Ralph Terry overcame Mazeroski HR to shine

I remember Ralph Terry on baseball cards with an especially impressive smile. You couldn't help but like the guy. By contrast, his teammate Bobby Richardson seemed to almost deliberately look glum - resolved? - on cards, even though this guy had a fundamentally agreeable persona.
I don't recall anyone playing Terry in the definitive movie about the early '60s Yankees: "61*". The reference is not to the year 1961 but to the Roger Maris home run total. (And the asterisk is intended.)
Anthony Michael Hall plays pitcher Whitey Ford in a high-profile role. That's deserved because Ford was a defining player. Ralph Terry by contrast was one of those pitchers who had a too-limited prime. Pitching is an unusual sports task in how it demands so much from one appendage. Many pitchers in a bygone time would rise and fall pretty quickly because of the demands. As players became more expensive to compensate, baseball came up with the "pitch count" to protect its investments more. We could not have foreseen a time when a pitcher would get pulled from a game, say in the seventh inning, with a no-hitter going!
Terry had an impressive prime with the Yankees but it seemed rather meteoric. It's not as if he disappeared abruptly from the bigs, it's just that after 1962 he descended to a more "common" level. (Non-stars are called "commons" in baseball card lingo.)
We kept seeing Terry's smiling countenance on baseball cards, including cards where he wasn't wearing a cap which meant he had been traded. Reading the backs of those cards would remind us of his heyday with the Yanks' distinctive salad days of the early '60s. It was a time when my generation of boomer-age boys got captivated by the Bronx crew. Billy Crystal was watching as a boy. His first time in Yankee Stadium was in 1956.
We have Crystal to thank for "61*" in which he appeared to go above and beyond the call of duty to make a really good movie.
Terry's first really impressive season was 1961. Prior to that he did make a mark with some infamy though. No retrospective on his life would be complete, alas, without mention of the Bill Mazeroski home run he gave up at the end of the 1960 World Series. Fortunately Terry didn't end up like Ralph Branca whose name is permanently associated with infamy. It was Branca who gave up the Bobby Thomson home run in 1951. If anything has overshadowed Branca's personal infamy, it's the revelations that came out about the sign-stealing by the New York Giants in the pennant drive. Forget about the "good old days," eh?
 
Sticking to his goal
Ralph Terry had a resume of working his way up before 1961. It all started in '56 when he pitched 13 innings and fashioned one win with the Bronx crew. He was 20 years old. The native of Big Cabin OK split time in 1957 with the Yankees and the Kansas City Athletics, the latter often seen at the time as the Yanks' "farm club." But K.C. was a card-carrying American League team. Let's say certain "relationships" existed. Maris spent time there.
Today the K.C. Royals are no one's caddy!
They say that professional athletes have "no fear of failure." Terry might have gotten discouraged as he went 1-1 with the Yankees and 4-11 with Kansas City. But his ERA was an encouraging 3.33. He slipped to 4.24 in '58, still with the Athletics, and his W/L was a lukewarm 11-13.
Little encouragement was offered in '59, based on the numbers, as he carved out less than luminous stats with both the Athletics and Yankees: 2-4 with the Athletics (not the "A's" then), 3-7 with the Bombers. But Casey Stengel and the Yankees saw qualities they liked in the smiling young man. So in '60 he pulled on the pinstripes for the whole summer and held his own with a 10-8 record, 3.40 ERA.

Casey liked the guy enough to cast his lot with him in the '60 Fall Classic. Terry ended up with two decisions against the Pittsburgh Pirates. Alas he lost both, the second due to the dramatic late blast by Mazeroski. Stengel probably lost his skipper job due to the outcome. He would re-surface in a curious new role: as ambassador or entertainer with the '62 expansion team that everyone knew would be futile. Ah, "let's go Mets!"
Boomers like me have an image of Casey etched with the '62 Mets team and the powder blue. We had to be reminded that Casey had a long background prior to that of quite legitimate success.
Bruce McGill as Ralph Houk in "61*" says to Mickey Mantle in a private meeting: "I know Casey could be hard on you, but I'm the manager now." So Casey could be a quite serious man and baseball professional. He just came off like rather a clown in New York's new baseball incarnation in 1962. The Mets played at the Polo Grounds, former home of the Giants who had gone west.

Like water off duck's back?
Ah, "no fear of failure." The Mazeroski home run had to hurt Ralph Terry's psyche a little. But never mind, bring on 1961! Maris was poised to hit his 61 home runs. Mantle was in his prime and battled Maris in the homer race, was in fact the sentimental favorite. Whitey Ford was smooth. These were the Yankees that endeared themselves to boomer-age fans who collected baseball cards in mountains. Post-WWII prosperity had been good to us. Our numbers were massive.
I was six years old in '61, too young to pay much attention, but in the next few years I really came to appreciate. I caught up on my background from baseball cards and sports magazines. Ralph Terry had a phenomenal winning pct. in '61, as his W/L numbers were 16-3. His ERA: 3.15. He was not scintillating in the World Series but the Yanks won it, over Cincinnati.

