Baseball is a great game!!! There is nothing like being at the ballpark on a summer night or day during the season…
I remember my first live professional game… My dad and a friend of mines dad (Sam Gibbs Dad Johnny) took Sam and I on a charter bus when we were about ten years old to St Louis… That was the first of many games and many charter bus trips and each of those trips has a good story behind it…. As I remember it was the middle of summer and St Louis was playing the Pirates… We showed up to board the bus early in the morning in Evansville at Colonial Bread where Johnny worked… I remember the bus had three essential items, potato chips, beer and a custom built dice table that fit perfectly over the back four pairs of seats in the bus (I believe they had done this before)…
Sam and I made a mint that day running beers from the front to the back of the bus while the men shot dice, drank and smoked… I really do not remember allot about the game… I do remember we had good seats and when a Cardinal Player hit a home run how the scoreboard went nuts… This would be my first of many trips to what is now known as Old Busch Stadium…
If I cannot be at the stadium then my preference is to listen to games on the radio… I grew up listening to St Louis games and Evansville Triplett games on my old transistor radio… The play-by-play voice for the Triplets, Jim Celenia, even used to do a live broadcast recreation of the Triplett away games (now a lost art)… With the Cards you had the legendary Jack Buck and before Jack, Harry Carey…
In the Navy I really learned to appreciate the radio call of a baseball game even more... On Armed Forces radio broadcast we used to get allot of Dodger Games with Vin Scully (Vin would do the games by himself most of the time) and Brent Musburger doing games for CBS Radio… Brent did an excellent job on baseball … After my discharge from the Navy I moved back to my hometown of Henderson where part of my regular summer routine was to listen to the Cardinal games on the radio… To me Baseball Radio Announcers have the ability to paint a great picture of the game and no matter what the score always seem to make the games interesting… TV to me slows the game down and that is why allot of people do not like to watch baseball!!!
With Satellite Radio and the Internet a person can now listen to any baseball game for any team… I have not taken the plunge yet on Satellite Radio so when I am in my car now I listen to Reds games with Marty Brennamen or Louisville Bats games with Jim Couch… Brennamen and Couch both do a nice job calling the games…
For me baseball is truly a radio game and radio is part of the history and tradition of the game…
Masters
The course changes certainly got allot of press before the tournament started… I agree that the changes at Augusta are really taking allot of people out of contention before the tournament tees off… To me they were necessary because of the new talent coming onto the tour as well as the improvement to equipment and balls…
The breakthroughs in technology for both clubs and balls are changing Golf to a power game… My game is a prime example of what technology can do… I have worked hard for the last twelve years with allot of hours at the range and that accounts for 60% of my improvement… I believe the other 40% can be attributed to clubs and balls…
What can you say about two drivers Phil??? His play was stellar!!! He stayed away from trouble, got a few lucky bounces (when he hit the stake on 10) and was fortunate that Freddie could not make a putt and that Tim Clark played the last six holes of the third round five over par… If Clark shoots even during the stretch then he very well could have run away with the tournament… What was short hitting Tim Clark doing up at the top anyway???
Tiger could not make the putts when he needed them… He had really solid eagle opportunities on 13 and 15 and he missed a couple of others on the front that made a big difference… Tiger hit another great shot on 16 almost throwing in an ace… Ernie, Vijay and host of others faded away down the stretch… I really thought the tournament was headed for one of the greatest back nine shootouts in Master’s history but it was really anticlimactic in the end…
Freddie’s ball striking on Sunday was fantastic!!! Most golfers will tell you though that solid ball striking does not always lead to great scoring no matter what level you are with you game… The best score I ever posted was not about ball striking but putting… I shot a 71, hit the ball OK but only had 24 putts... I recently had a great ball striking round in Florida where I hit 12 fairways and 14 greens but could not get the ball in the hole… You could really see it in Freddie’s face on #18 that he knew that was probably his last shot to win their again…
If there is one Fraternity I would like to be a member of it for sure would be Master Champion… What an exclusive group with privileges second to none… Do you think Greg Norman just cringes when he thinks about this??? I bet he spends Masters Week on his boat in the middle of the water with a fishing pole in one hand and drink in the other… If there was ever a guy who should have a green jacket it is Greg!!!
What is in the CD Player this Week?
Gorrilaz – Demon Days
If you have an open mind about music then go buy this one… I can’t get enough…
Gorrilaz – Demon Days
If you have an open mind about music then go buy this one… I can’t get enough…
