Major League baseball – Page 2 – Jim Stafford's BlogOKC

For Ed, Cardinals baseball a lifelong ‘addiction’

Ozzie Go Crazy — Ozzie Smith’s St. Louis Cardinals teammates celebrate his game-winning home run vs. the Dodgers in the 1985 playoffs

Editor’s note: My friend Ed Godfrey grew up in Eastern Oklahoma as a passionate St. Louis Cardinals fan, a devotion that began by listening to their games on his family’s big console radio. More than 50 years later, Ed remains a baseball fan and still follows the Cardinals with the same passion as he did as a 10-year-old Stigler Little Leaguer. I asked him to write about what sparked his fandom for the team from St. Louis, and he obliged with this essay.

By Ed Godfrey
When I was a kid, baseball was king. That gives you a clue to how old I am. Yes, I am old enough to draw Social Security.

I played Little League baseball, proudly donning the uniforms of King’s Tire Service, Guaranty Abstract and Davis Packing Company, some of the generous sponsors in Stigler who allowed the town’s pre-teen youth to live out their summer dreams on the ball diamond.

Like the Cardinals great utility man in the ’80s, Jose Oquendo, I would play everywhere on the field at some point. Dad nixed my playing days at catcher after just one game because he was afraid I would get hurt.

Center field was my best position, but I also took the bump a lot. I didn’t have Nuke LaLoosh stuff, but I could do what often none of my other teammates could do. Throw the ball over the plate.

Man, I loved baseball. Whenever I had a dime, I would ride my bicycle the six blocks from home to the Five & and Dime store in downtown Stigler and buy a pack of baseball cards.

I was a pretty avid card collector in the early ’70s. And yeah, I stupidly put some of them on the spokes of my bike and glued others in a scrapbook, but most of my treasures are still intact. Thank you, mom, for not throwing away my baseball cards.

As you get older, I think the more you want to go back and be a kid again. That’s why I still buy baseball cards today. Nostalgia.

Back when I was a kid, I didn’t miss the major league game of the week on Saturday afternoons. Yeah, we got one baseball game on television each week. I also loved This Week in Baseball narrated by Mel Allen.

And I was a frequent listener of Major League Baseball games on the radio. This is how I became a St. Louis Cardinals fan.

First of all, the Cardinals were really good in the late ’60s. When I was 7, they won the ’67 World Series over the Red Sox. Then when I was 8, they lost the ’68 World Series to the Tigers.

(Don’t ask me about the ’85 World Series against the Royals, I am still ticked off about Game 6. Now, Game 6 of the 2011 World Series Game 6, that one was magical)

For many years, the Cardinals were the only major league team west of the Mississippi River and they developed a loyal following thanks to mighty KMOX-AM radio, which had a long reach throughout the South and Midwest.

KMOX helped turn countless families into Cardinals fans since 1926, including a kid in Stigler, Oklahoma.

When the Cardinals played on the West Coast and games started past my bedtime, I would sneak a transistor radio under my pillow so I could still listen to the broadcast without my parents knowing.

Console Otherwise, I would listen to games on our bulky old stereo-record combo that we had in our living room. In 1971, and I can still hear Jack Buck’s call of Bob Gibson striking out Willie Stargell to end the game for Gibby’s only no-hitter of his career.

“If you were here, it would have made you cry,” Buck proclaimed.

I wasn’t there but I felt like I was, thanks to one of the great baseball announcers in history.

When the Cardinals made the playoffs in the ’80s, every game, of course, was televised. But I turned the volume down on the TV and tuned in the radio for the play by play to listen to Buck.
I got to hear his great “Go Crazy” call in the ’85 National League Championship Series against the Dodgers when Ozzie Smith unexpectedly hit the game-winning homer in Game 5.

I did “Go Crazy” in my apartment in Edmond, leaping from the sofa and landing on my knees in front of my TV in celebration.

A few years later I started dating my future wife. She tolerated my obsession with the Cardinals and actually enjoyed listening to Buck’s voice, even though she knew little about baseball.

Instead of going out on the town one Friday night, she drove from Norman to my apartment in Edmond and agreed to watch the Cardinals-Braves game with me on what was then Ted Turner’s superstation, TBS, which carried all the Braves games.

I promised we would go out for dinner after the game. It lasted 22 innings. My man Oquendo even came in and pitched when the Cardinals’ bullpen was depleted. (Told you he was a great utility player). He pitched several scoreless innings, but the Cards couldn’t get him a run and they lost.