Finally in 1962, Terry stepped up to his peak season, incredibly memorable. He was 23-12 with a 3.19 ERA as he hurled for nearly 300 innings. He was handed the ball for starting duties 39 times. And in this year he was scintillating in the World Series too. To the extent that he won MVP honors, this despite the fact he lost a game. But he won two including the deciding Game 7.
Maris made a throw from the outfield in Game 7 that may have been essential to the Yankees winning. Fans can overlook such things.
The final play of the Series has distinction in baseball annals: the Giants' Willie McCovey, a towering presence at the plate, ripped a searing liner, nabbed by second baseman Richardson. Terry was mobbed and his place in baseball history reinforced. No, not a Hall of Famer. His prime was too brief, a fate that befell many players especially pitchers whose arms were so delicate.
Terry remained busy on the mound in '63 but descended to .500. His ERA was a still-sterling 3.22, so it's hard to know why he lost 15 games. After '63 he became more pedestrian. Wearing the Indians' uniform in '65, he had a respectable 11-6 mark. Otherwise he became rather like a "common," to use the baseball card talk. I'd get the new Ralph Terry card, be impressed by his smile, and be reminded on the back about his past heyday. He belongs in the pantheon of fine players of the early '60s Yankees, a guaranteed-not-to-tarnish member.
Whitey Ford was "the chairman of the board" but Terry was in the boardroom too. I would have liked to hear his name in Crystal's movie.
Terry made Big Cabin, Oklahoma, proud with his 107-99 career big league record over 12 years. His career ERA was 3.62 and he struck out the exact total of 1000 batters! How about that? He had no decisions in the '63 and '64 World Series. How many retired players can say they played in five World Series? It doesn't get any better than that, and to be an MVP to boot.
Sigh, he's no Hall of Fame candidate. I have long thought the Hall overvalues longevity. I'm biased because I'm an old fan of Tony Oliva, not in the Hall. Ditto with Rocky Colavito.
Terry has been happy to return to the Big Apple for Old Timers games. I don't remember his name being in Jim Bouton's famous book "Ball Four," do you? A player might be relieved not to be in there. I guess either Bouton liked him or he had a dull personality (LOL). Seriously, there's a good question: why were certain players conspicuously absent from Bouton's book or barely mentioned? A sports scribe should look into it.

Sports life after baseball!
You might suggest that Terry's big league prime could have lasted longer. Agreed. But his athletic fortunes went well beyond baseball. Terry became a very successful pro golfer! No more worry about "throwing out your arm." He won the 1980 Midwest PGA championship. He qualified for and played in four PGA Tournament events in '81 and '82. In '86 he started playing on the Senior PGA Tour.
He has a bio published: "Right Down the Middle."
Congratulations to Ralph Terry, maybe not in the Billy Crystal movie but still close to our hearts, us boomers! His smile makes me feel younger. Let's remember that his peak year of 1962 coincided with the panic of the Cuban missile crisis. Trying times, yes. . . But we always need a release.
"No fear of failure," yes - he lived up to the pro athletes' credo, so that even after giving up the Mazeroski homer in '60, the best was yet to come in his career. No Ralph Branca!
 
Addendum: The Maris outfield throw in Game 7 of the '62 Series was significant. Here's how all that developed: Matty Alou bunted for a single for the Giants. It was the bottom of the ninth. Then Terry bore down to strike out Felipe Alou and Chuck Hiller. And this brings to the plate none other than Willie Mays. Mays was not to be denied: the "Say Hey Kid" doubled to right where Maris was positioned. Maris' strong and precise throw held the fleet-of-foot Alou at third. Here comes McCovey. And the gentleman on deck: Orlando Cepeda!
Side note: Both Alou and Cepeda played for the St. Cloud MN "Rox" on their way to the majors. McCovey made solid contact for sure. His line drive was snagged by Bobby Richardson, the guy who I noted looked almost sullen on baseball cards. He's really a terrific guy about whom I have had the privilege to write. Just like for Ralph Terry. Golden memories for a 65-year-old like me. What a godsend that it's all on YouTube.
 
- Brian Williams - morris mn minnesota - bwilly73@yahoo.com

Now Trump applies heavy hand with religion

What does God think of Trump?

Religion has hardly defined my life, so why am I taking pen in hand again to address it? The president just a couple hours ago got his base all revved up again, saying church is "essential." By extension, wouldn't he want to deem school essential also? Church more essential than school? Well, schools require a heckuva large expenditure of tax dollars, something that Republicans view as anathema.
Critics of the president continually react with exasperation and it seems fruitless. Maybe a virus has been going around entering the brains of conservatives and Republicans. If we're comparing schools and churches on the practicality scale for re-opening, shouldn't we consider that older people are far more vulnerable than kids? Even this assumption is not rock solid as we see this headline on Drudge: "Cases of kids hospitalized with inflammatory syndrome growing fast."
Politicians cannot restore normal order in American life by fiat or proclamation. We'll discover the Trump base is a smaller minority than we think, as we observe people's actions. Defying the so-called "Trump haters" is one thing, self-preservation is another. A decree will not erase the bad things that are happening, because people have instincts. They'll applaud some of the Trump rhetoric, then they'll make sure they personally do things to ensure health and safety.
As long as we're discussing the average brainpan of these people, let's try to assess what religion really is. Most any pastor will tell you it's not the building. People remain totally free to develop their own spiritual thoughts and commitments. The "done with church" movement reminds us that our legacy (long-time) religious customs come from a time when the local pastor might be the best-educated person in the community. We needed inspiration and education from an in-person leader who held forth Sunday morning. Not so true today. Today the Internet is an asset that provides succor for anyone seeking personal religious answers.
 
