You can take the hitter
out of the game, but you can’t take the game out of the hitter, as I found out
yesterday when Clare stopped by the house.
Two days past her twenty-sixth birthday, our only child had volunteered
to help make some Thanksgiving Day dishes.
She also wanted me to watch a Netflix documentary on fastballs. “I think you’ll like it,” advised my personal
film critic. (We actually had Clare do
movie reviews when she was growing up, but that’s a story for another day.)
Narrated by Kevin
Costner (who else?), “Fastball” tells the story of baseball’s most exciting
pitch. I usually watch these things more
for the old footage than the talking heads.
Walter Johnson, the “father” of the fastball, not only looked good, but
I have to admit I actually learned something—off of old measurements corrected,
Johnson actually threw a hair faster than 93 mph (vs. 98 mph for Bob
Feller). But the real revelation was the
White Sox own, Goose Gossage.
The more Goose talked
about his talent, the more my daughter acted like she wanted to step in and hit
against him. Forget Bobby Riggs and
Billie Jean King. Goose vs. Clare would
have been a matchup for the ages. Trust
me.
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