The one place you could have seen

I read Paper Lion again a while back, and, reading into Plimpton’s descriptions of Detroit and the school where camp was held, I can almost sense that it’s the last vestiges of a different era before all hell breaks loose.

 

Even with all that it had more character than the Vet. What a monument to a bad generation of stadium-building that place was.

 

RFK, for the legendary first SJ.com Gathering.

 

In this park, on this day, in this moment, to see this:

Andrew Linker

Not thrilled with how his starting pitcher is faring, Brooklyn Dodgers manager Casey Stengel ambles to the mound to replace Boom-Boom Beck with two outs in the first inning 87 years ago today at Philadelphia’s Baker Bowl.

Beck, already trailing 3-0, clearly is not thrilled about Stengel taking him out of a game that the Phillies eventually win 11-2.

Rather than giving the baseball to Stengel, Beck heaves the ball off Baker Bowl’s tall tin wall in right field.

Dodgers right fielder Hack Wilson, clearly not giving much thought to anything at the moment, hears the ball rocket off the tin wall, chases after it and makes a perfect throw to second base in an attempt to hold an imaginary baserunner to an equally imaginary single.
The 34-year-old Wilson, in the last season of a Hall of Fame career derailed by alcohol, does not start another game for Brooklyn before he is released on Aug. 8.

Two days later, the Phillies – perhaps enamored by his throw from right field – sign Wilson, who plays 10 games for them before returning to the minors in 1935 for a 13th and final season as a pro.

Thanks for looking … Andy Linker @www.harrisburgbaseball.com

 

So many stories of players from bygone eras ruining their careers via alcohol. One still wonders what Mantle could have done with modern surgery, to repair the 1951 knee injury, and with the substance abuse support not available to every player.

 

And yet, for a generation of us, the Vet was paradise. It's where I saw my first (and most) of my MLB games, and as a kid the once a year trip to go see bad Phillies teams play was absolutely magical. I know it was a dump, but it was my dump, dammit.

 

Exactly. Memorial Stadium in Baltimore was absolutely nothing fancy, and it needed to go. But it was the ballpark of my youth.
Also: Boom Boom Beck !!