What niche for church?
People in common labor jobs - they sucked, right? - probably liked church as a relief valve. Those jobs have faded. None of this is to say that church isn't still nice. I have judged church to be like a weekly "home base." It's a weekly reminder of our better side, our better traits. It's a weekly opportunity away from one's normal regimen, to assess where you're at in life.
The fellowship? I have mixed thoughts on that. Church can reinforce "cliques" in any community. Because of my wariness about that, I have long suggested that my church of First Lutheran be totally in league with Faith Lutheran, the other ELCA church. One Sunday morning when some people at coffee hour were casting about for possible new faces on the council - ahem, yours truly mentioned - I said my top agenda item would be to promote a feeling of oneness between First and Faith. We need to reinforce each other in this time when politics has reared its head in such an ugly way in Christianity. The Trump-ites are loud.
I'd argue that my church is an oasis away from that. Our critics would say we're part of the problem in that we embrace "liberal" ideas. Eat your heart out, man. Keep cheering for those Trump rallies on TV. Nothing we can do to stop you. We can try to mobilize and get new political leadership in America, for example a new younger generation of female leaders. We can hope for this - and I'll suggest pray - but there's hardly any guarantee. Trump is going to use every fiber of his being, complemented by the power of Bill Barr, to get an edge as election-time nears. Suppress mail-in balloting. Oh, and the big new Howitzer: threaten the withholding of Federal funds to states who irritate him in some way.
Trump makes statements that are prima facie ignorant. I as a mere online writer would blush doing this - and no matter, all the throngs of people with virus-infected brains (allegedly) cheer like heck. "Make America great again." Where did all these people come from? And now they hear their leader say church is "essential" and he'll wield his power like a hammer regarding it? Shouldn't we be scared of so much power consolidated in Washington D.C.? Isn't this a slippery slope to dictatorial rule? Will the Trump rallies someday be viewed through a lens just like the Nuremberg rallies?
Of course, if Trump and his following win the cultural battles, they'll be able to define what is "good." I personally just make assumptions about what is good. Then again, I don't have the brain virus.
Having a spiritual side and spiritual commitment might be judged "essential." Might be. But the building, the paid church staff and the formal services? Oh heck no. We read that the actual virus is invading Trump country. It's in Monument Valley, "symbol of the American West." I researched about Monument Valley after seeing the movie "The Last Wagon" with Richard Widmark. I wrote about it.
 
Skip the food on a stick
Drudge tells us that our Minnesota State Fair is canceled. Lordy! I'm embarrassed to say I haven't been there since about 1980, so long ago I remember seeing Rodney Dangerfield at the grandstand. He was in his big run after the movie "Caddyshack." I remember he got irritated with the crowd. The crowd became rambunctious and silly - lots of my generation there.
I have heard that the fairgrounds crowd has gotten so thick, people are literally shoulder to shoulder.
I suppose Trump fans are going to be upset hearing the news about the State Fair. Will they really go to church again starting this Sunday, as Trump has directed everyone to do? Obviously church is a gathering place for older people - bless them. Hey, I'm 65. I'd love to go again. But haven't you heard: even if you don't die from the virus, it's no picnic to endure. It can do lots of weird things to you. You shouldn't want any of your loved ones to take the slightest risk, n'est-ce pas?
But Trump assumes his bully pulpit and says he'll take action against states that try to limit in-person church. So again I'm writing about religion, would prefer not to really. Someone needs to issue a clarion call. But I wouldn't serve on a church council. My old friend the late Glen Helberg said "Brian, if you ever serve on a church council, you'll find that it's all about money."
- Brian Williams - morris mn minnesota - bwilly73@yahoo.com