Linda watched all 22 innings and never complained. Maybe she slept through an inning or two, I can’t remember for sure, but the point is she stayed until the end and then drove back home in the early morning hours. As Buck would say, “That’s a winner.”

I don’t listen to Cardinal games on the radio anymore because Buck and his broadcast partner, Mike Shannon, are no longer with us. Nothing against the new announcers, but it’s not the same for me.

This summer, I even stopped watching the Cardinals on TV because they stink this season. It’s been a long time since they have been this bad.

Well, the truth is I haven’t quit on them completely. I still sneak a peek once a while to see if the bullpen is going to blow another game and then I start cussing when they do.

It’s a lifelong addiction.

Stick it to The Man

Tennessee MAN — The showdown recently in the Tennessee Legislature

A few days before Oklahoma voted down a proposal to legalize recreational marijuana across the state, a friend and I discussed the issue over coffee. He said he was voting ‘yes’ to the initiative, despite the fact that he has no interest in using marijuana.

I asked him why.

“I want to stick it to The Man,” he said.

I’m right there with you, my friend.

Sticking it to The Man has become a personal avocation for me as I’ve approached my angry old man years (GET OFF MY LAWN!).

Of course, defining exactly who ‘The Man’ is can be a moving target.

In my mind, The Man is an older, wealthy white guy sitting in a corner suite in a tower office, pouring money into campaigns and candidates that promise to resist change at all costs or take America back to the 1950s.

You know, when everyone knew their place. Wink. Wink.

I am a child of the South, so I know how Jim Crow laws were enforced by The Man all over the South until the mid-1960s.

The emergence of MAGA and Red State legislators in today’s world have an eerie resemblance to their ancestors who set up a society in which white folks were guaranteed by law to be the ruling class.

Some famous examples of sticking it to The Man from the past:

Rosa Parks refused to yield her seat to a white person on a bus in Montgomery, Ala., and helped launch the Civil Rights movement.

Clara Luper led a group of young people into a downtown Oklahoma City drug store in 1958 where they sat at the lunch counter until they were served in a time when Jim Crow laws still enforced segregation.

Jackie Robinson became the first African-American to play in a Major League Baseball game on April 15, 1947 when he started at first base for the Brooklyn Dodgers. Major League Baseball had operated as a segregated sport for almost a hundred years.

Want to see a current-day for-instance?

We can look to the Tennessee legislature to see The Man in action. Less than two weeks ago, the white Republican legislative majority was so offended that people protested lack of restraints on purchase and ownership of assault weapons that they expelled two Black legislators who participated in a protest on the floor of the House.

The two offending legislators had joined a group of young people making their voices heard after a gunman used a high powered rifle to kill six children and teachers at a Nashville elementary school.

Less than a week after they were expelled, county commissioners in Nashville and Memphis reinstated both legislators. Now that’s sticking it to The Man.

I took great pleasure in seeing their reinstatement.

Yet another example of sticking it to The Man, which in this case was an institution: Billy Beane and the Oakland A’s embraced a system of statistical analysis that turned the way of judging talent by Major League Baseball upside down.

Read the book Moneyball to see how it all went down, or watch the movie starring Brad Pitt.

Sticking it to The Man has been a common theme in movies across the years. Perhaps my favorite is the movie Office Space, which follows a group of young office workers stuck in mind-numbing jobs with an over-the-top intrusive manager and a balky printer.

They stick it to The Man in several ways, but my favorite is a scene where they load the hated printer into the trunk of a car, drive it to a remote location and take out their anger on it with a baseball bat — in slow motion.

Watch the scene here.

My attempts to stick it to The Man are more low key. For instance, I once worked in an office where we were forbidden to download any unapproved software, including my browser of choice, Google Chrome. The IT department told us it ‘did not support’ Chrome, so we were stuck with Microsoft Explorer.

Then a coworker discovered that we could download Chrome without it being blocked by the IT lockdown. I downloaded it and used it for years of software bliss and satisfaction in knowing I was sticking it to The Man in a small way.

OK, I know that’s not a society changing act like leading a group of students to a lunch-counter sit-in. My place in history is on a much, much smaller scale.

But I’ve used the power of the vote to support causes like the expansion of Medicaid in Oklahoma and medical marijuana, both of which had heavy opposition from those in power.

When both of those questions passed, I celebrated to myself, knowing that I had a small part in sticking it to The Man.

