll think of something.'”

Charles Finley, owner of the Kansas City Athletics, informed the Astros that he was sending them six dozen orange baseballs for game use with him compliment. Hmmm! WOnder what happened to them, if he did mail them, for they were never used in a real game, but would make great historical artifacts from those times, if they were not eaten in time by the Astrodome rats of the current mausoleum era of the great structure’s declining health life span.

An Atlanta artist called to offer a rather oblique opinion that “the problem was one of tones and colors.” Say what?

Another random suggestion included the use of blue floodlights that could be shined upon the Astrodome roof, which we are compelled to view as little more than a “blue sky answer” to a far more complex riddle.

How about changing out the problematic clear light panels into ones which are tinted as polarized orange in color.

The eventual solution was nowhere near home that first weekend, but there was plenty of embarrassment to go around for everyone who had a hand in the final design and construction of the world’s first indoor stadium.

“How could they not see this coming?” That was the question on everyone’s minds. It lives on today as just another reminder that we are never quite as smart as we think we are.

The whole thing could have been avoided by just giving up the idea that daylight baseball was an option for the Astrodome. The National League was even willing to allow the Astros to shift its 21 regular season day games to night contests in 1965. The downside? According to Herskowitz, the club would have been forced to give up its $300,000 share of the TV revenue to be collected from the Game of the Week telecasts by moving to a “nights only” existence.

A 2013 Retrospective …

Problem Solved. Cheap as possible. Paint the clear roof opaque. Block out the sun. Now see the ball. Now also see the grass die. Now see us paint the grass green. Next year, see us replace the painted dead grass with grass that cannot die because it has never lived. It’s fake grass from Monsanto that seemed destined previously o serve mainly as a back yard door mat collector of dog poop and mud from the boots and shoes of homeboy grilling dads. Let’s now call it “Astroturf” as a way of glorifying and identifying its new greater status function to the whimsical distraction needs of western civilization. Problem solved better. Make the roofs of new domed stadiums mobile to sliding open. That way, we get to have opaque roofs that will co-exist with real grass because they can be opened to sunlight when there are no games in motion.

Thank you, Mickey Herskowitz, for being there to cover the onset one of the great technological challenges in American sports – the hazardous art of catching an invisible baseball in flight at the original Astrodome.

Tags:fly ball problem in first year of the astrodome
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ROOTS 5: OTHER ASTRODOME FIRSTS

February 23, 2013

4/10/1965: Jim Beauchamp was the first Astros batter to light up the famous scoreboard in a day game with the Baltimore Orioles when his third inning home run contributed mightily to the club’s 11-8 second win of any kind in the Astrodome.

Although his first Astros home run into the left field pavilion seats in the second game ever played in the Dome didn’t count in the long run because of its exhibition game status, it was still a landmark first time that the famous new all Texas cowboys and bulls scoreboard got lit up by a home club long ball in the great new land of inner playing space.

The world didn’t have to wait long for an official first indoor home run. As with Mantle before him, however, it simply wasn’t going to spring from the bat of an Astros slugger. The first official game home run in the Astrodome came early in the first contest of the season, in a battle played out on 4/12/1965 between the visiting Philadelphia Phillies and the home team Houston Astros. As in the first exhibition game, it was again a member of the opposition that cracked the first long ball indoors when Phillies first baseman Dick Allen banged out a two run homer in the third inning off Bob Bruce that stood up as the 2-0 final score of the very first Astrodome Opening Day contest.

Astrodome Landmarks from 4/12/1965:

First Astros Loss – 4/12/1965, 0-2.

First Win – Philadelphia Phillies

First Losing Pitcher – Bob Bruce (Astros)

First Astros Reliever – Hal Woodeshick

First Winning Pitcher – Chris Short (Phillies)

First Official Domer Homer – Dick Allen (Phillies)

First Run – Ruben Amaro (Phillies)

First Error – Dick Allen (Phillies)

First Astros Double – Joe Morgan

First Astros Multiple Hit Game – Joe Morgan (2 for 3)

After the 4/12/1965 Dome opener, the Astros went on an eight-game road trip that kept them out-of-town until 4//23/1965 when they returned to the Astrodome to play a three-game series with the Pittsburgh Pirates.

