Lucky

I can close my eyes and see the baseball diamond at old Buffalo Stadium in Houston. I was eight or nine the first time my Dad took me to a game. Buffalo Stadium was an old fashioned ballpark with wooden bleachers and rudimentary concessions. But the hot dogs were great and the buns came from a bakery right down the right field line. The ball didn’t carry so power hitters didn’t prosper in Houston. We probably went to 10 or 12 games before I saw my first dinger. The Buffs were a St Louis farm team and I seem to remember that the Cards built their teams on speed and defense. Minor league baseball is about player development and weeding out the guys who are talented but dumb or uncoachable, not necessarily about winning the Texas League pennant every year so most seasons were disappointing to a kid my age. The Buffs lost a lot of games the first 3 years Dad and I started going to the games.

Now for the luck part. When you went to the movies there was always a newsreel and major league baseball was on the radio every afternoon. The NY Yankees were the name team then (pretty much like they are now). The history of the team and the great players made playing for the Yankees every kids dream. Joe DiMaggio was my hero. His smooth swing and sure base running were something to see even in B/W movies. 1951 was Joe D’s last year and my chances of seeing him actually play were about zero. Then the Yankees got into a dispute with the owners of the complex in Florida where they took Spring training. Yankee management, as was their practice, decided to teach the complex owners a lesson and went to Arizona to train. In those days player salaries were nothing like what they are today. Some of the stars made big money but lots of great ballplayers worked regular jobs or played winter ball in the off season. Soooo … the Yankees barnstormed their way home to New York. They played almost every day, mostly against the local minor leaguers and the players picked up some extra money. They played an exhibition seven inning game against the Buffs on a sunny Saturday afternoon. Dad got tickets and off we went. All the way to the park Dad kept up a stream of directions for watching the Yankees. “These guys have the best infield in baseball. Watch the infielders, they really play this game” Etc. Etc. We arrived hours early to watch infield and batting practice. And there he was, Joe DiMaggio, the real Joe D. Swinging a couple of bats, chatting with the sportswriters, getting his picture taken. My dad was pointing out all the other Yankees but I couldn’t name you one of them today. Well, except for one. Joe was hitting fourth, in the first inning the Yankees got a couple of men on base and Joe stepped into the batters box. He took a pitch, don’t remember if it was a ball or a strike, and hit the next one over the left field fence for a three run homer. I can close my eyes and see it. It just went up and up and cleared the fence by about 5 feet. Joe played three innings, made a nice running catch in center field and came out. He was replaced by a young man, 19 I think, from Oklahoma. Kid by the name of Mantle. My Dad read the Sporting News almost every day and knew who Mickey Mantle was. Mickey’s first at bat he hit a line drive that was still going up when it cleared the scoreboard in right center field. It made a different sound when he hit it. It got out of the park really fast. Until Reggie Jackson came along I never saw a ball hit that hard. Nobody hit balls over the scoreboard in the afternoon in Houston. Noooobody. The air got thin from people going “Uhhhh” So the first time I saw major league ballplayers I saw two of the real greats, plus a supporting cast of the best players in baseball. Tell me I’m not lucky.

Beauty and the Scrounge

Started this in 2008. Not much has changed.

There is a social phenomenon I’ve lately been observing. For a while I thought it was limited to the US but my wife and I are finishing the first month of an extended vacation in Italy and France and I see it here as well.

First a little background, I’m an old guy, when I was a young guy in the late 50’s young men and women dressed up to go out on dates. When you showed up at a young ladies door to take her to the movies or a dance her parents looked you over casually but very carefully and if you didn’t pass muster forget about that second date. When my buddies and I went cruising we had to look sharp, you might meet “the girl” and you better make a good first impression. The young ladies always looked sharp as well and I’ll say that we looked the best of any generation before or since. Then came the mid-sixties and young peoples clothes and grooming went to Hell. I pretty much quit paying attention to the way people dressed for a long time because most of them looked like hell anyway.

