What I Kept

For reasons to be discussed at a later date, I decided to do some before-spring cleaning today. Anyone interested in Baseball Digests and Who’s Who in Baseball dating to the early 1970s are welcome to do some recycling-cart diving if they want. The annual baseball magazines go that far back, too, and you can take them if you can reach them. I’d advise against trying to sell anything on eBay, though. That would pretty much be a waste of time and energy. Value is in the eyes of the beholder, and if I’m tossing this stuff… What got dumped allowed me quicker access to stuff I kept, like the 1964 White Sox program, which lists my friends Jeoff Long and Ray Berres. The handwriting on the scorecard isn’t mine, so I must’ve bought this at a memorabilia shop or sale. But I definitely remember buying the March 1969 Baseball Digest “special edition” of “Here Come 363 Rookies.” Randy Bobb and Bob Fenwick, anybody? I also know my sister Betty bought me the Oilers-Browns’ program for the game on December 7, 1970. I was a college freshman on Christmas break; the flight to Houston was the first time I ever flew on a jet. Big sister wanted to impress little brother by taking him to a football game in the Astrodome, and I was suitably impressed. And when Oiler’s quarterback Charley Johnson lined up a good six feet behind his center, I learned about the shotgun formation. Final score: Cleveland 21, Houston 10. The Denver Bears’ program from 1975 dates to a summer road trip I took with my friend Dan. The Bears were affiliated with the White Sox at the time, so we went to check out the action at Mile High Stadium. The Bears had a roster that included Lamar Johnson, Chet Lemon and Tony LaRussa; the first two became favorites of mine. The Bears were going up against a Tulsa Drillers’ team that included the likes of Mike Easler, Keith Hernandez and Jerry Mumphrey. The Drillers also had Wayne Nordhagen and Mike Proly, both of whom would play for the Sox. Don’t ask me the final score, though I do remember thinking Johnson and Lemon could hit. In that I would be proven right.