Not unreasonable to be reminded of past evil

Jim Carrey's artwork re. Trump rallies

I don't expect my local Republican acquaintances, with whom I do not wish to break bonds, to care at all about this I.G. dismissal thing (inspector general). Has Mike Pompeo issued an apology for his misconduct? I'm willing to concede that it's not even a firing offense.
My GOP acquaintances search in such a predictable way to rationalize, as they bristle at even the mention of possible wayward actions by the Trump administration. They go to churches where they stand shoulder-to-shoulder with people who feel they're in league with Trump no matter what. They diminish any dissenters in simplistic and personal terms. And it goes on and on and on.
The danger is if our overall population just decides to shrug, or worse yet to start to be amused. Our news media has never had it so good for getting eyeballs. Newspapers may still be on the ropes. But the electronic media which is so totally unfettered is swimming with histrionics about what is going on politically. Can you imagine how the likes of Trump would have been treated and processed by the old "gatekeeper media" which had a basic sense of propriety? Of restraint? Of reason?
My Republican friends would scoff at me sharing such thoughts - they'd laugh and point fingers. We ought to care because we should realize where all this might be heading. We can pray this doesn't happen. Oh, I don't really pray because I doubt anyone is listening. And if the so-called Christian faith in America has become little more than a blowhorn for Trump and his vain stooges/cronies, I'll have no choice but to withdraw from Christianity. I'm almost there now. This is not the kind of Christianity that guided my late mother's life.
If our current circumstances lead to a breakdown of American life - dystopia - could we see the collapse of Christianity, a relegation to the scrap heap of history? Well, don't ever say I didn't share a heads-up.
 
Looking past caricature/generalization
I am prompted to write this by some old video footage from the 1930s. Sometimes when we see Nazi officials in more casual situations, away from the impassioned and seemingly crazed speeches, they can come off as somewhat normal. Initially I wrote "normal and reasonable" and then felt inhibited. I plead with you on this: despite the obvious evil represented by the Nazis, we must remember that many of those people at least started out on a more reasonable plane, motivated by the standard things in politics. I saw video of one of those notorious people calmly talking about the standard or garden variety aims in politics.
I guess my point is this: people are complicated. It may be at our peril to simply dismiss the Nazis as unadulterated evil and leave it at that. It helps us forget about them? Furthermore, I'll stress that many of these people just got corruptible the longer they were in power. Power as an elixir, a drug.
One can suggest that power can bring out the best in people and also the worst.
There is a slow process of cronies getting leverage under Trump now, e.g. with the Postal Service. With the Nazis the outcome became horrendous and unspeakable. But were the most evil elements the wellspring for these people all along? The Nazis developed over a long time. The U.S. had Jesse Owens and other athletes in the "Nazi Olympics." Didn't Walt Disney have a little animated piece called "The Third Reich is All Right with Me?"
The Nazis wanted to prop up Germany after World War I. They pledged stability and prosperity, generic goals for politicians. But then the power elixir built up. The darkest side of these people found avenues for realizing their aims. We see in America now this man named Donald Trump wielding power like a hammer, in a manner he might not have realized when first elected. It appears he was stunned when first elected, as if he wasn't even expecting it. Didn't Melania cry in reaction? Legend has it.
Trump found that his personality sold in the reality TV universe - entertainment. As president he would have to don a whole new mantle. He could have done this in a benevolent way. Some prominent conservatives stated prior to the election that Trump would mature into the presidency and show an air that was different from his campaign rallies. Fine, he could be a conservative like George W. Bush.
We know how things turned out. Trump is steadily eroding the separation of powers in government, acting in ways where the word "tyrant" should not be out of the equation. So the feds are now acquiring "riot gear" in anticipation of possible disorder? Will we eventually see "re-education camps" for people not wanting to get on the Trump bandwagon? Each week - hell, each day - we see more revelations about the basic danger in the Trump presidency, in his abject foolishness and ignorance. Family separations at the border should have been a firebell.
Again, he has so many otherwise intelligent people eating out of his hands - no ability to objectively weigh what's going on. The pandemic is having the effect of accentuating all of Trump's worst traits, when he could have surprised us. He never surprises us on the up side. Instead we tune into the media and hear nonstop revelations from the "fake news" - it isn't, really - about the new disgusting stuff. Republicans sit on their hands, equivocate like mad.
It has been said that "Godwin's Rule" gets violated all the time. It's the rule about how we should never compare anything that happens in the present to the Nazis. The Nazis were unique. The problem is that the Nazis at least started out life normal. God knows what happened to them, to infect them, but it's unreasonable to suggest this was a one-time phenomenon in world history, thus it should just be conveniently left in a dumpster and ignored.
No, the worst traits of people never go away. Vigilance is always needed. I'll commit the same sin as many people and violate Godwin's Law by reference to the Nazis.
A close and wise friend advised me that "there are people around Trump who are keeping an eye on him." In other words, preventing total catastrophe? Preventing a descent into Germany of the mid-20th Century? So it's just an assumption we make? "Don't worry."
We can be excused for worrying now. No, I cannot predict the future. But as we see the Republican Party degenerating into total sheep, like Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, we wonder where the stability is going to come from. If this whole situation crashes and burns, could it wipe out the Christian faith? If it does, I do not know where I will turn.
 
Addendum: The video I refer to is from Mark Felton Productions, where we see old Nazi footage in ways that present the people as nuanced, not just the caricatures that make it so easy to condemn in a single stroke. We dismiss it at our peril. Human beings have enduring traits. We are corruptible.
 
- Brian Williams - morris mn minnesota - bwilly73@yahoo.com

Elston Howard did not act like radical, but so what?