Now there appears to be a new style, I first noticed it when my wife and I attended a New Years Eve dinner dance at a famous destination resort in Northern California. The evening was very expensive and was billed as Black Tie Optional so I dusted off my tux, my wife bought a really nice sparkly evening dress and off we went. Imagine my surprise when the couple seated next to us showed up in scruffy grey cords and an old polo shirt and a mu-mu. The dinner was however spectacular and upon finishing the band had started playing so we went to dance. Crossing the dining room it was painfully obvious that Black Tie Optional had become, for the men, code for whatever was on top of the drawer when they got dressed. I saw everything from baseball caps worn fetchingly with rockstar tee shirts and torn jeans to wrinkled Dockers and shirts that had never seen the hot side of an iron. On the other hand the young ladies looked fabulous, almost all were dressed very well and a lovely lot they were. My wife and I expressed our disappointment to the staff (The general manager had fortuitously taken the night off) we were given a substantial discount but the entire evening with the exception of all the well dressed young ladies had left a bad taste and we won’t be returning any time soon.

Now this could be a fluke and I certainly don’t want to seem judgmental about my fellow human beings but….we’ve spent over a month in Italy and a pattern is emerging. If ever a country’s blessed with a surplus of beautiful people it is Italy, men and women, boys and girls, Italy has a wonderfully high percentage of real showstoppers. People will say I’m prejudiced because 44 years ago I married a beautiful Italian-American girl, but, so be it. We’ve been traveling with friends, visiting places few Americans go and I see and have great trouble understanding beautiful young ladies in the company of guys who look like they made a pass through the Salvation Army rag bin and wore whatever they found.

From a Ferragosto celebration at the very tip of the heel to an upscale bar in a suburb of Milan to several evenings wandering around backstreet Florence the pattern repeats itself. Great looking lady, scroungy guy. We’re headed back South soon, Rome, then Capri, If the pattern doesn’t change in Capri or during our 2 weeks in Paris I’m going to consider it kind of a done deal.

If I had showed up at my brides’ door 45 years ago dressed like some of the guys I’ve seen she’d have slammed the door in my face. And been right to do so. It’s hard for me to believe that guys get away with looking so scruffy and harder to believe that so many knockouts will go out with them. Can anyone enlighten me? Money? Nice car? Fill me in here.

Follow Up

　

Capri may well be the exception that proves the rule. After the day trippers go home it is populated by (mostly older) couples who are obviously prosperous and casually but very well dressed. I only saw one young couple in a very upscale restaurant who held the line I described above.

Follow Up Two Years Later

We’re in France now and last night I was standing in front of my friends house in the Paris suburbs. A couple walked by, they were Middle Eastern, or maybe Moroccan, The young lady was a killer, olive skin, jet black hair, wonderful smile, big eyes, lovely figure and dressed in one of those above the knee sheath dresses the young ladies wore in the early sixties. Beige silk. Scoop neck, sleeveless. Probably the sexiest clothes girls have worn in all of history. I was smitten. Boy Friend/Husband/Whatever was handsome but  you guessed it, jeans, scruffy sweatshirt, tennies. Bleagh.

　

　

A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To Monza

The Italian Grand prix takes place at the Autodromo  de Monza usually the first weekend in September. We have friends who live ten minutes or so from the park where the track is located but this post isn’t about going to this race. In 1989 we scheduled our second trip to Europe and included the GP, planning to arrive the weekend before the race, travel mid-week to the East Coast near Ravenna to visit a group of students for whom my wife had arraigned  home stays  when they toured the US in June.  We arrived in Monza Friday evening and the next day set off for the lake country where our friends have a condominium. The place we go is sort of our little secret, there aren’t a lot of tourists and the locals would prefer to keep it that way.  We arrived Saturday afternoon,  went grocery shopping, visited the wine shop and had a wonderful dinner at the local, upscale restaurant.  Our friends condo is in a  nice complex far enough from the main road to make it very quiet and we slept like logs. Sunday morning we were all awakened by the sound of racing engines, I thought there was a group of cyclists touring but when we went down to the road we found a hillclimb being organized. There was every kind of small capacity car represented from  FIAT 600’s to a real (obsolete) race car with a monocoque chassis and a 1600cc Abarth engine.  We had lunch and went back to the village to watch the event.  The course went from the starting line on the main street up the mountain behind the town for about 4 miles.  For the first half mile or so the road was lined with spectators. It was very much like going to the races at Golden Gate Park in San Francisco in the 50’s. We found a safe (sort of) spot and were entertained for most of the afternoon by  the cars being flagged off at 30 second intervals to race up the hill.  My photos are something to see.  Italy is the only country in the world where something like this could happen. Toss in good friends and the beauty of the lake country and nobody is as lucky as we are.