“If that kid’s not Rookie of the Year, there’s no such thing,” said White Sox skipper Tony La Russa after Britt Burns made his final start of 1980. “I think (Joe) Charboneau, (Dave) Stapleton and (Damaso) Garcia… had fine rookie years,” he continued. “But there’s no way anyone had a better year than Burns.” Unfortunately …
If you were a kid in southwestern Ohio in the 1970s and you could eat anywhere you wanted, the answer was clear: Johnny Bench’s Home Plate. Bench owned two restaurants in the Cincinnati area at the time and one of them was near the Northgate Mall, which was about 40 minutes from my house. I …
If you happened to read the transactions section on December 8th, 1979 you probably would have missed it. The previous day, the Detroit Pistons fired their General Manager, a guy named Dick Vitale. At the winter meetings in Toronto, the Montreal Expos pulled off a big trade for Ron LeFlore, who would lead the N.L. …
It’s tough to be the new kid. Having someone introduce you helps. Having someone introduce you to about half the Baltimore Orioles is another thing entirely. In the summer of 1978, Rich Stanfill and his family moved to Cockeysville, Maryland, a small town whose claim to fame was a quarry that produced some of the marble …
If there was a Futures Game in 1980 he would have been a headliner. Karl Pagel was a can’t miss star. He was a high draft pick of the Chicago Cubs in 1976 and absolutely tore up the minor leagues. He hit .344 in AA in 1977 with 28 homers and 104 RBI and was …
Note: This is a guest post from Scott Ottenweller In the late ’70s my family moved from New York to Columbus, Ohio. The Yankees had finally returned to prominence, winning the World Series in ‘77 and ‘78, I naturally became a Yankee fan. And I still am to this day. I was still relatively young …
NOTE: This is a guest post from Andrew Forbes I recently attended a game with another writer whose task, appointed him by a Canadian newspaper, was to listen to me expounding for nine innings on why baseball was worth one’s attention. It’s something I’d have been happy to do, of course, even if I wasn’t …
There have been 87 All-Star games in major league history. Exactly one of them took place at Dodger Stadium. Watching the game today on YouTube brings you right back to the era, complete with Keith Jackson, Don Drysdale and Howard Cosell in the booth. Love him or hate him, there’s nothing quite like listening to …
Note: This is a guest post from Nate Dunlevy My love affair with baseball began with the same cliches that every child of the ’80s retells. I don’t know if it was staying up late to watch Bill Buckner make the same error I made a thousand times, or if it was the wood paneling …
The summer of 1980 was brutal. A heatwave swept across the southeast which resulted in nearly 150 deaths across seven states. From Alabama to Texas and up to Missouri, people looked for any relief they could find. The search became more difficult when temperatures caused roads to buckle in many states. Wichita Falls reached a record 113 …
