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CorneliusWolfe wrote: ↑24 Dec 2025 08:57 am

Talkin' Baseball wrote: ↑23 Dec 2025 16:30 pm In the summer of 1971 my parents took my brother, sister, and me to a county fair in the neighboring county. We had never been to a fair before, and never went again afterward. I remember being enamored with all the things an 8 year-old boy would be enamored with at his first fair, but as we were leaving something happened that changed my life in a good way. As we were leaving the fairgrounds and the lighting was becoming more dim, in the grass I found something that had been discarded earlier- unwanted. I picked them up, having no idea what they were. My dad explained to me that they were baseball cards. I held on to them and looked them over and over when I got home to better lighting. The only card that I can still remember is Jack Billingham, a pitcher at that time with the Houston Astros. I see that the same card sells on ebay now from $1.75 to $4.49.

I Collected Baseball Cards
I was awful proud of my baseball cards and showed them to anyone who would sit and listen about them. When I showed them to my grandma, she listened intently and when I was done, she went over to a cabinet of hers and pulled out a box. It had maybe 500 baseball cards in it. It was a collection my uncle had put together before he went out on his own. At my next visit, my grandma got the box out again, we looked at the cards again, and then she gave them to me. There were many interesting cards there and I memorized them front and back. A couple I remember were a 1958 Stan Musial card and a 1967 Bob Gibson.

Over the next several years I continued to collect baseball cards feverishly. The result was a collection exceeding 20,000 cards. Some I bought, many were given to me by mothers cleaning up their house. It was an amazing collection. I not only had a card of every player of the day, I had multiples of every card, of every player from the late 50’s through the 70’s. Think about that. Pete Rose, Bob Gibson, Hank Aaron, Willie Mays, Sandy Koufax… everyone. It helped me memorize all the teams they played for and their statistics. It was great fun for me.

I Watched Baseball
I watched my first World Series that fall of 1971 between Roberto Clemente and the Pirates versus the mighty Baltimore Orioles. I started watching baseball whenever I could. WMBD out of Peoria often carried Cubs games on Sundays (and yes, I even watched the Cubs) with Jack Brickhouse. I watched the game of the week on NBC with Curt Gowdy and Tony Kubek. I was tickled to death when they started Monday Night baseball with Joe Garagiola.

I Read About Baseball
Getting the mail in the summer and early fall was a highlight for me. I would take the sports section out of the Pekin Daily Times and read every box score, look at the league leaders, the standings, and scheduled pitchers for the day. It was one of the highlights of the day.
My uncle (who had collected the baseball cards) knew of my interest and every couple months or so, he would stop by and leave a pile of his Sporting News magazines for me to look through. I read every article about every team and looked at the stats of all the minor leaguers, as well as the big leaguers. There was a publication put out before each season with analysis on each team and predictions- Smith and Street’s- I purchased that each year.

I Played Baseball
I played baseball whenever I could. I lived for the Little League games against other kids from my town. After Little League, we got involved in Pony League. That was great because we got to go to other towns to play, got our first experience playing under the lights, and had a great coach who taught us a lot. The worst thing I could say about him is, he was/is a Cubs fan. At the end of each season he would take us to Wrigley Field for a game. We got to see the Dodgers and the Cardinals there.

For about 5-8 years my dad would play “pepper ball” with my brother and I when he got home from working. Sometimes he would be exhausted, but he was almost always was a good sport and would spend at least a little time at it. He also took us to Busch Stadium to see the Cardinals. We watched them take on Fergie Jenkins and the Cubs, Don Gullett and the Reds, and Woody Fryman and the Expos.

My Junior High baseball coach taught me more about how to play baseball than anyone I ever worked with. We would have our regular practice, and then afterward he would hold special voluntary sessions to teach about the nuances of each position and skill. For instance, if you were interested in pitching- it didn’t matter if you were being used as a pitcher or not- if you were interested, he would show you about pitching out of the stretch, making pick-off moves, what constitutes a balk, and all the things no one teaches you. He would do that for each position- where you should position yourself, how to use the cutoff man, who covers on a steal attempt- all the stuff. I wish I knew where is today, or if he is even alive, so I could thank him. He was a Coach.

When I got to high school, I hit .500 playing varsity as a freshman. Before my sophomore season, I changed schools. I was beginning to wonder if I might be good enough to advance playing baseball. To what, I wasn’t sure, but I was starting to wonder. I hit .455 as a sophomore, but in the next to the last game of the season, I was stealing second base and slid late. My spike grabbed the base on my late slide and tore up my left knee. It was never the same, and that was that.

So, I didn’t end up with a career in baseball. I went into business instead. I have maintained a life-long love of baseball. Now, with my background in business, I am as interested in the roster-building and business of baseball as I am with the actual game. It is all fun and interesting to me. It sometimes makes my heart hurt when I see posts on here where people are so angry and unhappy with all the goings on. Baseball is a beautiful game, and it is fun.

Merry Christmas all!

Sounds like you might've been a stud prospect! Sorry it didn't work out but it sounds like you've still found success and happiness. You always post really good stuff and interesting content, makes sense from your history. Merry Christmas to you as well.

Talkin' Baseball wrote: ↑25 Dec 2025 09:10 am A funny story-

About half way through my first year of Little League I was having a "pinch me" moment. I was about to get to pitch for the first time. The pitcher, who was a year older than me, and our best pitcher just didn't have it for that game and the coach had decided to bring me over from 3B to pitch. I couldn't believe my luck.

I was on cloud nine just be able to play on a team, let alone get to play, let alone play on the infield, and now- I was going to get to pitch! I took my warm-up tosses until being ready to go. The catcher crouched, the batter stepped into the box, the umpire crouched slightly and leaned forward. Then the umpire noticed something- he stood up straight threw his arms up and said, "Time. Your shoe is untied".

"I said, it's ok".
"You need to tie it", was the reply.
"It's ok" I said back, getting more uncomfortable.
"You need to tie it, You could trip on that and get hurt" came the answer.
Now I was busted. Though my mom had tried to get me to learn to tie my shoes when my younger sister learned, I was an empty-headed boy with much more important things to do. Now my priorities were changing. There was nothing more important in this moment than knowing how to tie my shoe- but I didn't know, and now in front of both teams and the families there to watch the game I had to have the third baseman (who I had just replaced) come over and tie my shoe.

I learned the reliever lament the hard way- you can go from the fireman to an idiot in a hurry. I had gone from the pinnacle of my life to the biggest public humiliation of my life in about 2 minutes.

When I went home that night I learned how to tie my shoes before I went to bed.