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Remembering the Pig Stand.

January 8, 2010

Do you remember the last Pig Stand restaurant, the one that used to operate on Washington Avenue? This Houston Pig Stand closed its doors forever sometime in the last decade or so. It is now the site of Sawyer Park, which, according to local historian and man-about-town Mike Vance of TV Channel 55, is now one of the hottest sports bars in the city these days.

The subject came up for me as Mike Vance and I were conversing via e-mail last night on the subject of Houston’s drive in restaurant history. Mike had asked me what I remembered or knew of any burger business that may have have preceded Prince’s in Houston. The local Prince’s Drive In chain opened in 1934.

Well, even I am too young to recall anything prior to 1934. All I could think of was the Pig Stand, even though they were famous for their pig sandwich. I’m not sure they even offered burgers too. As a kid of age five, I remember my parents taking us there to the one on Washington Avenue while we were still living in the Heights. Seems to me there was also a Pig Stand in the Heights itself, but my memory of that possibility may be shaky. I couldn’t even recall the curb service on Washington. My memories are of eating a pig sandwich inside the place.

The Pig Stand holds quite a place in Texas restaurant history, The first one opened in the Dallas area in 1921 as American entrepreneurs scrambled to take advantage of new market needs generated by the growing populariy and presence of the automobile. Places offering “curb service” became the call of the times as Americans travelled further, ate out more, and got lazier about how they dined. It wasn’t long before the Pig Stand chain of the 1920s expanded into San Antonio, Houston, Beaumont, and even into California, on a coast-to-coast expansion of places offering both “drive through” and “curb service” purchase of those “oink-o-licious” pig sandwiches.

The Pig Stand movement reached its big trough days during the 1930s when 130 stores opened all around the country. The chain takes credit for the mass introduction of several food items beyond the star pig sandwich too. These included Texas toast, deep-fried onion rings, and the chicken fried steak sandwich. The Pig Stand stores were among the first to offer fluorescent lighting, neon lights, and air conditioning as well.

Mary’s Pig Stand on Broadway in San Antonio is now the Alamo of them all, staying open in good faith and tribute to a bygone era and a business that once played its part in the eventual destruction of the family home evening meal. I only wish they were closer to home in Houston. Those delicious pig sandwiches were good enough to have earned a week’s full of condemnation from health specialists like Dr. Oz of daytime television medicine, but they were still sooooooooo soooie-goooie good!

We’d love to have your memories of the Pig Stand here too as comments. Also, if you can think of any burger businesses that were big in Houston prior to Prince’s, please feel free to write about them too.

Tags:culture, food, History
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Radio Days, Part Two.

December 17, 2009

Yesterday’s little trip into our electronicly audible past brought forth a lot of private e-mails and some public commentary on all of your early memories of our very much shared radio days. Today it might help put a temporary cap on the subject to just list some of the actors, characters, and sponsors that were the backbone of this whole wonderful experience back in the day. As much s possible, I will try to list these items here in some crude alphabetical order, but I can’t promise anything. Please feel free to comment and add to the lst in the comment section that follows:

Abbott and Costello, Fred Allen, Gracie Allen, The Original Amateur Hour with Major Bowles, Amos and Andy, Gene Autry, Jack Benny, Bobby Benson and the B-Bar-B Riders, Edgar Bergen, Boston Blackie, The Bickersons, Les Brown and His Band of Reknown, George Burns, Eddie Cantor, Cato, Jerry Cologna, Perry Como, Bing Crosby, Dennis Day, Cecil B. DeMille and the Lux Radio Theatre, Jimmy Durante, Fibber McGee and Molly, Gangbusters, Arthur Godfrey, Mr. District Attorney, The Great Gildersleve, The Green Hornet, announcer Bill Goodwin, Sterling Holloway, Bob Hope, Clem Kaddidlehopper, Danny Kaye, Sky King, Edward R. Murrow, Let’s Pretend, The Happy Gang of Buster Brown, Lifebuoy Soap, Life with Luigi, Charley McCarthy, Smilin’ Ed McConnell, The Mean Widdle Kid, Captain Midnight, Tom Mix, Digger O’Dell, Ovaltine, Oxydol, Joe Penner, Ma Perkins, Porcyurcorkis, The Quiz Kids, The Lone Ranger, Inner Sanctum and Host Raymond, Eddie “Rochester” Anderson, The Shadow, Frank Sinatra, Red Skelton, Baby Snooks, The Sixty-Four Dollar Question, Mortimer Snerd, Superman, Danny Thomas, announcer John Scott Trotter, announcer Harry Von Zell, Wheaties (Breakfast of Champions), The Whistler, announcer Don Wilson, and “Thanks for the Memories,” and – “Goodnight, Mrs. Kalibash, wherever you are!”

As I leave you with the lyrics to the Lifebuoy Soap radio commercial jingle, all I can add is that It’s been a fun trip.

“Singin’ in the bathtub, singin’ for joy,

Livin’ the life of – Lifebuoy!

Can’t stop singin’ – because I know,

That Lifebuoy really stops ………..

B ……. OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!”

Tags:culture, History, radio
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Radio Days.

December 16, 2009

Once upon a time, long before television came along and eventualy helped radio drift into the hands of the talk show jerks who now rattle on endlessly about sports and politics while we are trapped in our cars, the old home radio really was the great theater of the mind that some of us older folk remember it to be, Now we’ve given up that medium for what? Some guy rattling on for forty-five minutes about why Gary Kubiak should be fired as head coach of the Houston Texans? Or some other cool sports jerk calling our town “H Town” because he thinks that phrase sounds cooler to the national audience than the proud and simply powerful name of “Houston”? Or turning your ear and mind over to those radio personalities who want to ladle your brain with the thought that the world is coming to an end unless you buy into what they are selling at the 100% level?

