Kevin Baker's book is here!

Kevin Baker's book is here!
"... an exemplary sports book..." Kirkus Reviews

Sunday, September 20, 2015

Memory Lane

Yesterday, I cleaned out a closet to make space for the next load of crap that I won't be emotionally able to throw away for 20 years, should I live that long. 

One of the things I found was a stash of old newspapers my father had saved. Some were from 1945, following the death of FDR (sadly, falling apart and unsavable), one of NIXON RESIGNS, which warmed my heart, another of the moon landing...you know how it goes.

There was a NY Times Sports section from 1979, too. It was a couple days after Munson died in the plane crash, and there were two interesting bits. One was a short excerpt of Munson's autobiography, another a story about Ken Singleton, his views on the '79 O's ("We're not the Red Sox of 1978"...ouch, man) and his relationship with Munson as an opposing player. Both good, and the Munson bio reminded me of something I had completely forgotten: he didn't want to play for the Yankees after 1977. He wanted to be traded to Cleveland to be near his family.

Here are photos of the articles. If you drag them to your desktop, you should be able to blow them up to a very readable size (and turn them around...).

A couple of excerpts from the excerpt:

"People speculated over whether my talk of retiring was a bluff. Hell, no, it wasn't. There were days when I was sure I'd never play again for the Yankees." 
"George Steinbrenner visited me in Canton during the winter. He seemed out of touch with my real feelings, as I was still upset over old contract misunderstandings (note: how diplomatically put). But he came away impressed with my business interests and seemed to feel I was determined to stay with the Yankees (this is George being clueless twice in one paragraph)."
"I have a new love to make things somewhat more pleasant for me this year -- airplanes."

3 comments:

Leinstery said...

I was enjoying this game until I saw Nova will be pitching in Toronto. Joe Girardi is a man who despises the fan base. If I was a paranoid person I would think that he is reading my thoughts and managing the team in such a fashion to fuck with me.

ceeja said...

Ol' Thurman was plain pissed off at George and for good reason. But if George had come to his senses and signed Thurman, and if they had stuck with Dick Howser as the manager in 1981, I think they would have beaten the Dodgers that year. We let that one get away from us.

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