The Astros took the first series game, 4-3, establishing these additional Astrodome firsts:

First Astros Win – 4/23/1965, 4-3.

First Losing Team Foe – Pittsburgh Pirates

First Astros Winning Pitcher and Win in Relief – Dave Giusti

First Opponent Losing Pitcher – Al McBean (Pirates)

First Astros Batter Hit by Pitcher – Ron Brand by Al McBean

First Astros Intentional Walk – to Al Spangler by Al McBean

The next day, 4/24/1965, the Astros finally added the big offensive first:

First Astros Home Run – Bob Aspromonte

First Astros Home Run with at least One Runner on Base – Jimmy Wynn

That’s it for now. If you have any firsts facing you this weekend, may they all be pleasant ones.

* Thanks to Baseball Almanac and Baseball Reference for their usual roles in making basic historical data research a thousand times easier than it was in the old pre-Internet days. If we really wanted to cover all of the baseball firsts associated with the opening of the Astrodome, we could be at the research side of things 12 hours a day for the next six months and still be scraping the surface of new material that had not occurred to us previously.

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ROOTS 4: Astrodome Firsts

February 22, 2013

Thanks to a writer I unforgivably forgot in yesterday’s summary of the 1965 Houston sportswriter scene, we have a list of some little known firsts in the history of the Astrodome from its first game between the New York Yankees and the home based Houston Astros on Friday, April 9, 1965. The writer was columnist Wells Twombly of the Houston Chronicle, another nimble mind with baseball facts and the humor of their importance in the grand scheme of things.

First, check out the beautiful narrative of Wells Twombly in his introduction of the subject. ….

From that point in the Twombly column, here’s how the writer and the Saturday, April 10, 1965 edition of his newspaper “Chronicled” those significant “firsts” in the history of the Astrodome. We do some paraphrasing here for the sake of brevity and our shorter attention spans of 2013:

Friday, April 9, 1965. Astrodome Firsts from the First Game Ever Played in the World’s First Domed Stadium:

7:44 PM: Astros starting pitcher Turk Farrell breaks off the first game pitch to lead off Yankees batter Mickey Mantle. It is low and inside for a ball and gets away from catcher Ron Brand. Brand retrieves it and runs it over to NL President Warren Giles for later presentation to the Cooperstown Hall of Fame where “it will be enshrined,” according to Wells Twombly, “in a glass case next to a vial containing bone chips from Joe DiMaggio’s heel and an umpire’s ear drum ruptured by Leo Durocher.”

7:46 PM: Mickey Mantle gets the first Astrodome hit, a single.

7:49 PM: Farrell slips the first Astrodome strike past Yankee second baseman Bobby Richardson.

7:51 PM: Richardson forces runner Mantle at second on an infield grounder. The Astros fail to get Richardson on a safe call at first for the first double play in Astrodome history, but the safe call does result in the first loud roar of air-conditioned boos.

7:53 PM: Roger Maris draws a low fast ball for ball four and the first walk in Astrodome history.

7:54 PM: Left fielder Al Spangler of the Astros catches “the first weather-proof fly ball.”

7:57 PM: While the teams are going through the first change of sides, the first vendor to trip and fall with products in hand takes a dive on the steps in the strawberry-colored seating section, “dousing two customers with soda pop.”

8:12 PM: Frank Finch of the Los Angeles Times makes the first bad joke in an indoor baseball press box in a comment he makes on a juggled ball play by Joe Morgan that finally results in an out. Finch exclaims to all that “you (have to) score that play four-four-four-four-three because Morgan handled that ball four times.” How funny folks were back in 1965.

8:30 PM: Less than an hour into the first game, the first drunk is seen staggering through the new indoor press box. Want to guess who the first designated driver was that night? It was nobody. There weren’t any designated drivers back in 1965. Whoever the drunk was drove himself home. Or at least tried to.

8:40 PM: In the top of the sixth, with nobody on, Mickey Mantle slams the first home run in Astrodome history. It also produces the Dome’s first run and RBI, plus a 1-0, first in-progress deficit game under glass for the Houston Astros.

