The Pecan Park Eagle

(TV Shot, Courtesy of KTRK-TV): Kevin Quinn, Ch. 13 Reporter, wearing Blind Tom hat, Bill McCurdy, Bill Hale, Bob Stevens, Robby Martin, Larry Joe (tallest head) Miggins, Manager Bob Dorrill, Robert Pena, Mark Hudec, Mike McCroskey, Zac Hajduk, & Larry Hafduk.

Those Houston Babies just keep getting famouser and famouser.

Yesterday, eleven members of the Houston Babies vintage base ball club found ways to take off from their normal jobs and duties to school, work, and retirement to assemble at the far playing field behind the Jimmy Wynn Baseball Training Center on Victory Drive in the Acres Homes area to put on a demonstration of vintage base ball and to have a nice laid back dugout interview of their various interests in the game with Channel 13 reporter Kevin Quinn.

A good time was had by all – and that end was mad much easier by the affable Kevin Quinn and his “get in there” and try the game on with the Babies from the batter’s box. Quinn took several good whacks at the ball, quickly learning the blessing/curse of the one-bounce catch for an out rule – and finding a just-as-quick lesson about what happens to runners who cannot stop at first on a dime. – “You’re out, Mr. Quinn. OK? Just as soon as you run past that bag to beat out a hit and don’t get back in time, you are going to get tagged out for not stopping on the bag, the only place a runner is safe on the base baths by the 1860 rules.”

Mike “Piano Legs” McCroskey brought his lovely and very nice just-graduated-from-high-school daughter Kate to the video practice for Channel 13, The much speedier-of-foot Ms. McCroskey had ample opportunity to serve as a courtesy runner for her father – and for reasons that should be fairly obvious from his musical instrument parts nickname.

“McCroskey really runs like he has a piano on his back,” Larry Joe “Long Ball” Miggins later offered in out dugout interview segment. “That’s OK to a point,” Miggins continued, “but every now and then, he slows down on the base paths to just play the darn thing. That’s the real killer.”

Those remarks, of course, we’re all said and received in fun – just part of the camaraderie that exists among the Babies players and their love for the vintage game and each others company. – We are all good friends on this bus. Friends of baseball. Friends in reverie for the old sandlot game we once played as kids. Friends of each other. And friends and lovers of this new old game we have discovered that is 1860 rules vintage base ball.

Here’s a link to report on the Houston Babies and Vintage Base Ball that aired on KTRK-TV, Channel 13, shortly after 4:30 PM on the afternoon of Tuesday, June 5, 2012:

http://abclocal.go.com/ktrk/story?section=news/local&id=8690217

If you think you might be interested in learning more about the Houston Babies and vintage base ball, come on out to the Fourth of July activities coming up at the George Ranch near Sugar Land. The Babies will be there, as will two or three other local area clubs that are aiming to celebrate our nation’s birthday is a way that is still the hallmark of our most American celebration with baseball, hot dogs, bands, and family fun at a country fair type atmosphere.

Thanks again, Kevin Quinn. – The Houston Babies very much appreciate all you did for us and our game yesterday.