OfficeSp2

It’s the most wonderful time of the year

FDU — Fairleigh Dickinson became the second 16 seed in NCAA Tournament history to upend a No. 1 when it beat Purdue on Friday.

As I watched the NCAA Tournament and the stunning upsets of college basketball powers this past weekend, all sorts of emotions bubbled up within me.

The first four days of the tournament brought joy, hope and excitement in the anticipation of what comes next.

Joy, because my favorite college team — Arkansas — brought down the bluest of bluebloods in No. 1 seed Kansas on Saturday and advanced into the Sweet 16.

Hope, because the tournament provides just that for all the have-nots of the college basketball world. Fairleigh Dickinson’s takedown of Big 10 power and No. 1 seed Purdue showed how much reality there is in that hope. It is real.

Anticipation, because there’s even more drama to play out in real time over the next two weeks.

And then there was something we all needed. Diversion.

OK, it’s not an emotion, but diversion is important because there’s a lot of disturbing events like war, economic upheaval and political turmoil that greet us daily. The NCAA Tournament provides much a needed respite.

So, that brings me to the point of this blog post. Hello, Spring!

The NCAA Tournament — and all of sports — make this the most wonderful time of the year.

For instance, when the NCAA Tournament crowns a champion the first week in April, Major League Baseball will be celebrating Opening Day in parks around the country.

And the OKC Dodgers open their season on March 31. The NBA playoffs begin in mid-April — hopefully with the OKC Thunder as a play-in qualifier. The Masters. The NFL Draft. The Kentucky Derby on the first Saturday of May. There is the women’s NCAA Tournament along with college softball and baseball. And hockey playoffs, as well.

It’s been a long, cold lonely winter for many people, so the sports calendar tells us “here comes the sun” in both a literal and figurative sense.

Sort of like the renewal of life that Spring itself brings, we find joy and hope, anticipation and welcome diversion in the Spring sports calendar.

Thanks to the NCAA Tournament for kicking it all off with an incredible level of excitement.

I’ll celebrate it just like this every Spring.

Hogs — Arkansas coach Eric Musselman goes shirtless in celebration of victory over Kansas.

Gaylord Perry and a Texas Rangers first impression

Editor’s note: Major League Baseball and its fans lost Hall of Fame pitcher Gaylord Perry on Thursday, Dec. 1. Perry pitched in the first Texas Rangers game I ever witnessed in Arlington, so I wrote this post to commemorate that event and what I remembered from seeing the Hall of Famer pitch in the game.

Let me tell you the story of my introduction to the Texas Rangers.

In the spring of 1976, I moved to Abilene, Texas, to go to college at Abilene Christian University. I was transferring my credits from a community college and started at ACU in the second summer semester while working at a small retail store in Abilene..

Anyway, I drove back to Fort Smith to visit my folks the week of Independence Day, and then drove back to Abilene on Monday, July 5.

I had grown up a St. Louis Cardinals fan, but became acquainted with the Rangers through their radio broadcasts after moving to Abilene.

So, as I was driving down from Fort Smith that Monday, I tuned the radio to WBAP 820, the Rangers flagship station. I learned they would be playing a home game that evening.

Perfect timing.

I detoured into Arlington and got to the ballpark about an hour before game time. I had read about how sparsely attended Rangers games were at that time, so I was surprised to find the parking lots surrounding Arlington Stadium almost completely full.

I parked and walked to a ticket window, where I was told that the only tickets remaining for sale were general admission in the outfield. It was a July 4 sellout.

Good enough for me.

I bought a ticket and found a spot deep in left field bleachers next to a man and his son, who was approximately 6 years old. The guy had a transistor radio with him that was shaped like Mickey Mouse and had the volume and tuning dials in the ears.

perry line The Mickey Mouse radio was tuned to WBAP, so we had radio play-by-play throughout the game while sitting in the stands. I guess that’s how we rolled in 1976.

Don’t remember much about the game except for the fact that the Rangers won and I got to see all-time great Gaylord Perry pitch for Texas (I was saddened to learn on Monday that Perry had passed away.)

The Hall of Famer and spitball legend started that 1976 game, although I wasn’t certain until I looked up the boxscore.

My real adventure started after the game as I left the stadium. I did not know my way around Arlington and had no map to consult. So, as I left the ballpark I found myself on Randall Mill Road, which I thought would take me back to I-30 and then west to Abilene.

Instead, Randall Mill Road seemed to go on forever with no sign of the Interstate. Finally, after seemed what was about an hour on the road to nowhere, I pulled into a 7-11 to ask for directions.