8:41 PM: Exactly one minute later, a fan makes the first clean bare hand catch of a foul ball hit into the stands.

8:51 PM: Rusty Staub reaches safely when his bunt stays fair, giving the Astros their first ever indoor bases loaded situation.

9:00 PM: Jimmy Wynn guns down Johnny Blanchard as the first indoor runner cut down at the plate by a bullet throw from center field.

10:22 PM: In the bottom of the 10th, Nellie Fox of the Astros gets the first pinch hit in indoor baseball history. It is a single to center that scores the winning run in a 2-1 victory for the Astros over the Yankees and, of course, the first win in indoor baseball history. Jimmy Wynn scored the fist winning run in Astrodome history.

That’s it. Unrecorded by Wells Twombly’s time stamp also are these other important firsts in Astrodome history from Game One:

First Astros Run – Turk Farrell

First Astros RBI – Rusty Staub

First Astros Single – Al Spangler

First Double – Walter Bond

First Triple – Ron Brand

First HBP – Roger Maris by Hal Woodeshick

First Stolen Base – Joe Pepitone

First Astros Stolen Base – Joe Morgan

First to Ground into Double Play – Rusty Staub, 4-6-3

First Error – Tony Kubek

First Winning Pitcher – Hal Woodeshick

First Losing Pitcher – Pete Mikkelsen

First “IN ORBIT” Notation on an Astrodome Homer – It was Mantle’s. The lead photo used here was described exactly as it was below the lead photo in the Houston Chronicle. No word if broadcaster Harry Kalas first used his eventually famous “that ball is in orbit” on Mantle’s first blast, but probably not. The famous Kalas-Call correctly homed in and came back out as “that ball is in Astros orbit!” Perhaps, Harry drew his inspiration from the Chronicle’s “IN ORBIT” description beneath the Mantle picture and used it the following evening when Jim Beauchamp hit the first “Domer” home run for the Astros in the third inning of the next day’s first indoor afternoon game, and this time, against the Baltimore Orioles and lefty starter Jim McNally.

“Astros Orbit?” Who knows? The word “orbit” hung plainly in the Astrodome air back in 1965. Kalas could have as easily inhaled it with any breath he took on Friday, April 9th, and then exhaled it in the form of orbiting mucous matter on Saturday afternoon, April 10, 1965.

Have a nice weekend, Everybody!

Tags:Astrodome Firsts, Wells Twombly
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ROOTS 3: Houston Sports Writers 1965

February 21, 2013

Circa 1965

From the 1965 Astros Souvenir Game Program, I ran across this group picture of the four major local writers who covered the Houston major league baseball club for the Houston Post and Houston Chronicle in that first exciting season of the “brand new and shiny too” Astrodome.

Clark Nealon was the gold standard veteran of the group, the man who linked Houston writing icon-to-be Mickey Herskowitz with the illustrious Post reporter that came before them. Lloyd Gregory, the man who took Houston sports writing back to the late 1920s and the early 1930s Post coverage of Dizzy Dean and Joe Medwick as players with the 1931 Houston Buffs, was a homey force of some reckoning power back in the day. In fact, it was Gregory and a female fan who wrote in the suggestion who gave Medwick his famous permanent ink nickname of “Ducky.” The lady wrote to Gregory that she thought Medwick walked like a duck. Gregory must have agreed because he kept using the nickname “Ducky” in local print enough until it made all the rounds and even packed itself in Medwick’s suitcase when Ducky finally waddled off to the Cardinals and big league gas house gang fame in 1933.

Nealon did not write to hang nicknames or rile readers for attention. Clark Nealon wrote to give readers the best reports he could write about the Buff, Colt .45, and Astro games he covered. You see, Nealon labored under the impression that reporters were hired to report on games – not to distort them as devices for drawing attention to himself. With Clark Nealon, the game was the thing and, in my humble every morning reader experience as I was growing up, nobody else ever hit the keys in that direction as well until Mickey Herskowitz came along.