Please. Minds be still. Click off the clamor of late 2009 car radios and find peace in recollections of a more pleasant time. I think they call them the good old days because time works pretty much like a colander. It sifts out anything watery and distasteful, the stuff we don’t want, and it allows us to keep only what is delicious. And for all of the 1930s and most of the 1940s, home radio was the greatest cafe in the world for everything that was delicious in the forms of drama, comedy, horror, or adventure.

Return with me now to those thrilling days of yesteryear’s home radio. “The Lone Ranger rides again!” I cannot begin to contain all I could write into a single blog, but what I will try to do here is share with you my personal recollections, as they come back to me spontaneously in bits and pieces. If you’re old enough, some of these recollections will be as familiar to you as sliced bread and peanut butter and jelly for lunch on a hot Houston summer day, but you will also have your own memories too. Today I really encourage you to add whatever strikes you too as comments on this article. Home Radio was our once precious and shared adventure, and it lives on to this very moment in the souls of everything we still value and pursue.

OK, here we go. …

A door opens, followed by the clattering sound of so many items hitting the floor. It’s Fibber McGee’s closet. Do you remember Fibber McGee & Molly? They used to live on Wistful Vista. … There’s a guy standing still at the street corner near the McGee house. He’s being held up at gunpoint by another man. All’s quiet until the man with the gun repeats something he’s apparently said before to Jack Benny, the silent man with his hands in the air. “I said, ‘Your money or your life!” the guman shouts. “I’m thinking! I’m thinking!!” Benny answers. …. Around the corner, from a second floor open window on the street side of the Mystic Knights of the Sea Lodge Hall, we can see two men talking. One of the men is wearing a medical examination light on his forehead, apparently getting ready to perform some kind of optometric exam of the other. They are so close we can hear their conversation. “Kingfish,” says the rotund sort of apprehensive-looking patient in this scene, Andy Brown, “I never knew that you had any training to be an eye doctor!” “Oh yes, Andy,” says the Kingfish. “Why only this morning I removed a Cadillac from a man’s eyes!” …. Moving further down the street, we see that a crowd has gathered. They are gazing up and pointing skyward at a red and blue object as it streaks across the city skies. “LOOK! UP IN THE SKY! …. IT’S A BIRD! … IT’S A PLANE! … NO, IT’S SUPERMAN!” …. Superman? Where is that absent-minded reporter Clark Kent when you really need him to cover a big story? …. It’s almost lunch time. We duck into a little grill and bar that seems like a good place to catch a cool one and a cold cut sandwich and chips. A baggy-faced man in a white shirt, green bow tie, and a bartender’s apron is leaning on the bar and chompimg on a big cigar as he answers a ringing phone. “Duffy’s Tavern, where the elite mete to eat. Archie the Manager speaking; Duffy ain’t here!” …. After a couple of Grand Prize beers and ham and cheese special, we walk further down the main drag. Turning into a nearby heavily wooded neighborhood, we are all of a sudden confronted with the coming of a monster thunder and rainstorm. We have no choice, but to beat a quick path to the nearest doorway of a most mysterious mansion. As we knock on the massive front door, it slowly creaks open, apparently of its own accord, but creaking all the way. The door opens into a pool of blackest darkness. We are stopped in our tracks and then stunned by a low-sounding voice that first only speaks to us from from the pitch black. “Good afternoon, I’m your host Raymond.” Then the body behind the forboding voice steps forward into the flickering light, and we find ourselves staring into the menacing white eyes of a tall thin man dressed all in black. “Welcome to Inner Sanctum!” the man says as his smiling voice breaks into a maniacal cackle of insane laughter. “Feet don’t fail us now,” we shout as we hightail it out of there, in spite of the storm. … Stopping off at a dry cleaner to literally get our clothes dried, we meet a man there who just came in to pick up his suit. He’s arranging to pick it up on credit until Saturday. The guy’s name is Joe Penner. He looks pretty disconsolate, even though the dry cleaning man let him have the suit on the cuff. “What’s the matter, Mr. Penner?” we couldn’t help but ask as he walked out the front door. “Same old thing,” Joe answers. “I was going to the horse track today, but my wife found my paycheck and blew all our money on the rent!” … Now late in the day, it’s getting close to the time we must go back to the future. Just enough time left to take in the last musical set of the Pappy Lee O’Daniel Light Crust Doughboy Band in person as they finish up their live broadcast at the radio station. It was great to hear again that great closing musical entreatment of the fans for support:

“If you like our songs and you think their fine, sit right down and drop a line, the Light Crust Doughboys of Burrough’s Mill!”

That’s it for now. Hope you enjoyed this little trip half as much I did, folks. And please add your own radio recollections in the comment section below this article.

Tags:culture, History, radio
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The Low Tech Dreams of Christmas Past.

December 15, 2009

Pinball Wizard Tommy had nothing on me when it came to baseball!

Heading toward Christmas in this high tech era of highly sophisticated and extremely realistic sports game toys, I am blown away by their contrast to the things we used to purchase and improvise as games and means to the same competitive ends back in the late 1940s and early 1950s. Our games required our use, either or both, of those fine old qualities known as imagination and/or skill – and I mean skill that went beyond our dexterity with finger manipulations of a control device attached to a TV, computer, or game box screen.

