RIP Vida Blue

[Starman]

I don't recall exactly but I think the game started about 8:20 after all the pregame festivities.

Watching the tape again I remember there were dark stormy looking clouds plus a really thick steamy haze before the game.

Also I remember my dad parked our car about two blocks away down Trumbull where a friendly resident offered to "watch" it for $20.
"All I got is $10," my dad slightly fudged. "All right, I'll give you a break," Trumbull Dude said.

Happily the car was still there three hours later, with four tires.

We never mentioned the $20 of paper route money I had in my shoe.

 

[X-Hack]

I don't recall exactly but I think the game started about 8:20 after all the pregame festivities.

Watching the tape again I remember there were dark stormy looking clouds plus a really thick steamy haze before the game.

Also I remember my dad parked our car about two blocks away down Trumbull where a friendly resident offered to "watch" it for $20.
"All I got is $10," my dad slightly fudged. "All right, I'll give you a break," Trumbull Dude said.

Happily the car was still there three hours later, with four tires.

We never mentioned the $20 of paper route money I had in my shoe.

My dad always paid bottom dollar to park in a small lot on Plum Street off Trumbull. Our car was always intact afterward.

 

[X-Hack]

Checking out Vida Blue's numbers, he had a better career than I realized. I'm too young to remember his time with the A's (other than his 1977 card). I remember him making ASG appearances with the Giants in the late 70s but I had no idea he was anything special -- this was just before we got WGN or WTBS, so I rarely saw NL teams play and when I did, it usually wasn't the Giants of that era. It wasn't until Gooden broke in when I was 14 and people made the comparisons that I had any idea what Vida had been. But looking at his overall numbers, he really should have gotten a lot more Cooperstown consideration. Career 3.26 ERA, 200 wins mostly with garbage teams after his first few years, 3 20-win seasons and a bunch of 17 and 18-win seasons with those same crap teams, 6 seasons of ERAs in the 2s and only 1 full season above 3.50 over 17 years -- if Mussina and Morris are in and, for that matter, Catfish Hunter, there seems to be no really good reason why Vida was never inducted. The only category where Catfish leads Vida is wins. Catfish moved on to the Bronx Bombers of the 70s when Vida moved on to the sad-sack Giants. That had to be good for another few wins per year over the rest of the 70s.

 

[Starman]

My dad always paid bottom dollar to park in a small lot on Plum Street off Trumbull. Our car was always intact afterward.

Well, this was for the All-Star Game. For a normal midweek game with 11,000 in the stands the parking dudes probably weren't getting $10 off of anybody.

 

[2muchcoffeeman]

If you've got two and a half hours to yourself, do yourself a favor and watch the '71 All-Star Game, with commercials.



Six players hit home runs in this game, and all six are in the Hall of Fame.

Let me take a second to point out that this was an All-Star Game, with all the ads and the intros, in 2½ hours.

Which some board members will hate.