Elston Howard is portrayed in the movie "61*" about the Yankees' campaign of 1961. The movie title is not a reference to the year, but to the number of home runs hit by Roger Maris. If you're not familiar, the asterisk in the title is not a typo. The asterisk, back when the events were current, was a hint that Maris' homer total was tainted as a record.
Horrors! But true fans knew the truth all along. Maris was "our guy" appealing to our generation, and Billy Crystal made a labor of love movie about it. It would be mean to diminish Babe Ruth of course. But fickle and irrational are the judgments often pronounced by sports fans.
If you think "life isn't fair," then maybe you should step into a time machine and experience pro baseball in the pre-Andy Messersmith case days. Or an even better example, to be a player of color in the Neanderthal bygone times. Hard to believe the U.S. ever crossed that turf.
Imagine stepping in a time machine and experiencing those prejudices again. The great documentary of the VHS tape days, "When It Was a Game," had a narrator dramatically confessing about the lack of race enlightenment in his young days. He lamented with obvious pain how he "didn't notice, didn't complain" at the time of segregated ball. He said the race separation was applied at all levels of big league ball, well into the non-player tiers.
If man can be so blind and ignorant, it's a firebell about how we need to be vigilant about the future, lest we someday have to confess about other huge sins. Climate change? Well, one wonders.
I cite Elston Howard at the start of this post because, unfortunately, I have carried a negative view of the man all my life. I was influenced by the revolutionary baseball book "Ball Four" by Jim Bouton. Now, Bouton was most certainly a crusader for civil rights in a time when a significant portion of the young crowd was full of such unbridled passion on such things. That's defensible, yes.
Howard was not the type to yell "burn baby burn." Now more fully informed, I assess him as a restrained and temperate person who battled through the obvious roadblocks presented to players of color. Did we really used to live that way? People didn't even use the term "players of color." We know the incisive racist terms, but in the middle somewhere was the then-accepted "negro." I grew up when the term had currency. My, we heard the dripping-with-condescension phrase "what about all the good negroes?"
Major League baseball came to lose a lot of the African-American talent, as basketball seemed more inviting to many. Maybe football too. MLB came to rue the day, I'm sure, when African-Americans no longer cozied up to the game as much, because think of the incredible talent: from my youth, the likes of Willie Mays, Hank Aaron and Ernie Banks. My peers and I loved those guys and I swear we didn't feel a hint of racism.
 
Oh, don't say "Minnesota Nice"
I grew up as a fan of the Twins in the team's first decade of existence. Irony with our team, as our owner Calvin Griffith seemed like an unenlightened curmudgeon yet he certainly opened the door for lots of non-white talent. Was it because of Minnesota being more accepting? Not sure because old Calvin probably just sought the best talent available for the dollar! Bowie Kuhn in his autobiography would describe the Griffiths as "church mice" who would have to leave once big bucks really started getting into baseball.
I don't intend to disparage Jim Bouton in this piece - you can't put down a true journalistic pioneer, which the pitcher was, in spades.
Bouton in 1970 reflected the times, i.e. "burn baby burn" seemed palatable to him. Today it would not. But we've come so far.
Problem with Ball Four is that I'm not sure what all to believe. A common opinion of the late Bouton is that he was self-centered to a degree that he might be inclined toward embellishment or exaggeration. Unfortunately I came away from Ball Four with an impression of Elston Howard being rather an Uncle Tom. A much better perception is gained by doing the kind of research that the good ol' Internet affords us today.
Howard may not have been a big risk-taker in terms of presenting himself over the color barrier. But was it timidity - a restrained personality - or just that his task of succeeding in the majors was so daunting, it consumed him all by itself? The ascent of Howard must be interpreted by the factors just mentioned.
So today I am of a mood of unreservedly lionizing this man.
Bouton shared a story in Ball Four that was unflattering toward Howard, and then years later appeared almost to retract it. Strange. Bouton said his fundamental view of Howard had changed. Well, an awful lot changed between the tumultuous anti-war years of the '60s and the more relaxed subsequent years when so many of the good causes had actually won. Maybe it's hindsight to criticize the previous mindset, n'est-ce pas?

No easy path, regardless of deportment

A biographer of Mickey Mantle pointed out that Howard's basic diplomacy, a quality that evidently chafed on Bouton, was a necessity for Howard to make the jump to the majors. The Yankees were looking for certain qualities, and one of them was not rabble-rousing. Based on talent, maybe Vic Power should have been the first black guy in pinstripes. Power was not African-American, he was Puerto Rican, and in his youth did not experience race stigma on his island.
Power was an uninhibited, flamboyant kind of guy who scared off the Yankees' top brass. So unfortunate. Power would come to my Twins in '62 and earn team MVP honors, as my team placed second to New York! Yes, only five games out (but no wild cards yet, sob).
Elston Howard was a guest star for an episode of the old black and white Jimmy Dean variety show. In the Billy Crystal movie "61*," we see Howard standing by the batting cage next to Yogi Berra on season opener day, when BTW the Yankees played the Twins (and lost). The actor playing Yogi does a "Yogi-ism" with the English language. He says "ambidextrial" instead of "ambidextrous" re. Mickey Mantle. Howard says "oh" as courtesy. Thomas Jane as Mantle just smiled. The movie was a totally feel-good biopic. I'd suggest that Maris was not as lovable as seen in the movie - I think he had a somewhat sullen side and was never prepared for true celebrity. But it's all history: Maris hit 61 home runs and "Ellie" Howard had his career season, batting .348.