Mickey is the guy with storybook start. He was the frequent kid fan at Buff Stadium who became famous among members of the media for his game time practice of updating player batting averages during games in progress at Buff Stadium in the late 1940s and early 1950s. His talents earned him an invitation to watch the games from the press box so the professionals could have the benefit of this information.

A journalism career was born.

After graduating from the University of Houston, Mickey Herskowitz continued his long career as a sports writer for the Houston Post, shifting over to the Chronicle in the 1990s, when the post died. Herskowitz has since moved on to chaired position on the journalism-communications faculty at Sam Houston State, but his landmark contribution has been his authorship of over sixty books, mostly biographies, but of figures as diverse as baseball’s Mickey Mantle and Hollywood’s Bette Davis. Mickey is currently a contributing author on the major book that our SABR group is writing on “Houston Baseball, The Early Years: 1861-1961.” Publication for this only comprehensive treatment of Houston’s early rich history of baseball is projected for the spring of 2014, and Mickey Herskowitz will be addressing what went on in the transition of our city’s growth from the minor leagues to the major leagues in the post World War II years.

Mickey took reporting to a new level of entertainment. His game accounts came in excellent-size only, but they also came loaded with the Herskowitz humor that invited the readers to come back for more. Like Forrest Gump’s famous box of chocolates, the reader never knew for sure what he or she was going to get from a Herskowitz article beyond the truth. They just knew that it was likely to contain something that was also funny and entertaining.

For example …

When viewing the profile of the completed Astrodome on his first drive to the venue, Mickey said: “It looks like a giant anti-perspirant bottle that has been buried in the ground up to its neck.”

When the Astros installed the first Astroturf by zipper-connected sections to the Astrodome infield, Mickey said: “Now Houston has the only infield in the big leagues with its own built-in infield fly.”

When the Dallas Cowboys built Texas Stadium, leaving a large section of the middle roof open and exposed to the sky, Mickey said: “On the heels of Houston’s success with a fully covered stadium, Dallas apparently has decided to settle for building themselves a “Half Astrodome.”

Enough. We haven’t got all day to laugh. Do we?

Dick Peebles was the able senior writer for the Chronicle. We were a Post family when I was growing up so i really did not get to read Peebles that often. Perhaps some of you who remember him in greater detail will care to comment.

John Wilson is almost the same problem for me because he was another Chronicle writer, but I do have to stop long enough for giving Wilson credit for hanging one of the best nicknames that’s ever been hung by a writer on a deserving ballplayer. Known for his compact size and big man power hitting strength, Jimmy Wynn became instantly far better known by the nickname given to him by John Wilson.

Yes. Jimmy Wynn was, is, and always will be – “The Toy Cannon!”

Thank you, John Wilson. And thanks to all four of you men from 1965 for helping to place and keep Houston on the media map of national attention.

The play’s the thing.

Tags:Clark Nealon, DIck Peebles, Houston Sports Media 1965, John WIlson, Mickey Herskowitz
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The Saturday Kid Movies

February 19, 2013

The Rialto Theater
Beeville, Texas

Every couple of years or so, I seem to do a memory check on some of the Grade B movie stars that made films for our post World War II generation of kids that loaded the suburban movie theaters each Saturday morning or afternoon to watch a four-hour double bill that was aimed straight at our restless little culture-deprived minds.

My home base for these weekly retreats from all thoughts grown-up was the Avalon Theater in the Houston East End on 75th at Lawndale. They tore that sweet bastion of adult-free space down too long ago for me to have gone back in time for a treasured photo of the original “Avalon” post. It was the “Capri” for a while thereafter, then went through several lives as a “church” before the wrecking ball got it about five years ago.

What’s in a movie house name beyond all of our fond personal memories? Most of us from that era were pretty much dancing to the same beat no matter where we lived, or what they called our base theater, even then. Our many movie homes all over America simply played to our single heartbeat tastes for action, adventure, mystery, goosebumps horror, comedy, and cliff-hanging weekly serials. Mine just happened to spawn at the Avalon.