As most of you older kindred spirits already know, we didn’t have that kind of game set-up help back in the day. We had to imagine what we were doing and we had to visualize all the pictures that now appear graphically on the digital game screen. Our screens were, for the most part, simply rolling through our brains as we escaped into our own little game trips away frm the mundane of everyday reality.

The baseball pinball game shown here is an exact replica of my chldhood buddy from way, way back. My brother found it in a flea market and gave it to me as a Christmas present a few years back. I’m not sure what happened to my original game, but it most likely suffered the same fate as all my other childho0d things. Whenever we stopped using anything back then for very long, our dad quietly just threw these things away without uttering a word to anyone. As a result, I have few things, other than books, that remain from childhood. Dad didn’t dare throw out my books. He knew I always came back to them.

I got pretty skilled at the pinball game. I can still play it pretty well too, but nothing like I did at age 10 to 12. Back then I could almost will that little metal ball into the home run pocket when when I needed it to go there.

Another low tech game held my interest for a short while, but its lack of improvisational opportunity soon put it on the boring shelf. It was called “Foto Electric Football”, a game which allowed you to insert offense and defense pages into an upward shining light box that illuminated how certain plays turned out against certain defenses.

The big game back then was that vibrating football contest by Tudor that came out in 1947. Little metal players lined up and vibrated down a metal field until contact with an enemy player tackled them at the new yard line of progress. It was fun for a while. You could bend the little vibrator reeds under your running backs to make them turn at the line of scrimmage, but that was about it. Sometimes your runner would get turned around and run toward your own goal line for a safety. That sucked. Plus, it was too much of a hassle to keep setting up twenty-two players at the line of scrimmage after each completed play. That being said, it made my Christmas one year as a gift I knew was coming. My anticipation of that game was far greater than the playing of it could ever hope to be. Sort of like marriage.

Finally, a game came along that remains with me to this day in computer form. In 1951, the APBA Game Company opened shop in Lancaster, PA with a card and dice baseball game based upon actual major league teams and players. It was totally structured upon realistuc probabilities in a complex array of actual game situations. You had to bring your own theatre of the mind to get a good picture, but that was never a problem for a lot of us back in the day. We lived in our dreams. Besides, with APBA, the heart of the game was then, and is now, its dynamic similarity by play outcome to what actually happens in a real baseball game. Because of APBA, I never got lost in the Stratomatic Baseball Game of similar, but less complex probability roots.

APBA was just a high tech game waiting to happen. I’ve been playing its computer version of baseball since the mid-1980s. It’s simply a place I go whenever I need to take a vacation from this little, no-fun, no sense of humor world we’ve created all around us. It’s not my only mental retreat, but it is one of my most enjoyable destinations.

Merry Christmas Dreams, everybody!

Tags:Baseball, culture, Games, History
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Why Was The Sandlot So Joyful?

November 23, 2009

Our Eagle Field (1950) is Now Called Japonica Park.

The Pecan Park Eagles were real. Back in 1950, we played on an East End site in our neighborhood that we called Eagle Field. We played other places too, but this was our turf, our home field, our hatchery for every baseball dream that any of us ever knew. We had no lights at this sacred ground, but we didn’t need them. At a time in our young lives when summers meant we owned the place from from dawn to dusk, we didn’t need night baseball. Besides, night time was Houston Buffs time, a time for all of us to either be at Buff Stadium in the Knothole Gang, or else, to be listening tight to Loel Passe broadcasting the games over AM radio station KTHT, 790 on the dial.

What none of us knew back there in those innocent days of our young lives seems simple now. No matter what any us accomplished from there, some things would never get any better than they already were back in the summers of 1947 through 1952. Those years, especially the summer of 1950, were the seasons of the Pecan Park Eagles, and Eagle Field is where we all yielded our hearts and best playing efforts to the game of sandlot baseball. Nothing ever, in any form, yielded more pure joy to any of us than those treasured moments in the sun that we Eagles shared with each other on that hallowed turf.

Unfettered by normal adult responsibilities and the kind of cultural cynicism that now seems to ooze from every loose seam in the talking heads media, and also from every social network site on the Internet, we simply lived out the days of 1950 living in the moment of acting out our grandest dreams on a field that was tailor made by God for bare-feet running, heavy sweat bat-swinging, and rag-tag ball catching with hand-me-down gloves on a makeshift diamond that just happened to be available to us at the place where Japonica bleeds into Myrtle Street, one block over from Griggs Road and about two blocks east on Griggs from the Gulf Freeway.

The old place is still there in 2009, but it’s sadly now cluttered with playground equipment that we would’ve hated and probably destroyed sixty years ago. These things would only get in the way of a good game. Sadly too, today’s kids of my old neighborhood don’t seem to need that good game as once we did. They also don’t seem to either need the playground swings, etc., that the City of Houston has so thoughtfully constructed for them. I usually check out the old place about once a year – and I’ve never seen a kid playing there anytime I’ve driven by my oldest and strongest early haunt.

Driving slowly past Eagle Field, I sometimes stop and walk out upon it again, just to note all the landmarks that still remind me of what it was like to play ball there. The telephone pole in deep center field appears to be the same one that was in place all those many decades ago. There’s a big mixed breed dog in Mrs. McGee’s fenced backyard that now barks at me as though it would eat me alive if it could. I can still look over to the front porch of Randy Hunt’s old house. It seems that my presence on the “The Lot” (it’s other name) would bring Randy bounding out the front door to join me with a ball and glove, as it once did, but that never happens these days.