"Ellie" with Red Sox

Howard in later years helped the Boston Red Sox get past my Twins in the heartbreaking (for me) '67 season. Let's not forget the image of Howard in a Red Sox uniform.
Clete Boyer would claim that a story in "Ball Four" about Howard in a clubhouse meeting was made up, totally untrue. We can't be certain what all to believe.
Bouton was a pioneering writer and Howard was a trailblazing athlete of color. The late Elston deserves nothing less than undying gratitude from all. Bouton and Howard are both now plying their talents on that baseball diamond in the sky. No asterisks to worry about there.
 
Addendum: The Yankees' rejection of Vic Power was their loss. Power made his mark as maybe the best fielding first baseman ever, and how exciting it was to see him play with his special flourish as he would "sweep" his glove as a follow-through to taking a throw. Think of the flash this would have added to the Yanks of the Mantle-Maris era! Bill Skowron was going to be traded anyway. Power was knocking the cover off the ball in Triple-A when he should have been promoted on up.
 
- Brian Williams - morris mn minnesota - bwilly73@yahoo.com

Elston Howard at right, posing with Earl Battey of "my" Minnesota Twins!

Remember the last day of normal life?

Our Morris MN Senior Community Center

Stardate May 9, 2020. Again it seems like rather a journey we're all on, away from our normal expected lives. Imagine if you could step into a time machine and go back just three months. Go back and speak to yourself from the window of today. Think of how you'd respond from the normal frame of reference. Think of what your priorities would be.
"Does it look like the MACA softball team can get past the teams from southern Minnesota in the playoffs this year?" Ahem.
I can figure just how long the shutdown has gone on, by looking at my senior center meal ticket. I last marked it for March 24. On that day I also had breakfast at DeToy's which is a habit, normally.
I remember: the coming changes seemed possible in my mind but I was still rather disbelieving. I had no sense of drama as I left my favorite booth seat for the last time in a long time - how long? - or left the main seating area of the senior center. I can still see the interior of the Morris Senior Center from the rear of the kitchen where I pick up my lunches these days. It's $4 and I recommend it for anyone whose age qualifies, I believe age 60 now. I'm well over the bar, age 65. You'll get your needed nutrition. The standard delivery is through "meals on wheels" to your door.
In our "normal" world I'd be sitting across from a rather new patron whose name is Bryce - don't know his last name - and he's Native American. Typically I'd see on the other side of the table Judge Davison too. It's "retired" Judge Davison and he is so blessed to be in such fine shape for his advanced age. Must have good genes. His most recent claim to fame has been to implement a summer pool and have it available for neighborhood youth. He lives in the addition on the west wide of the Pomme de Terre River, close to the dam. The biking/walking trail goes by his back yard. As an election approaches you can clearly see what political party he affiliates with, based on yard signs! Congrats Keith, it's my political party too.
 
Can our media hold steady?
I purchase the Star Tribune for the senior center and I end up getting most editions after they've been examined by anyone else who is interested. I regret to say I do not consume as much of these papers as I ought to. I began scratching my head to figure out why this is. Maybe it's fear. Fear about whether the Strib and other major metro papers can "stay the course" and continue reporting fairly in spite of the browbeating these institutions are taking from our president and his followers across the nation.
Can the Strib weather the storm against the furious "watchdogs" from the political right who say "fake news!" I remember recently when our august Star Tribune tried reporting pretty routinely about a court ruling that had to do with gerrymandering. When I was young I learned about gerrymandering in a way that clearly indicated it was wrong. I mean, Jim Crow is wrong too, right? It's not a matter of opinion. Certain truths we can agree on, presumably. What a different world we have appeared to hurtle into.
Trump was amusing as sort of a grievance candidate. Wasn't George Wallace a grievance candidate? And Trump was an entertainer with his rallies for which he developed a particular talent, an entertainer talent. He lives for it and in spite of observations about his suggested cognitive decline, he does well with rally "performances," better than I could do certainly. So for his age, that's really impressive if you want to separate the performance component from what he's really saying.
Does he have a well-defined philosophy in his own head? Or is he into a mode of simple self-preservation now, reading the public to see if he can tie together enough elements for a majority to stay in office (and keep law enforcement from nipping at his heels). He did not win a majority in the 2016 election. Hillary Clinton won the election but Trump won the electoral college. So Trump took the complete prize.
The Strib reported fairly on the court decision regarding gerrymandering. And it's not as if the court ruled gerrymandering was OK. We're not that far along yet in our disintegration of civilized society. So in an opaque way, the court backed off and claimed it wasn't really their place to make a determination. Hey, it was up to the politicians. So the Strib wrote its article on the premise that such logic might reasonably be considered cause for concern.
All us rational souls know that a political party in power at a given time will be tempted toward gerrymandering. Certainly the GOP at the present time would do this unapologetically. Remember a few months ago seeing the riotous "Goofy kicking Donald" map with the bizarre boundary lines (Goofy and Donald Duck, Pennsylvania)?
The Strib's perfectly reasonable article was met with a huff by a Trump-ite who wrote a letter to the editor. I'll paraphrase based on my memory: "The court didn't decide that gerrymandering was a good thing, just that it should be left to the politicians." And leave the bank robbing to the bank robbers. If the only way to fight this ridiculousness is to root for the Democrats to get this same power, I can't really object to doing that. Better than for the GOP to mine this. But maybe gerrymandering should be erased by the courts.
The nonplussed letter writer to the Strib accused the paper of "bias" and we can just imagine their hero Donald Trump chiming in. "Bias, fake news, corrupt" etc. And the bloodthirsty crowd cheers. A lot like Nuremberg from a long time ago, right?
 