Here was the set-up at the Avalon, circa 1946-52: Nice cents paid for your ticket. For another sixteen cents, you could get pop corn, candy, and a coke. That worked out to a quarter. So, moms and dads could get rid of their kids for four hours each Saturday for a quarter a kid and have some free time to do whatever it was that boring parents enjoyed doing with each other back in the day.

Here was the formula for what we got on the screen for that three to four hours we were there: one western; one other show, pretty much running the gamut of all those topics I described earlier, a cartoon, a weekly serial; sometimes a one-reel specialty show like “Joe Doakes”, and about one gazillion previews. – Some things never change.

Here are some of the leading western stars that I recall: Gene Autry, Johnny Mack Brown, Rod Cameron, Sunset Carson, The Cisco Kid, Eddie Dean, The Durango Kid, Tim Holt, Alan “Rocky” Layne, Red Ryder, Roy Rogers, Jim Wakely, The Lone Ranger, Bob Steele, and Wild Bill Elliott, just to name a few that I’m hoping will trigger your own memories.

The second movie was usually a contemporary times script that frequently included some other franchise B stars like The Bowery Boys, Charlie Chan, Sherlock Holmes, Dick Tracy, The Three Stooges, Dagwood and Blondie and Boston Blackie were all common stars that we mostly embraced as we might have members of the family, They were our stars – not the stars of our parents.

The weekly serials I especially remember included Batman, (of course, there were three Batman serials), Superman, The Crimson Ghost, The Purple Monster, Rocket Man, The Phantom Rider, King of the Forest Rangers, The Daughter of Don Q, and The Mark of Zorro, There were others. Perhaps, you can help me remember what I’ve now forgotten and left off the list.

The movies were our electronic social gathering point back in the day. We didn’t text or e-mail 0r play computer games, but we did rally to the messages of our post war movie fare. Funny thing is, even though there was a lot of shooting, especially in westerns, I don’t recall these exposures making us think or feel that shooting people in reality was OK. We just didn’t think in those terms.

We did believe in fist fights and wrestling matches as ways of settling serious disputes. That much I know for sure.

Tags:saturday kid movies back in the day
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Age is a Funny Thing…

February 18, 2013

Hello, Dali!

Age is a funny thing, sometimes. It’s not so funny on those mornings when it’s hard to get out of bed, and lately, those seem to be increasing for me, but it’s down right hilarious just about all those other times that your physical health and loss of physical agility doesn’t get in the way.

I got to thinking about it yesterday as I was leaving my own comment on this site to Bill Gilbert’s wonderful memoir of the Astrodome and I recalled for the first time in a long while that I once kicked a 35-yard simulated field goal (dead-on Lou Groza style) in the Astrodome at halftime after midnight of the 1980 UH-AM football game in the Dome. (The whole story is still there under the Gilbert column. I’m not repeating it here.) My thought here is simply that I couldn’t anymore do that now (even attempt a field goal) than I could make any of those sliding shoestring catches I used to make in the sandlot and parochial or city league games we used to play back in the early 1950s. Today those feats are little more than pleasant memories, and probably magnified in my own mind, far more than they are remembered by anyone else, if at all, but that’s OK.

When I leave here, this earth, my journey will not be burdened by the need to feel that I’ve done anything especially grand, just that I have appreciated my time here and the opportunity to learn what I could from my experiences and to have given back whatever it is I have to give. Beyond that, I know who loves me and whom I love, and that God is Love. And that’s it. And that’s enough.

Don’t get me wrong. I don’t think I’m dying right now. Beyond the fact that I am going through some health issues these days that easily remind me of the fact that nobody lives forever, I could live another twenty years – and I hope I am so blessed. Even if I do, I’ll never take additional age in years for granted beyond the fact that “my eyes opened again this morning to a new sunrise.” Even that one is no guarantee for any of us that we shall see the twilight of the same day. The time of our lives is always the only time that truly exists. That’s right now. In the here and now.

May we all be blessed with the full experience of whatever our time on this planet ride is all about. It’s available to us in this moment through so many instructive memories, sweet and sharp: our first base hit, all day on the sandlot during the eternal summers of childhood, the sight of that face and smile of our first love, that first kiss, the joy of knowing we’ve been together since 1954, or the sorrow that we missed the boat with each other, but hopefully, now resolved as healed pain by the recognition that life had another plan for our lives, and that whatever we took on in a full embrace of reality and creativity was our true big league career – and true love.

