191 - Reflections and Baseball

191 days 'til retirement.

A few posts ago I promised more about the RR and less about me. Forget that for a bit.

After a very busy period at the RR I qualified for Federal Rest. It was good fortune for it to occur during the World Series. I'm not a rabid fan but I do still enjoy baseball. I was too small to be effective but I did have good fundamentals and was quick enough to steal bases. I hate what has happened to the proffesional game with the money and steroids.

There was a time when the game had more honor. Mickey Mantle would have played for free. He often said so. Each year during the playoffs and the Series I get reflective at what a perfect time that I was a kid. Baseball was good, but the world was not always.

Mickeys career was over in 1969, the year I was a Senior. Martin Luther King was shot on my birthday in 1968. We were embittered as a country by the Viet Nam war. We did learn that peaceful demonstration could change the world.

I was nine years old when Mickey Mantle and Roger Maris had their run at Babe Ruth's homerun record in 1961.

Bob Turley was a pitcher for the Yankees and won the Cy Young in 1958. He was a great friend of Yogi Berra. We have no Idea how he is related to us, but it was alot of fun that he was on the same team anyway. Greed ruined my affinity for the Yankees.


My Stepmother was big on nicknames and called my Mickey one time in 1961. I liked it so much I quit answering to anything else. My family still calls me Mick or Mickey on occasion. Even a couple of co-workers do too. They know I am a fan. I still prefer Michael or Mick to Mike.

Side note: As I wrote this post. I was watching a movie "Something God Made" about Vivien Thomas... I thought to include this link as it made another impact on me. I remember White Only Signs even though I was unaware of the treatment of folks in the south. The photo at the top was taken in New Orleans about 1963.