Baseball

Baseball:

One fall day in 1949, Dad announced that we were getting a 12” black and white TV/radio/record player combination in time to watch the opening game of the World Series. Minutes later the J.B. Van Skyver furniture truck arrived. This meant that we could watch TV seated, not standing in the cold, outside a furniture store.

The World Series began televised broadcasts in 1947. The Brooklyn Dodgers had Jackie Robinson (who had broken the color barrier) and the New York Yankees boasted Joe DiMaggio, among others. Dad always got two tickets to the fourth game of the World Series when the Yankees were playing in New York. I once asked him, “Why the fourth?” he replied, with Lucha logic, “There might not be a fifth.”

It was what is termed as a “subway series” with two New York teams vying to be champions. It promised to be a memorable one, and television (no matter how small) afforded him the opportunity to see all the games. Since Mom was not a fan of baseball, he made sure the console included a record player and radio. After all Mom loved Broadway show tunes and her favorite soap opera was Helen Trent.

Television was a good investment for family bonding because we spent many happy hours watching in the humid Delaware summers (long before air conditioning). Our gray-green GE fifties fan circulated the air and kept us cool as we watched the variety shows of Milton Berle, Jimmy Durante, Bob Hope, Sid Caesar and Ed Sullivan .

From 1949 to 1953 Dad and I watched the New York Yankees create an unprecedented record of winning five consecutive World Series Championships. During ads Dad would tell of Mickey Mantle’s stream of conscious monologues, quote Yogi Berra sayings and confide how much he admired Casey Stengel, originally named KC after his hometown of Kansas City. The initials were expanded to “Casey” after the popular poem Casey at the Bat, which was a selection from Dad’s “driving to church poetry repertoire.” He used to recite poems to quiet my whining complaints, “Other kids don’t have to go to church every Sunday, why do we?” There were no car radios in those days.

My infatuation with baseball ended when the Yankees lost in 1954, but Dad was loyal to the manager who had provided him with so many hours of happiness. Casey, long retired, died at age eighty-five, the day after the 1975 baseball season ended. The Los Angeles funeral was delayed for a week to let the players attend. Dad phoned to tell me he was going to Forest Lawn Cemetery well before the crowds. He wanted to pay his respects to the man he respected most in baseball. Mom thought he was crazy, but I understood. I remembered the thrill of those five seasons. We shared them seated side-by-side watching that larger than life team on that little 12” screen. I am certain Dad left Forest Lawn Cemetery reciting Casey at the Bat to make his trip home a little less painful.