As an old car guy, the classic looks of those real chrome and steel models from the late 1940s and early 1950s are my anchor points to an era which bred us James Dean wannabes with the idea that we could get there faster, classier, and stronger than any obstacle that got in our way, even if our goals were sometimes devoid of clear purpose, we raced on anyway – either without cause – or in tight compliance to society’s expectations. Those of us from the former group were quick to advise the goose-steppers of the latter group: “Don’t start a rumble, if you can’t take the tumble!” We thought we were so smart. Boy, did we have a lot to learn.

Anyway, here are some quick looks at four great dream cars from my own coming of age era. They are as good a way to go out on topic today as any. Have a great President’s Day, February 18, 2013, everybody! Make it whatever it is. And do not waste it because it’s never coming back for a re-run.

1949 Mercury

1950 Ford

1951 Studebaker

1957 Chevrolet

Tags:aging perspectives
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Memories of the Astrodome by Bill Gilbert

February 17, 2013

The Astrodome
Houston, Texas

Bill Gilbert is a Denver guy and University of Colorado graduate who spent most of his adult life living and working in the Houston oil industry and closely following the city’s sports teams. Primarily a Type A baseball stat seam head and game historian, Bill Gilbert was either the founding father or one of the crew that got SABR started in the Houston region and he also served for years in this town as chair of the Larry Dierker Chapter. Now retired to the Austin area, Gilbert remains active there in the Rogers Hornsby Chapter of SABR, that is, the Society for American Baseball Research, where he continues to offer his ongoing analyses of the Houston Astros, the hitting and pitching leaders in each major league, other topical baseball events, and even an occasional piece on football. – Keep punting, Bill Gilbert. We will keep trying to either fair catch or run back whatever you boom our way, even if it’s mostly about baseball – and not football. Some of us prefer the baseball side of life, anyway.

Today, Bill Gilbert serves up something sweet and historic that he wrote back on January 7, 2003 about Houston’s current “damsel in distress,” the Astrodome. It’s special character is that it comes our way blessed as a memoir from one of the decreasing few who have been around for the entire life span of the grand old grandma of every other covered stadium in the modern era of the world.

Take it away, William, and thanks from all of us for the contribution!

Memories of the Astrodome

By Bill Gilbert

Two weeks ago, I attended a seated dinner on the floor of the Astrodome honoring retiring County Commissioner, Jim Fonteno. It was a long evening and it occurred to me that it would probably be the last time I would ever be there. At that point, my mind started wandering to the many memorable events I had witnessed in the hundreds of times I had been there over the past 38 years. Most of my visits to the Dome were for baseball games but there were also many other events. The Astrodome was not the best place in the world to watch a baseball game but it was certainly the most comfortable with the plush padded seats, ample leg room and cup holders. Here are some of my memories in no particular order:

– The first time I entered the building in July, 1965. A true baseball fan gets a rush when entering any ballpark for the first time. However, nothing in my experience compares to seeing the Astrodome for the first time. Domed stadiums are commonplace now, but in 1965, the Astrodome was called by some “The Eighth Wonder of the World”. Sandy Koufax beat Larry Dierker, 3-1 in the game.

– Games 3, 4 and 5 of the 1980 NLCS between the Astros and Phillies, especially the memorable plays involving Cesar Cedeno, Joe Morgan, Vern Ruhle, Gary Woods, Art Howe, Pete Rose, Nolan Ryan, Terry Puhl, Manny Trillo and Garry Maddox.

– The 1986 NLCS between the Mets and Astros, especially Game 1 when Mike Scott beat Dwight Gooden, 1-0 on a home run by Glenn Davis and Game 6 when the Mets came back to win in 16 innings.

– Nolan Ryan’s 5^th no-hitter against the Dodgers in September 1981.

– Mike Scott’s no-hitter against the Giants to clinch the Western Division Championship in 1986.

– The game several years ago when the Astros overcame an 11-0 deficit to beat the Cardinals 13-12.