These really my people?
I sometimes wonder if I have crossed into a different dimension from the one in which I have spent most of my life. So many blind Trump loyalists around me. Such a "red" Congressional district with its Democratic congressman who didn't dare OK impeachment. It is hard to prod myself into continuing to at least present myself as a Christian. I really want to make the commitment real but we are in a sea of Trump-obsessed "Christians."
 
Looking ahead, hard as it is
When can we go to church again? The shutdown of activity is totally legitimate but still discouraging. Trump on Friday committed another verbal absurdity, saying some states wanted to hold back with resumption of normal activity only because they wanted to hurt him politically! Yes, it's always about him! I repeat: It's always about him!
Trump is a single mortal human being. If he loses re-election, so be it. He can resume life with his favored pursuits if he can escape the legal consequences of certain things he most likely has done, not according to Hoyle as they say. Look at Paul Manafort, Michael Cohen and Michael Flynn. For the record, Trump fired Flynn for lying to VP Pence.
And I really don't think Trump gives a rat's patootie about Flynn or anyone else really. He's a showboat who wants to demand adulation every single day, even Sunday when he "tweets" early-morning. Can you imagine the private thoughts his own closest associates must have about him? Have you thought about that? But the crazy circus continues.
He stirs up more dangerous red state vs. blue state conflict. Maybe he sees the "blues" as more of a threat than North Korea. And certainly more than Russia. We're supposed to all be Americans. That's what I understood in an earlier time. I remember when the senior George Bush said he'd have "no litmus test" for a Supreme Court nominee. Could you imagine any Republican saying that today?
How will our current challenges turn out? Maybe I could talk to a version of myself from six months down the road via the time machine.
Frankly, I don't think the MACA softball team could beat the southern MN teams.
 
Addendum: To illustrate how weird things are really getting, consider the incident in Georgia of the African-American young man getting hunted down and killed while jogging. A media person said "the usual partisan divide is not being seen in reaction to this." What? Are you suggesting that we might expect Republicans to actually defend lynching? I'd like to get back in the dimension I used to live in, please.
 
- Brian Williams - morris mn minnesota - bwilly73@yahoo.com

Permissive courtrooms, Lyman Bostock's murder

Old movies are like a repository of past practices and attitudes. "Dirty Harry" was quite the series or as they say today, "franchise." Is it true that John Wayne was considered for the launch of that? Of course we get Clint Eastwood in a career-forming role. I never watched Eastwood do his thing through an entire movie, but I recall the start of one that said something about our legal system and political/cultural climate.
For perspective, consider that the series began in 1971 and concluded in the late '80s. It comes across in my mind as a 1970s thing. And we saw "progressive" values in vogue then. Our legal system bent over backwards to give defendants rights. Not that the scales of justice shouldn't be balanced in a reasonable way. Things just got a little unreasonable.
The '70s were a time of hangover from some bummer episodes in American history. The Vietnam war greased most of that. We got Watergate which in a sense became an offshoot of the pathetic political circus. So it would seem society wanted to recoil some from a Republican or conservative apparatus that had been led by the likes of Nixon and Agnew.
Nixon thought we should all be grateful that the war was winding down, when in fact this was so belated as to be ridiculous. By then the president's unraveling in other spheres were most evident, so the time came for an attitude adjustment in America. We had to be gentle! We needed a fundamental sense of fairness! We wanted to err on the side of tolerance after our sordid history that included Jim Crow. Gerald Ford was not quite soothing enough, "WIN" buttons notwithstanding (LOL).
God bless Jimmy Carter who certainly meant well. We wanted a kinder, gentler, more patient and more laid-back world. So we got a corresponding tilt in our legal system toward empathizing with the accused. I reference the "Dirty Harry" movie which early-on saw the hero become exasperated by a judge who downright scolded over what she thought was overly aggressive law enforcement. Suspects' "rights" were so important. And of course they ought to be, within reason.
The female judge would have none of the heavy-handed stuff.
Political progressives did very well through most of the '70s, wind at their backs. Extremes on both sides are dangerous, as I feel in 2020 there is palpable danger on the right with our narcissistic president (among other adjectives I could trot out). But I'm putting forth a 1970s time capsule, which in some sense might seem like another planet. Digital? Unheard of. Analog? Definitely. And very definitely: a "gatekeeper" media that felt it wore a real mantle of responsibility.
This was tough for conservatives because so often their pleading for causes is based on emotion. Not to diss that really, or not entirely, but the old paternalistic gatekeeper media used a litmus test friendly to the political left. So shall we say it was fact and reason-based. Temperate reason as opposed to what Fox News today foists on us so much.
Alas, the tolerant side in our legal system went too far. The courtroom scene in "Dirty Harry" is testament.
I have opined before that the bad guys in "Dirty Harry" movies seemed to me like guys who were basically bored. The ultimate dawn of the digital age did so much to wipe out boredom, we take it for granted now. Imagine living in the '70s environment again. Were you to be forced, you could faint from culture shock. Not sure that's even an exaggeration.