I never leave the place without saying something to Eagle Field like, “Goodbye, old friend, until next time!”

If I really have to explain why my personal sandlot was so joyful, I guess I can’t do it. Just know that some loves never end. And this was my big one.

Tags:Baseball, culture, History, Pecan Park, Personal
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Baseball Food: Mighty Superstitious!

November 7, 2009

One of my favorite off-season topics has always been baseball superstitions, The fact that new stats and pennant races come to a halt in between seasons just seems to help the process of study move along better without distractions. A big help also was a little paperback that a fellow named Mike Blake put together back in 1991, It was called, and honestly so, “The Incomplete Book of Baseball Superstitions, Rituals and Oddities.” This morning, we will just edge into a few of the interesting superstitions that have to do with food, according to Blake.

(1) Jimmy Wynn. Jimmy supposedly believed he got his power from honey. According to Blake, Wynn “Ate jars of the stuff whenever possible.

(2) Nolan Ryan. Nolie is said to have eaten vanilla ice cream and chili beans prior to many big games because he believed these two foods both calmed the nerves and aided digestion. We will assume that they weren’t mixed together on the same plate prior to consumption.

(3) Greg Swindell. Not sure how this one qualifies as “food” other than being something a player could put in his mouth, but re Swindell used to bite off a long finger nail prior to a pitching start, making sure to keep that mail in his mouth as a chewing object all the while he worked the mound. Swindell said that he never chewed to tobacco at the same time because that substance ruined the taste of the finger nail. Greg earns our “Big Barf” award of the day.

(4) Mike Cuellar ate Chines food the night before his pitching starts, except when he pitched in Milwaukee. In the wisconsin city, Cuellar always dropped into a particular restaurant and had several bowls of beef stew before he pitched.

(5) Charlie Kerfeld. During his Houston Astros days, Charlie was caught by the television cameras ordering a couple of spare rib plates while he was waiting to be called into a game from the bullpen. No superstition pattern is attached to Kerfeld’s behavior in this instance.

(6) Bill “Spaceman” Lee supposedly had a pre-game preference for organic buckwheat pancakes, sprinkled with a half-ounce of marijuana.

(7) Frank “Hondo” Howard, in a pattern spurred as much by his size and a certain level of gluttony as it was superstition, routinely downed a half dozen hamburgers, three milk shakes, a half dozen orders of fries, and a couple of dessert pastries as his pre-game road meal.

(8) Ben McDonald of the Baltimore Orioles used to prefer cans of mustard sardines before his starts on the mound.

(9) Sid Fernandez preferred baked potatoes covered with mustard, rather than butter, prior to pitching starts, or any other time, for that matter. He felt mustard saved calories and made for a healthier meal.

(10) Rick Rice, a minor league pitcher for the Baltimore Orioles used to eat frog legs prior to a game because he thought they made his fastball jump. Apparently they didn’t help it jump enough. He never reached the big leagues.

That’s enough for a busy Saturday. Hope you’re having a lunch today that will help you get done whatever it is you need to get done. Just don’t be too superstitious about it. If you get lost in a food superstition by chance, just grab a pinch of salt and toss it over your left shoulder with your right hand, That should make it go away.

Tags:Baseball, culture
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Rookie Alex Schmelter Leads Houston Babies to Twin Bill Sweep of Richmond Giants, 13-7, 5-2!

October 25, 2009

ON A DAY LIVED IN HEAVEN, BABIES SWEEP GIANTS, 13-7, 5-2.

It was a great day for autmnally roaring vintage base ball at the George Ranch yesterday as the Houston Babies squared off against the local Richmond Giants yesterday, October 24, 2009. Only the date claimed anchorage in the 21st century. Everything else suggested that we had all, finally and at last, found our way through that time warp into the 19th century romper room of baseball’s infancy as the national pastime, when it was a game played without gloves and with abundant fortitude for the contest that needed two words, “base ball,” to describe itself.

SKIPPER BOB DORRILL'S MODEL T STYLE SUITS BABIES TO A T!

Some Babies players arrived for the 10:30 AM scheduled twin bill with the Giants by automobile. They parked their vehicles with the same kind of finely-tuned precision and machine-powered mechanization that goes into their approach to team-victorious vintage 19th century base ball – when no one had even heard of a Model T and most simply laughed at the concept of a horseless carriage!

NEVER LOOK BACK. SOMETHING MIGHT BE GAINING ON YOU.

Four of ten members who attempted coming by bicycle out the Southwest Freeway also arrived, but we’ll take a .400 arrival percentage any day of the week and twice on a perfect Saturday Game Day in October. We tried to get our cyclists, especially, to heed the wisdom of the wonderful Satchel Paige about the danger of looking back. Too bad about the deep sixers we lost. We simply feel fortunate that 40% actually did heed the warning . Had we lost those four players too, we would have faced the perils of renegotiation on our double game contract and possible forfeiture to the Richmond club.

"HAVE YOU HEARD THE GERMAN BAND?" ... EXCERPT FROM "THE PRODUCERS"

Our Houston Area Vintage Base Ball Commissioner, Wee Willie Kaiser, showed up with the missus, the ever sweet and smiling Wilhemina Kaiser, to boost morale and offer his support for the old time ball movement in our region. Commissioner Kaiser is hot on the trail of sponsorship money for new uniform and team equipment, but, so far, he’s only come up with enough cash to pay for the splendid outfit he wore to yesterday’s Babies@Giants twin bill. When asked yesterday how he could justify spending our limited funds on himself, Kaiser replied, “What are you talking about? I have to look presentable when I go calling on potential investors, don’t I?’ We doubt that salty answer will fly far or settle all disgruntlement, but we’ll stay on it for future developments.