– A game in the early 1970s in which Willie Mays dropped a fly ball and a female fan caught one.

– J.R. Richard dominating National League hitters.

– The 1981 game when Craig Reynolds hit 3 triples.

– The game in 1969 when the Astros tied a major league record by turning 7 double plays.

– Craig Biggio and Jeff Bagwell together on the right side of the infield for so many years.

– The Astros’ return to post-season play in 1997 after an absence of 10 years.

– The 1998 Division Series between the Padres and Astros, especially the duel between Kevin Brown and Randy Johnson.

– The 1999 Division Series between the Braves and Astros, especially the incredible game-saving play by Walt Weiss on a ball hit by Tony Eusebio.

– The 1986 All-Star Game, especially the 5 straight strikeouts by Fernando Valenzuela.

– The trade of my wife’s favorite player, Rusty Staub, to Montreal and how she lost interest.

– The trade of my youngest son’s favorite player, Greg Gross, to the Cubs and how he cried.

– The Sunday afternoon game when my oldest son, age 7, became lost after he broke free to run down the ramp as we were leaving the game and my relief when we found him about 20 minutes later in the company of a policeman.

– The pop foul off the bat of Jose Cruz that I caught in 1981.

– The epic basketball game in January 1968 when the University of Houston beat UCLA 71-69 with Elvin Hayes scoring 39 points and out-dueling Lew Alcindor (before he was Kareem Abdul Jabbar).

– The Heavyweight Championship Boxing match between Cassius Clay (before he was Mohammed Ali) and Cleveland Williams.

– The tennis match in 1973 when Billie Jean King upset Bobby Riggs in straight sets.

– Bill Yeoman’s Veer-T offense at the University of Houston, especially the 100-6 win over Tulsa (when Larry Gatlin scored one of the touchdowns) and the Bluebonnet Bowl win over Auburn and Pat Sullivan.

– The College Basketball Final Four in 1971 when UCLA won over Villanova, Kansas and Western Kentucky.

– The 2 Bluebonnet Bowl games involving my school, The University of Colorado, a win over Houston and a loss to Texas and Earl Campbell.

– Two players that I saw play both football and baseball in the Astrodome, Tom Paciorek and John Stearns.

– The high school playoff game when Howard Sampson of Baytown Sterling made a game-saving tackle on Quarterback Tommy Kramer of San Antonio Lee on the one-yard line. Sampson and Kramer went on to continue their rivalry as members of the Green Bay Packers and Minnesota Vikings.

– The performance by Elvis Presley as the featured entertainer at the rodeo in the late 1960s.

– Performances by other entertainers over the years, including George Strait, Julio Iglesias, Clint Black, Alan Jackson, Reba McEntyre, Lee Ann Rimes, Charlie Rich, Charlie Pride, Johnny Cash and Tony Bennett.

– The 12 years I played Senior Softball in the Dome, especially the 2001 game when I hit a home run in the first inning and scored the winning run in the last inning.

– The last regular season game played in the Astrodome (in 1999) when the Astros brought back their all-time best players for a post-game ceremony followed by a performance by Willie Nelson which he ended by singing “Farewell Party” as people filed out.

1/7/03

Tags:Astrodome History by Bill Gilbert
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I Had a Dream…

February 16, 2013

Dreams are funny creatures. Like plays about the emotions and spiritual forces of our inner lives, characters and themes and plots appear as symbols of our greatest hopes and worst fears, sometimes cascading from positive to negative and back again before we even know it. – And then we suddenly wake up – and it all begins to fade away from consciousness like the images on old camera film that have suddenly been removed improperly from the Kodak of our brain. When that occurs, and for some people, it occurs every time, we still know that something happened. We jut can’t remember what it is.

The difference between exposed film and forgotten dreams is great. The images on exposed film are truly lost forever. The images of a forgotten dream are just complexly buried in our unconscious minds and, if they are strong enough in theme, they will return in some form as recurring dreams.