“How do I get to I-30,” I asked the clerk behind the counter.

He pointed to the west. “It’s right there.”

Sure enough, I had come within a few yards of the Interstate without realizing it, although I was actually now in Fort Worth.

So, about 11:30 pm on Monday, July 5, 1976, I pulled onto I-30 West and headed for Abilene and the rest of my life.

But I drove into Abilene now a Texas Rangers fan and a memory of watching Gaylord Perry pitch in a Major League game.

I remain a Rangers fan to this day. RIP Gaylord.

An OKC Field of Dreams and ghosts of baseball past

Moneyball is one of my favorite movies. It shows the impact that using computer statistics to drive player development had on Major League baseball and the Oakland Athletics in the early 2000s.

The movie features a host of memorable scenes, including one where Oakland outfielder David Justice asks new first baseman Scott Hatteberg what he feared most at the position.

Hatteberg had been a catcher all of his professional career, and to that point had never played even an inning at first base.

“A baseball hit in my general direction,” was Hatteberg’s honest reply to Justice’s question.

That’s exactly how I felt Sunday afternoon as I stood in right field at the Northeast High School baseball field.

I was there at the invitation of my friend, Russ Florence, who invited a group of fellow adults to “have a catch” with him. A lifelong baseball fan, Russ began his informal monthly “catch” several months ago.

It was sort of a Field of Dreams-come-to-real-life opportunity for those of us who once played the game or have followed it all of our lives.

The baseball dreamers who came out Sunday included several guys my age or older, a few younger and a couple of women who showed more agility than most of their male counterparts.

I dug my old baseball glove out of the closet and joined about a dozen others at the Northeast field.

Unfortunately, the experience revealed exactly how the passage of time has robbed me of athletic ability, real or imagined.

Once upon a time, I thought of myself as a pretty good baseball player. Now that was in Little League in College Station, Texas, followed by Pony League as a 13- and 14-year-old.

Here’s how it went five decades later on a warm November afternoon beneath a bright blue sky.

First, we warmed up by playing catch with a partner about 40 feet away. I put most of my throws into the ground in front of him or several feet to his left.

My shoulder ached after about 15 minutes. My glove hand screamed with pain from catching baseballs in the heart of the mitt.

Then came the real embarrassment. I stood in right field as Russ hit flies and grounders to players stationed at infield and outfield positions.

He hit one in my general direction.

My feet felt like they were in quicksand as I “ran” toward it. I could not bend over far enough to even make a stabbing attempt at a catch.

I hung my head in shame. No one seemed to notice.

Russ hit about three other balls in my direction. I managed to catch one on the bounce barehanded, but caught none before they hit the ground. I decided if a ball wasn’t hit within three feet of where I was standing, I had no chance.

But the day wasn’t a total loss. I had the opportunity to visit with some old — and new — friends. The weather was pleasant watching from the dugout, where I spent much of my time.

“It really scratches an itch for a lot of people,” Russ told me afterward. “None of us is as good as as we once were — or as good as we THINK we once were. I’m glad you were there.”

Thank you, Russ, for inviting this ‘ghost’ of a former player to experience your OKC version of the Field of Dreams.

Even if it brought home a sobering reality of aging.

In softball, there is always joy in Mudville

OU Women — OU softball players lead fans in a cheer during a break in the action at the Women’s College World Series

As I was watching the Women’s College World Series game between OU and James Madison the other night, I was fascinated by how much enthusiasm and joy the players bring to the game.

They cheer and chant in unison in the dugout, they celebrate big hits, runs and good fielding plays. The OU players even came out of the dugout a couple times to lead fans in a cheer.

I fired off a text to a friend who was also watching the game on ESPN. “Softball needs some unwritten rules that suck all the joy out of the game just like baseball,” the text said.

I was kidding.

But it made me realize how much of a contrast there is between baseball and women’s softball. In baseball, it’s all about “respecting the game” or “respecting the opponent.”

No emotion allowed.

Translated, that means you never, ever act like you are enjoying the moment after a home run, a strikeout or a big fielding play.

OU HR — OU player celebrates a home run as she rounds the bases

Baseball has been losing fans by the millions in recent years, and I’m convinced that the ridiculous unwritten rules have played a role in that. Today’s fans — especially young fans — want to see games played with enthusiasm and emotion.

If you’re curious as to what the unwritten rules are that baseball lives by, here’s a pretty good description I found on the major league baseball website.