A 6 FOR 8 DAY AT THE PLATE & SPARKLING DEFENSE EARNED MVP HONORS FOR ALEX SCHMELTER!

The 13-7, 5-2 victories by the Houston Babies yesterday over the Richmond Giants increased the club’s all time 21st century record to 6-3, as Manager Bob Dorrill also picked up his 6th straight win as the undefeated manager of Houston’s most time-honored base ball club. The Babies came out of mothballs in 2008, but proceeded to lose thieir first three games in 120 years of suspended play by mistakenly taking the field and playing by commitee. Things are much better now with the even keel headed Dorrill at the helm. The man both inspires and steadies the boat ride to happy destiny of vintage baseball triumph.

Bob Dorrill can also thank his grandson for a lot of yesterday’s outcome, as well. 13 year old Alex Schmelter accompanied his grandparents, Bob and Peggy Dorrill to George Ranch yesterday, perhasp, never dreaming that he had a job to perform on the field as well. Well, when we lost those six turned-their-heads cyclists, we needed all the help we could get. Little Alex Schmelter gave the Babies all the hlp they needed and then some. Playing nd base and batting clean up, Alex went 6 for 8 on the day with 2 runs scored and 2 runs batted. He also handled the ball well in the field, getting some key outs and participating in a couple of successful rundown plays. For his efforts, Alex Schmelter was named Most Valuable Player (MVP) of the entire day by his Babies teammates. What a fine young man and ballplayer this kid is turning out to be. His parents and grandparents have every right to be very proud of him.

FOR ALEX SCHMELTER, IT WAS A TECHNICOLOR MEMORY OF HITTING!

BOB "DOUBLE DUTY" BLAIR PITCHED AND WON BOTH GAMES!

In addition to the outstanding spark the Babies got from young “Alex the Great,” our venerable righthanded “Iron Man,” Bob Blair pitched another games down the corridor of his own personal journey into the Houston Babies Hall of Fame. Blair held the normally hit-raining bats of the potent Richmond Giants to a mere drizzle on the mound in both games, for two more wins on his vintage ball bats. If memory serves, Balir has been the winning pitcher in four of the six games captured by the Babies. He probably could have had them all, but had to miss one of our victorious twin bills a while back. Also, although Bob doesn’t see himself as a hitter, he went 3 for 8 with 2 runs scored on the day and made some meat-slapping stops on liners up the middle on defense. Keep it up, Mr. Blair. McGinnity of the old New York Giants has nothing on you as a contributor to team excellence.

Here’s how the recorded Babies lineup fared yesterday, and special thanks to Brigitte Blair for keeping score and providing us with this data:

(1) Bob Blair, p (3 for 8, 2 runs)

(2) Jimmy Disch, c (2 for 8, 1 run)

(3) Larry Joe Miggins, 1b (6 for 8, 4 runs)

(4) Alex Schmelter, 2b (6 for 8, 2 runs)

(5) Bill Hale, 3b (5 for 8, 2 runs)

(6) John Civitello (6 for 7, 3 runs)

(7) Eric Blair, lf (4 for 7, 2 runs)

(7a) Nate Who, lf (1 for 1, 1 run)

(8) Robert McArthur, cf (4 for 6, 2 runs)

(9) Bob Stevens, rf (1 for 6, 0 runs)

(9a) George Osborne, c (o for 1, 0 runs)

Eric Blair shined in left field, stopping many a long hit with straight on and one bounce out catches. John Civitello was the toughest out of the day, proving again that those dyed-in-the-wool Connecticut boys take to base ball like kids take to candy. Bill Hale earned the Fearless Fosdick Award for handing some of those fierce body-hole-piercing drives down the third base line. Robert McArthur and Bob Stevens manned the other two cow pastures most ably, never allowing a Giant home run to survive on the trail and spoil the day. Larry Joe Miggins was a human baseball trap at first base, and he ended up the day with the red stinging hands to prove it. Last, but not least, Jimmy Disch called a masterful game behind the plate for Bob Blair, and he never came close to a Ray Fosse experience with any of the rosy running big boys of the Richmond Giants arsenal.

WHEN JIMMY DISCH SCORED, IT TURNED ON THE TECHNICOLOR!

alex mvp Alex Schmelter (above) received the MVP from his grandad, Babies Manager Bob Dorrill, as Grandma Peggy Dorrill looked on over his right shoulder. Also in the photo, left to right, are Kathleen and Larry Miggins, the former Cardinal and Buff, Babies General Manager Bill McCurdy, plus Bob “Double Duty” Blair and his wife, our Babies scorekeeper, Brigitte Blair.

LARRY MIGGINS & FAMILY WERE THERE TO CHEER THE BABIES TOO!

Former St. Louis Cardinal and Houston Buff Larry Miggins was there yesterday with his lovely wife Kathleen. We see them pictured above with their son and daughter in law, Mr. and Mrs. Larry Joe “Long Ball” Miggins. The Miggins family are the keepers of the flame on the memory and signifiance of the Dick Dowling statue in Hermann Park – and that has been true for forty years. If it were up to me, I would appoint Lerry Miggins as the Patron Saint of Houston’s Baseball Heart too. He’s that purely dedicated to both the science and the poetry of the game. When I asked Larry yesterday how much he enjoyed his first trip to George Ranch to watch vintage base ball, his answer was swift, simple, and unecumbered by any need for interpretation. “I think we’ve all died and gone to Heaven,” Larry answered, with that always Irish smile in his voice.