I have a recurring dream that is an excellent example. Those of you who know about my passion for baseball history and my undying hero-worship of Babe Ruth from early childhood will not be surprised. This dream embraces both my greatest hope and worst fear – and it never really gets resolved. Now I fear that, unless I can somehow, someday find that elusive time machine that I keep looking for, that it never will resolve its cycle of recurrence.

Here’s that hope-to-fear dream – and this one is always pretty much the same: In my dream, I’ve managed to go back in time to the Bronx, New York on September 30, 1927. It is late afternoon and the Yankees are entertaining the Washington Senators in the next-to-last game of the season at Yankee Stadium. The pennant has been clinched for quite a while and only a small crowd of 8.000 fans has shown up to lose themselves among the 67,000 seats of the game’s great cathedral. I always wonder why there was no more interest in the possibility of Ruth’s 60th homer on that day, but there wasn’t, at least, not the kind of interest that translates into ticket sales. In the dream, all I care about is getting there as I race down the street that parallels the right field line from two blocks away, just trying to get inside the ballpark in time.

In time for what?

In time to see Babe Ruth break a 2-2 tie in the bottom of the 8th with a record-setting 60th home run to right field off lefty Tom Zachary of the Senators. The two-run shot gives the Yankees a 4-2 victory, their 109th win of the season, but even more importantly to history, it allows Babe Ruth to break the tie with himself for the most home runs in a single baseball season. And, as you probably know, the number “60” will remain the gold standard for home runs in a single year until 1961, when Yankee Roger Maris hits 61* with the help of a season that is now eight games longer than the one they played in 1927.

In my dream, I am running to reach the ballpark in time to buy a ticket for the right field stands so that I can compete for the home run that I know is coming that way. The ball will be caught and kept by 14-year old Herb Siegel – unless I am able to reach the same area in time to beat him to it.

In the excitement of the moment, I seem to have lost track of the unwritten rule about time travel, even in a dream: You don’t go back to alter a single thing. My problem with that rule has always been that our ability to time travel is in itself already a significant alteration of time and space reality. Maybe that explains why it either never happens, or else, never gets reported.

And maybe it’s simply my abjectly obsessive greed that does me in on this dream. In the dream, for example, I suddenly cannot run.

As I try to run, the sidewalk starts to feel like a rubberized trampoline and my legs feel as heavy as lead. Each step I take is slowed by the heavy falling of shaky shoes coming slowly down upon a jello-like surface and, as I fight on, suddenly I hear the loud unmistakably Ruthian crack of the bat. My head swivels to the right from my trudgery in time to see a mighty blast by Ruth clearing the stadium confines in right field. That’s not the way it happened in reality, but it’s the way it always ends in my recurring dream. Siegel doesn’t get the ball, but neither do I. It’s fade to black time for the dream, from there until the next sleeping moment I make this trip from greatest hope to biggest fear in one fell and fatally disappointing swoop.

Now, what brought all of this dream-stuff to mind this morning was the new dream I had last night. This one’s not about baseball, except by proximity location near old Ebbets Field, and it’s not even about my real home town of Houston. It’s again set forth in New York, in a very special place known as Brooklyn, New York, but, even though I know that dreams are mostly symbolic of matters that are going on in our real lives, I cannot for the life of me figure out what this dream has to do with me or the City of Houston.

Perhaps, you can help.

Here’s the dream. Please post your comments below on what you think it may mean:

In last night’s dream, it’s Brooklyn in 1920. A young merchant has acquired a popular expensive candy store on Bedford Avenue, one block away from Ebbets Field. Once he takes over the store, he immediately replaces all the best stock with homemade sweets and knock-off brand cheap confectionaries. When the store customers of fifty years turn away, friends try to warn the new shopkeeper that’s he’s losing his market base, but the man is dismissive. “Not to worry if they never come back,” says the smiling new store boss. “I will replace those who leave me with new and younger customers who are willing to pay the same good money for the cheap crap I’m selling.”

It’s quite a puzzlement. Who would dare to even daydream of acquiring an established quality Houston brand and then dismissively resort to treating the business’s established customer base in that kind of apathetic manner?

Not in our town. Couldn’t happen here.

Tags:recurring dreams, the 6oth homer dream, the candy store dream
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