wikkidpissah
Footballguy
My mother is 85yo & about the biggest baseball fan I know. She became so in the late 1940s when, as a Western Union operator, she sent out the wire service reports for the Boston Braves. She dated Braves ROY Alvin Dark & the 1st of her many now-arthritic areas was the hand which she broke in 8 places trying to snatch a foul ball which came up into the press box off the bat of her favorite player, Warren Spahn. She still has the ball.
Switching to the Red Sox when the Braves left town, I dont remember her ever missing a Red Sox game broadcast when I was growing up. She prefers the radio to the TV for broadcasts and passed that taste on to me. When my mind desires to conjur nostalgic images of a peaceful youth, it is usually that of her ironing to the ballgame blaring out the front of a monstrous tweed-fronted console radio. And, as I've recounted on these boards before, the first occasions i was allowed to leave the house on my own was, starting in '65 (10yo) she'd take me to the Chestnut Hill station with 80 cents (15 cents each way & 50 for a bleacher seat) & a bag of cucumber sammiches and send me down the Green Line to Fenway for summer day games.
When my father took a job in NYC after i'd grown & gone, she listened to Mets & Yankees games, but never changed her allegiance. This was evidenced the 1st time i went to Yankee Stadium with her for a Sox game. She wore a big, floppy straw hat covered with Red Sox symbols and a gigantic Yastrzemski button on her chest. Bad enough entering the stadium in that condition, but nothing compared to where she sat. This was a time when white people only entered the SBronx for Yankee games and NY criminals were grabbing hands of ladies with jewelry throughout the city & lopping them off at the wrist as a time-saving measure. When we parked behind the stadium, I was a little worried, but i literally grabbed her when she headed for the bleacher ticket window. When I asked her if she had a death wish, attempting to sit in the Reggie Jackson bleachers (the section the SBronx sat in). "We're bleacher people. We'll be fine". Shonuff, after only a couple of seasons my mother had become an institution there, one guy saving her favorite seat for the "crazy white lady" every time the Sox were in town. It was like going to hell with June Cleaver, but we survived.
My folks retired to Vt almost 20 yrs ago & the first thing she unpacked was the radio to see if she could get the Red Sox games. She's been crippled with arthritis since the beginning of retirement & relies on my dad (not a sports fan of any kind) a great deal for so many things, she didnt feel right dragging him away from his orchard to make a last trip to Fenway. I live in the southwest & never really thought about it til i was back for a New England visit last summer which included going to a coupla Sox games with a friend. She mentioned her envy & told me she'd really like to go to one more game b4 God took her. Well, He tried very hard over the winter - she spent three months in hospitals with heart operations, staph infections, pneumonia - so i told her, when she needed encouragement, that if she pulled through I'd see to it she got to a Sox/Yankee this summer.
She went yesterday, saw her beloved Sox lay a 14-1 spankin on the Yanks and her two favorite players (Papi & Youk) hit home runs. The staff in the wheelchair section treated her like royalty & my father said the cloud lifted from her eyes for the 1st time in many yrs as she watched like a 10yo first-timer the whole game. She called me afterward and cried for a half hour as she recounted every glorious detail of the day. Only when she first held my son & went to the Fatima shrine have i witnessed her in such a state. There prolly aint too many stories like this left, illustrating the magnificent & enduring beauty of the game, so I thought i'd share it with y'all and give a general thanks to the game and Fenway staff for bestowing upon my mother what will likely be her last great moment. nufced.
Switching to the Red Sox when the Braves left town, I dont remember her ever missing a Red Sox game broadcast when I was growing up. She prefers the radio to the TV for broadcasts and passed that taste on to me. When my mind desires to conjur nostalgic images of a peaceful youth, it is usually that of her ironing to the ballgame blaring out the front of a monstrous tweed-fronted console radio. And, as I've recounted on these boards before, the first occasions i was allowed to leave the house on my own was, starting in '65 (10yo) she'd take me to the Chestnut Hill station with 80 cents (15 cents each way & 50 for a bleacher seat) & a bag of cucumber sammiches and send me down the Green Line to Fenway for summer day games.
When my father took a job in NYC after i'd grown & gone, she listened to Mets & Yankees games, but never changed her allegiance. This was evidenced the 1st time i went to Yankee Stadium with her for a Sox game. She wore a big, floppy straw hat covered with Red Sox symbols and a gigantic Yastrzemski button on her chest. Bad enough entering the stadium in that condition, but nothing compared to where she sat. This was a time when white people only entered the SBronx for Yankee games and NY criminals were grabbing hands of ladies with jewelry throughout the city & lopping them off at the wrist as a time-saving measure. When we parked behind the stadium, I was a little worried, but i literally grabbed her when she headed for the bleacher ticket window. When I asked her if she had a death wish, attempting to sit in the Reggie Jackson bleachers (the section the SBronx sat in). "We're bleacher people. We'll be fine". Shonuff, after only a couple of seasons my mother had become an institution there, one guy saving her favorite seat for the "crazy white lady" every time the Sox were in town. It was like going to hell with June Cleaver, but we survived.
My folks retired to Vt almost 20 yrs ago & the first thing she unpacked was the radio to see if she could get the Red Sox games. She's been crippled with arthritis since the beginning of retirement & relies on my dad (not a sports fan of any kind) a great deal for so many things, she didnt feel right dragging him away from his orchard to make a last trip to Fenway. I live in the southwest & never really thought about it til i was back for a New England visit last summer which included going to a coupla Sox games with a friend. She mentioned her envy & told me she'd really like to go to one more game b4 God took her. Well, He tried very hard over the winter - she spent three months in hospitals with heart operations, staph infections, pneumonia - so i told her, when she needed encouragement, that if she pulled through I'd see to it she got to a Sox/Yankee this summer.
She went yesterday, saw her beloved Sox lay a 14-1 spankin on the Yanks and her two favorite players (Papi & Youk) hit home runs. The staff in the wheelchair section treated her like royalty & my father said the cloud lifted from her eyes for the 1st time in many yrs as she watched like a 10yo first-timer the whole game. She called me afterward and cried for a half hour as she recounted every glorious detail of the day. Only when she first held my son & went to the Fatima shrine have i witnessed her in such a state. There prolly aint too many stories like this left, illustrating the magnificent & enduring beauty of the game, so I thought i'd share it with y'all and give a general thanks to the game and Fenway staff for bestowing upon my mother what will likely be her last great moment. nufced.