EVERYBODY WAS HAPPY!

AND IT REALLY WAS A BEAUTIFUL DAY IN BASE BALL HEAVEN!

Next time we have one these playing dates, especially if it’s at the beautiful George Ranch, come on out and play with or watch the Houston Babies in action. Our club is a slice of Houston living base ball history and it is most deserving of your support. You’ll be doing yourself and Houston baseball history too by hooking up with our little tribe of baseball, Houston, and history lovers. Of course, if you want to help us sponsor the purchase of our own authentic Houston Babies uniforms, that will free us from having to borrow the used duds of the Montgomery County Saw Dogs every time we play. If you are interested in sponsoring the Houston Babies, seriously, please contact Babies Manager Bob Dorrill at 281-361-7874.

The Houston Babies: Playing with Heart Since 1888!

Tags:Baseball, culture, History, Houston Babies
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Some Great Team Names.

October 18, 2009

Among all the great controversial names ever assigned to minor league baseball clubs, I have to go with the Tampa Smokers as my all time favorite venture into the future of political incorrectness. Of course, it came about in the early twentieth century, during the era in which Tampa, Florida was reknowned for its cigar products, but that kind of explanation probably cuts little ice with the 2009 Surgeon General or his/her legion of anti-smoking lobbies. As a puritanical culture, we still aren’t that forgiving of people found guilty of past addictions, even those that once held their ground as the social norm. I was a smoker for a long, long time, and although I wouldn’t recommend it today to any young person that wants to save his or her lungs, I never became one of those holier-than-thou ex-smokers who enjoyed either beating-up-on or lauding-my-abstinence-over those folks who still smoke. Anyone who really ever went through breaking the tobacco habit, I think, will not soon forget what it was like to be trapped there. It was the toughest bad habit that I ever had to break, bar none, and I didn’t get out early, easy, or without God’s Help. That’s how I see it, anyway.

I also recall my two earliest social models for smoking in the first place: (1) The Blue-Purple Haze Belchers included all those fans at Buff Stadium who laid out that blanket of haze from the stands to the field on a windless summer night; and (2) The Holy Smokers, all those men, including my own dad, who raced to the front door of church each Sunday morning after Mass for the sake of starting a cigarette-smoking bonfire outside the building’s front steps. In the end, I hold only myself responsible for getting into smoking. It was only when, years later, and because of God’s Power and my willingness to change that Divine Intervention got me out from under the blue haze of a lifetime smoking habit. Now I’m just grateful it happened, even though I know it would still be so easy to go back to a nicotine-addiction pull that some say is stronger than crack cocaine. One day at a time, with God’s Help, that won’t happen.

Those were the days, my friend! Oh, and let’s just get back to baseball nicknames. In case you’re wondering, that Tampa Smokers jersey, and many others, is still available to fans through a little company called Ebbets Field Flannels. I have no personal stake or profit interest in “EFF” beyond the fact that I have been a customer in the past, but I think you may find their offerings of interest. The website link is http://www.ebbets.com/

At any rate, here are a few of my other favorite great names in minor league baseball. Some are there because they are iconic. Some rank up there on my personal favorite list. And others are simply there because they struck me as amusing. You may have some of your own. If you do, please feel free to list them as comments on this article. The more the merrier.

Some of My Favorite Great Minor League Team Names: The Durham Bulls, Hollywoood Stars, New Orleans Pelicans, San Francisco Seals, Sioux Falls Canaries, Sweetwater Swatters, Wilson Bugs, York Prohibitionists, Racine Malted Milks, Hannibal Cannibals, Vancouver Horse Doctors, Kalamazoo Kazoos, Waterbury Frolickers, Grand Forks Flickertails, Albany Nuts, Moose Jaw Robin Hoods, Salina Insurgents, Jackson Convicts, Victoria Rose Buds, Muscatine Buttonmakers, San Jose Prune Pickers, St. Paul Apostles, Freeport Pretzels, Zanesville Infants, Bridgeport Orators, Chattanooga Lookouts, Houston Babies, Toledo Mud Hens, San Antonio Missions, Beeville Bees, Hammond Berries, North Wilksboro Flashers, Saginaw Wa-Was, and, last but not least, the always unforgettable Orange Hoo-Hoos.

My All Time Favorite Minor League Team Name: (What else?) The Houston Buffaloes/Buffs.

Don’t forget to add your own favorites in the comment section below.

Tags:Baseball, culture, History, Houston Buffs
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Murderers’ Row: The ’27 Yankees.

October 15, 2009

Yankees 27 003

Above (Left to Right): Miller Huggins, Manager; (1) Earle Combs, CF; (2) Mark Koenig, SS; (3) Babe Ruth, RF; (4) Lou Gehrig, 1B; (5) Bob Meusel, LF; (6) Tony Lazzeri, 2B; (7) Joe Dugan, 3B; (8) Pat Collins, C; Herb Pennock, P.

In my mind, at least, they are the unarguably most legendary, fabled, iconic, colorful, and especially productive baseball team in all of major league history. Whether you like the New York Yankees or not, it’s hard to argue that any team anywhere ever bore more lustre and bluster than the 1927 version of the Bronx Bombers because, simply put, the team dubbed rightly so as Murderers’ Row is the only one that ever featured an out of this world one-of-a-kind slugger in his prime named George Herman “Babe” Ruth.