There is evidence of late that some of the unwritten rules are being rewritten. I’m talking about the way that big hitters like Fernando Tatis Jr. flip their bats and pause to watch their home runs go out of the park before celebrating as they round the bases.

So far, it appears that no one has retaliated by hitting Tatis in the head with a 98-hour bean ball. So far.

But baseball always wants to draw a line in the sand, and there seems to be a hard line drawn at emotion.

By contrast, the women’s game is such a breath of fresh air. I’m taking joy in their joy.

Their game is a celebration, and I’m celebrating along with them.

Catching static: Memories of listening to baseball on AM radio

I was driving in eastern Oklahoma way back in the early 1990s when my wife had enough. “Turn off that static!” she demanded.

At the time, I was listening intently to a Texas Rangers baseball game on the AM radio broadcast of Fort Worth, Texas, station WBAP.

To be honest, I had not even noticed the static.

That was life in the olden days, when baseball fans like me would tune into distant AM radio stations like WBAP and KMOX in St. Louis to follow our favorite teams.

As a teenager, I lived on KMOX and the soothing voice of Jack Buck calling the Cardinals games. Later on, it was Mark Holtz and Eric Nadel with the Rangers.

Bonus: Read this terrific New York Times article on the power of KMOX as a reporter tries to outdrive the station’s coverage during a Cardinals’ game broadcast.

After dark, the distant signal from my favorite AM stations boomed across the AM receiver located either in my bedroom or my car.

But static was a price you paid to listen to distant AM radio broadcasts. In the spring and summer, static was almost always present because of thunderstorms somewhere between you and the radio tower.

So, you learned to pick out the play-by-play from the static. I sort of trained myself to tune out the static, which is why I faced the wrath of my wife.

It wasn’t only the distant sports stations that I tuned into as a teenager. WLS in Chicago was my go-to station to listen to the latest Top 40 hits.

Recently, someone posted a map on LinkedIn that showed the vast coverage of Oklahoma City’s KOMA. Unfortunately, I lived in the wrong part of the country as a kid to become a KOMA fan.

Anyway, the days of straining to hear baseball play-by-play or Top 40 music through a static-riddled broadcast are mostly in the past. I subscribe to MLB.com’s audio broadcasts now, which bring in the Rangers, Cardinals or any Major League team static free and crystal clear.

With bluetooth, I stream the broadcast to the car’s sound system and never miss a pitch.

And I no longer endure the wrath of someone who doesn’t understand the pleasure of ignoring the static to enjoy the game.

Baseball deaths and the passage of time

Colt Stadium in Houston was the locale for my first Major League baseball experience

The death of baseball Hall of Famer Joe Morgan this week took me back to the early 1960s and a rickety old stadium in Houston where I saw my first Major League Baseball game. I was there with my Little League team from Bryan/College Station.

We all wore our uniforms, as did about 5,000 other Little Leaguers that day. The outfield stands were a splash of rainbow colors from so many uniformed youngsters sitting together.

While I don’t remember anything about that game from 1963, I do remember that Joe Morgan was a member of the Houston Colt 45s, who were playing the St. Louis Cardinals. Jimmy Wynn, known as the Toy Cannon, also was a member of that team.

Bonus memory: We could see the Astrodome under construction right next door to Colt Stadium, so the baseball future held a lot of promise for a 10-year-old.

Of course, Morgan eventually was traded from Houston and built his Hall of Fame career as a key player with the 1970s Big Red Machine in Cincinnati. The Houston Chronicle published a story this week about how he was the one that got away. Read it here.

That 1963 Houston Colt 45s experience pretty much ensured I would be a lifelong baseball fan.

Like most kids of the time, I collected baseball cards and memorized the starting lineups of the teams. I even made up my own stats-based game that mimicked the APBA baseball board game but used a spinner instead of dice.

Fast forward more than half a century to the awful year of 2020. Morgan and Wynn both died this year. They are among a host of former Major League players who passed away in 2020, a list that includes all-time greats like Bob Gibson, Lou Brock, Tom Seaver, Al Kaline and Whitey Ford.

Baseball Reference publishes a running list of every former player who died this year. You can see the list here.

The deaths of Seaver, Ford, Brock, Gibson and Morgan came in rapid succession. It hurt. As a child of the ‘60s, it’s painful to watch my heroes pass into history.

Each death hammers home the passage of time, but I’m hanging on to the distant memories. It’s all we have left in the end.