Enough, Already

It’s bad enough that Tom Seaver and Lou Brock died within a week of each other. Now, in the past seven days, Jay Johnstone, Bob Gibson, Lou Johnson and Ron Perranoski have all joined them. Some of these names I knew mostly from playing Strat-O-Matic, some—Brock and Gibson, especially—I rooted for when they faced the Cubs. Seaver actually won his 300th game pitching for the White Sox, and Jay Johnstone may be the first Sox player I remember Harry Caray turning on: I don’t think this guy’s ever gonna hit. That would’ve been 1972, when Johnstone still had another thirteen years to go. I wonder what he thought those two-plus seasons he played for the Cubs with Caray in the booth? Baseball teaches many useful lessons, among them our mortality. Message received. Let’s move on, now, shall we?