I’m not suggesting that the Babe Ruth of 1927 would certainly out-produce a guy like Albert Pujols if the former were teleported to 2010 with all of the talent he possessed in 1921 or 1927 intact, but I wouldn’t bet against it either. If the Babe had to adjust to the baseball culture of this early 21st century era, I’m betting he could do it, even if he had to spend these winter months at the Betty Ford Clinic getting ready for 2010, but that’s all speculative and unprovable.

Yankees 27 002 What is demonstrable is the fact that Ruth accomplished things in 1927 that no other hitter, including Prince Albert, could ever hope to top. 1927 was the season that Babe Ruth broke his own season home run record by hitting number 60 on the last day of the season. It was a record that turned the digit “60” into an iconic number for baseball’s most glamorous power statistic, and, thirty-four years later, it converted 61* (asterisk included) into the new record for Roger Maris, who needed 162 games to best by one homer what Babe Ruth had done in 154 contests.

There isn’t much that can be added to what’s already been written about Babe Ruth’a recording-breaking, phenomenal 1927 season. His 60 homers alone were more than any of the other seven clubs in the American Leaguue could muster as whole teams.

Although many of us like to remind that Babe Ruth’s 1921 offesive season was superior overall to his individual 1927 season total output, there’s no argument that the total Yankees result in the latter season was simply the greatest season to come along when it came down to winning with power, winning by a big margin, and winning by a runaway few laps in the final standings. The ’27 Yankees both had it all and did it all.

For the first time in big league history, the ’27 Yankees became the only club through that date to come along with two players that hit over 45 home runs for the same club in the same season. Ruth’s 60 HR were strongly matched and supported by Lou Gehrig’s 47. Tony Lazzeri added 18 HR of his own to the ’27 hitting assault, good enough for third place on the Yankees. And had it not been for teammates Ruth and Gehrig, Tony Lazzeri would have led American League in home runs over the course of the ’27 season.

Yankees 27 001

Babe Ruth hit his 60th HR on September 30, 1927 off Tom Zachary of the Washington Senators Senators before a sparse crowd at old Yankee Stadium, which was then only cpncluding its 5th season of operation. Fas weren’t crazy for records so much in those days. Besides, the Yankees had long since wrapped up the American League pennant by that final day and were simply playing out the string against the lowly Sens. Besdies too, Rut already owned the HR record at 59. By hitting 60, he would just be mocing up he own mark by one digit. It’s no big deal. Right?

Ruth also batted .356 with 164 RBI in 1927, but, hey, after all is said and done, the 1927 Yankees still were not all Ruth, It takes more than one killer to build a Murderers’ Row and the Yankees had such a group. Earle Combs was the leadoff man and a .356 hitter on the year. His 231 hits and 23 triples led the American League in 1927. Mark Koenig batted 2nd, hitting a steady .285 for the year. The came Babe Ruth in the 3rd spot. The following year, this batting order would be used to determine the major numbers that went on the backs of each Yankee player in 1928. Lou Gehrig batted 4th, hitting .373, with league-leading marks in 52 doubles and 175 RBI. Bob Meusel batted 5th, hitting .337 with 47 doubles and 103 RBI. Then came the number 6 man, Tony Lazzeri, who, in addition to his 18 homers, also batted .309 with 102 RBI. Jumping Joe Dugan batted a steady .269 in the number 7 hole; and catcher Pat Collins batted .275 in the number 8 spot.

The ’27 Yankees also featured a pitching staff that was a Murdererrs’ Row in its own right. Look at these names and number – and give them all the awe they each deserve: Waite Hoyt 22-7, 2.63 was good enough to lead the American Legaue in wins and lowest ERA in ’27; Wilcy Moore, 19-7, 2.28 didn’t have enough innings to qualify for the ERA title, but his 13 saves would have tied him for the league lead in that category with Garland Braxton of Washington had baseball bothered to keep track of that record in 1927; Herb Pennock went 19-8 with a 3.00 ERA; Urban Shocker went 18-6, 2,84; Dutch Ruether was 13-6, 3.38; and George Pipgras went 10-3 with a 4.11 ERA.

The 1927 New York Yankees finished the season with a record of 110 wins and 44 losses for a winning percentage of .714. Thier killer record put them in first place in American League, a full 19 games ahead of the 2nd place Philadelphia Athletics and a blow-away 59 games up on the 8th and last place Boston Red Sox. Then the ’27 Yankees went out and swept the Pittsburgh Pirates, four games to zip, in the World Series. No wonder so much of the world, especially the part that is Boston, hates the Yankees, but that still doesn’t take away the title earned by the ’27 Big Apple club!

Murderers’ Row. – Any questions about the operational definition of that term?

Tags:Baseball, culture, New York Yankees
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Mysteries of American Life!

October 12, 2009

Excuse me! I don’t want to take up a lot of your time because I know you’re a busy person, but I do have a few questions I wish somebody like you could help me answer. – I promise to keep it brief. OK?

(1) Why is it that we pay into Social Security with money that’s already been taxed, but then, when we start getting it back in monthly retirement payments, we have to pay income tax on simply reclaiming the same money that was already ours? Can you explain that to me? I wasn’t too good at math in school. I figure I missed out on something.

(2.) Why is it that women say to their husbands, “if you want to have a better love life with me, you’ll first try to do a better job of getting close to me emotionally,” but the men turn right around and say to their wives, “if you want to get close to me emotionally, you’ll first help me make sure we have a better love life!” I tried to get Mrs. Colombo to answer this one, but she just said, “if I have to explain it to you, it doesn’t really matter!”