Remembering Lyman Bostock
The lax legal system of the time is illustrated nowhere better than in the murder of young superstar baseball player Lyman Bostock. As a Minnesotan I embrace memories of Bostock from when the superb hitter plied his talent at our "Met," Metropolitan Stadium. Bostock got established as a major leaguer in Twins-land.
It was bound to be a bittersweet story because at that stage in Twins history, it was becoming clear that our original owner, Calvin Griffith, wasn't going to cut it in the new baseball universe of mega-bucks. Bowie Kuhn in his autobiography described the Griffith family - it was a family business - as "church mice." BTW I had a much higher opinion of Kuhn after reading his book.
We suspected that Bostock would break our hearts by becoming a star and then accepting a higher offer to leave. Which ultimately happened. He went to the California Angels and was taking steps in what might have turned out to be a Hall of Fame career. He seems so forgotten now and that's sad.
 
Responding to "Minnesota nice"
I remember being in the Met Stadium parking lot one nice sunny day in the '70s, too early because I had misunderstood the schedule information for a doubleheader. No problem. I enjoyed hanging around for a time in the parking lot, a sprawling lot as you might recall, and some other fans were there. Players were arriving. So Lyman Bostock pulls into a spot and steps out very close to me. A sweet middle-aged woman who was the epitome of "Minnesota nice" said "good luck in your game today."
Lyman did not come from the "Minnesota nice" background but he handled this patter just fine. He nodded agreeably. I believe he was wearing a denim jacket.
I wish my reminiscences of Mr. Bostock could end right here. But there's the horribly tragic end, his murder under freak circumstances in Gary, Indiana.
Why was he in Gary? The Angels had completed a game in Chicago. Lyman went to visit his uncle Ed Turner. The two were in a car with two women who were long-time family friends. One of the women was the estranged wife of a man named Leonard Smith. It was September of 1978. The time of day was 10:40 p.m. when Smith drove up to the Bostock car. An argument ensued. Turner tried to evade the guy, unsuccessfully. Fate had a traffic signal turn red. Out comes a shotgun. A blast went into the back seat of the Bostock car. Lyman got a mortal wound on the side of the head.
We learn it was a "jealous rage" and so it's murder, right?
 
Muddying legal waters
Smith was an unemployed steelworker. He was arrested seven hours after the shooting. He got an attorney who argued temporary insanity. The jury became deadlocked and a new trial was called for. The new trial had the defense positioned to do well, based on the climate of the times? The empathetic, touchy-feely tolerant climate? That would seem to be a fair interpretation. It's mine. The attorney persuaded a jury to acquit Smith. "Innocent by reason of insanity."
"Dirty Harry" would cringe. But the wheels of "justice" turn. Smith did have to undergo psychiatric care at the Indiana state mental hospital. He spent less than a year there. He was judged no longer in need of such care, so he was released to freedom, to the considerable chagrin of many. The prosecutor was fit to be tied but to no avail. Clint Eastwood's grimace in the courtroom would go nowhere, except maybe to persuade movie audiences that our culture needed some tweaking, some discipline.
"The verdict and release pushed Indiana to change its laws to allow those found mentally impaired to also be found guilty and imprisoned," we learn in Bostock's SABR profile.
Why couldn't Bostock have just stayed away from Gary, Indiana? The Lord works in ways mysterious. The young man was born in Birmingham, Alabama. He was raised by his mother and grandmother - his parents separated before his birth.
What a splash he'd make with our Twins: he batted .323 in a stellar 1976 season, fourth in the American League. This was the batting race that ended in controversy as the Twins may have conspired through disgusting tactics - was Gene March a party? - to make sure George Brett eked out the batting title over (player of color) Hal McRae. I have written a whole blog post about that episode. Could you imagine how ESPN and the other sports specialty channels would descend on that subject today and pick it to the bone? Which I actually think would be a good thing.
But the mid-'70s were so different. Life moved so slow. People were cynical and it had to change. I wish Lyman had been along for the whole ride to our more prosperous universe. Lyman Bostock, RIP.
- Brian Williams, morris mn minnesota - bwilly73@yahoo.com