(3.) Why does being born on American soil to non-American parents automatically make you an American citizen who will be eligible to run for President at age 35 while an immigrant naturalized American, born elsewhere, is automatically disqualifed by place of birth from ever serving as President? Isn’t place of birth more of a coincidence than it is a statement of how American or Un-American you are as a baby? – Unless one of your parents is already an American citizen , shouldn’t you just be a citizen of whatever country your parents come from, no matter where you first see the light of day? Otherwise, doesn’t the present law of the land pretty much establish a “running back headed for the end zone” relationship between some foreign pregnant women and American soil?

(4) Why do we allow members of Congress to establish and benefit from retirement and health care plans that are so far superior to our own? Don’t you think they might find some better answers quicker to these two great national issues if they were stuck in the same retirement and health care boiling pot with the rest of us? What do you say we figure out a way to “rein in” Congress to Social Security and Medicare with the rest of us and press Congress to pass an amendment that prevents our lawmakers from ever again establishing retirement and health care plans that are separate and superior to those available to us “Everyday Joe and Jane” American citizens? Don’t you think those steps my light a fire in their desire to find better solutions for “our” plans?

(5) Why do “John and Kate Plus Eight” matter to anyone? Oh well. maybe they have the answer to that man and woman relationship question I asked earlier. John and Kate, please listen up. – Mrs. Colombo and I need an answer here. What’s most important first in a marriage? – Good loving? – Or good feelings?

(6) Why do we bother to have smoking sections in restaurants when we don’t have urinating sections in swimming pools? Wouldn’t the latter be about as ineffective as the former, even when people play by the rules? I guess the only difference is – at least – in the case of smoking sections, we can see who’s violating the rules.

(7) When I first reached the age of eligibility for Medicare, I didn’t sign up for Part B, the part that pays some your office visit and prescription drug bills. I didn’t take it out because I first misunderstood that my other very good private insurance would make it fairly meaningless as help and just cost me money deducted from my new Social Security payments. Then I said to myself, “I’ll just save the system some money by holding off taking Part B until later. – Well, it’s later now. – Now I’m being told that I’m going to be penalized on the cost of my Part B plan because I didn’t start it when I first had the chance! Nobody told me that earlier. Am I that dumb? Doesn’t the government ever want to save money? Why should I be penalized for doing something the bureaucrats in Social Security ought to be rewarding me for doing? Oh, that’s right. I keep forgetting. The bureaucrats get their pay regardless of whether or not the programs they run make, save, or lose money for the taxpaper. Forgive me. I’m taking way too much of your valuable time with matters that should be very obvious to a smart guy like me. After all, I’m Colombo!

(8) Why do we live in neighbborhoods that pay good money to management firms to preserve quality of life when all they do is snoop through our streets, noting things we need to do with our money, on their short-time schedules, to fix up our properties – or else? Oh yeah, these little weasling micromanagers are straight out of George Orwell’s “1984” too. They let you know by anonymus letter (what they call a “courtesy contact”) that they have been watching your house and that they have observed certain things “you need to fix” to move out of harm’s way from possible legal action. – This kind of thing is only important to the quality of life enjoyed by the little anal-retentive people who snoop through the neighborhood, squinting at everyone else’s houses, enjoying the only power they have to abuse others! – Why can’t we just tar and feather people who do this kind of dirty work and get back to the simple enjoyment of living in our own homes? We’re not talking cars parked on the front lawn here on my block. We’re talking, in the case of one neighbo, about an ivy vine that managed to run a strand out of bounds down the side of a front yard rain gutter. Now, I gotta ask. – Is that one little vine really going to ruin mine and all my other neighbors’ days? Man! Do we really want to hop to the tune of some chicken-livered overseer who doesn’t even have the guts to ask us face-to-face about things he or she finds wrong at our houses, preferring only to send us an unsigned “couresy contact” ultimatum? What’s wrong with this picture, anyway?

(9) So how come so much of life seems controlled by bad timing? When we’re young and in good health, but broke, we miss out on a lot things we can’t afford to do. Then, by the time we can afford these things, we’re either too old or too ill to even entertain the idea of travelling far from home. – With Mrs. Colombo and me, it works more lke this. She says to me: “You never take anywhere!” I say: “OK, let’s drive over to Nevada to see your sister.” Then she says: “Do you really think I’d want to drive all the way to Vegas in a car with you?” – Why is she like that? I’m damned if I do, and damned if I don’t. – You tell me! I may be smart enough to solve a lot of crimes – but not this one!

(10) Why do they call the game of baseball “America’s Pastime” when, for a lot of us, we’re not passing time at all when we go to the ballpark. When we’re at the ballpark, we’re pretty much living our lives as we want to live them. So how come Mrs. Colombo doesn’t understand that? She can’t figure out why they don’t do something to shorten the games. As for me, I don’t care how long the game runs. When I’m at the ballpark, in fact, I don’t care if I never get back. In fact, don’t you think life would be simply so much easier if Mrs. C. could just think more like me?

(BONUS 11) How is technology helping us to communicate better when the Internet, cell phones, and texting only encourage us to reach out to talk with people who are not with us while we simultaneously ignore the people who are with us? Mrs. Colombo thinks that she and I have a problem in this area. I told her to call me about it sometime. Is that so bad?

Sorry I took so much time here after I promised to be brief. I’ll tell the Pecan Park Eagle man to get back to baseball tomorrow.

Tags:culture, parody
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