Big Hair and Plastic Grass

R.I.P.J.R.

 

“I’m the only guy in the world who could throw a ball through a car wash and never get it wet," James Rodney Richard used to say in jest, though more than a few hitters who faced him would probably tell you it was the truth. As my pal Lenny Randle, who was a teammate of J.R.'s at ASU and faced him 19 times in the majors (hitting only .167, but only striking out once, which I suppose was something of a moral victory) once said of him, "He starts out throwing Alka Seltzers, and ends up throwing Anacins."

From 1976 to 1980 — the most intense years of my early baseball fandom — there was no pitcher as intimidating as J.R. Richard. He stood six-foot-eight, regularly threw around 100 mph, and (even once he sorted out the control issues that caused him to lead the NL in walks in two different seasons) was always wild enough to keep batters from even thinking about getting comfy at the plate. If you ever got to see him pitch in person, you've probably never forgotten the experience; it was not at all unusual to see him fan 12-15 batters in a start.

 

J.R. seemed on a direct path to Cooperstown, but a series of strokes essentially ended his career at the age of 30 — strokes that might have been prevented if the Astros had only taken his complaints of arm numbness and physical discomfort seriously. (The press didn't help matters — check out any sports page from the weeks leading up to his collapse on July 30, 1980, and odds are you'll find an irate columnist accusing him of malingering, attitude problems, or worse.) It's incredible to look at how dominating he was in the 1980 All Star Game while also knowing that he'd be making his final MLB start less than a week later.

 

 

J.R.'s next couple of decades were rough, including losing a bundle via an oil business scam and spending a stretch living under a bridge in Houston. Happily, he got his life back together, found some peace about the way his career ended, and was able to once again enjoy the admiration and appreciation of fans in Houston and elsewhere. Unfortunately, it looks like he'd spent the last weeks of his life hospitalized for COVID, yet another unnecessary victim of a virus that never should have gotten this far...

 

Rest in Power, Big Man.

Happenin' Thangs

If 2021 was any kind of normal year, Ron Blomberg and I would be doing in-person book events all over the place right now to promote The Captain & Me.

Alas, while this year has been a marked improvement over the utter shitshow that was 2020, things are still not "back to normal" enough for us to be making the scene in that time-honored way. I will, however, be joining the esteemed authors pictured above this Friday afternoon at 4 pm ET for a virtual panel as part of a series of events hosted by Denver, CO bookstore Tattered Cover in conjunction with this year's MLB All-Star Game. 

This event — which focuses on the many challenges involved with telling a ballplayer's story — is free to all, but you have to register in advance here to view it. Should be a lot of fun, though, so I hope you'll tune in for it. (And click here to check out the full list of the bookstore's ASG-related events.)

And speaking of tuning in... I spent much of this past spring working on a new documentary series for AXS TV called If These Walls Could Rock. Each episode explores the history and legacy of a particular live music venue; some world-famous, some obscure, but all incredibly fascinating. The debut episode, which premieres tonight, covers South Carolina's Old Brick Church — an early 19th century structure which now serves as a venue for acoustic shows, but was once the site of The Cainhoy Riot, an 1876 clash between Black residents of the era and white paramilitary forces who sought to suppress the local Black vote through violence and intimidation. (Hmmm... sound at all familiar?)

I served as the main writer on this particular episode, and I'm really proud of how it turned out. I hope you'll give it a look if you have the chance; if you miss the premiere tonight, it will still be available through the channel for later viewing. (Whether or not you have access to AXS depends a lot on your cable set-up. But if you have a Roku, I can attest from personal experience that it's really easy to add AXS to your Roku channels free of charge.)

Here's the trailer for the Old Brick Church episode:

 

Glass and Steel

(Photo by Garrett Rock)

 

When my mother, sister and I moved to Chicago at the end of 1979, the first place we lived was in one of Mies Van Der Rohe's high rises along Lake Shore Drive. I was initially extremely excited by the prospect, since I'd never lived in an apartment building before (at least not since I was a toddler), to say nothing of a building designed by a legendary architect.

 

However, for reasons both related and unrelated to the building, living there (for 2 1/2 years) is not an experience that I look back on with a lot of fondness. There are some good memories, though: My favorite being of the time that one of our doormen — fed up with the condescending and abusive treatment he'd received from many of the building's residents — got stinking drunk and proceeded to urinate all over the lobby's really expensive mid-century modern furniture before passing out in the corner. The best part of all this was that he'd locked the door that led from the building's entryway to the lobby, which meant that everyone who was coming back from their evening engagements at that moment was forced to stand outside and watch him "do his thing" through the lobby's floor-to-ceiling glass windows...

 

Earlier this year, having dedicated some of my pandemic-related home time to trying to write songs again, I came up with this salute to the aforementioned nameless (to me at least) hero. And after spending many hours grappling with the idiosyncrasies of GarageBand, I finally have a recorded version that I'm happy with. I've taken The Corinthian Columns as my "nom de rock," since noms de rock are fun and I love Corinthian columns, which of course bear very little resemblance to anything designed by Mies Van Der Rohe. Enjoy!

 

The Corinthian Columns · Glass And Steel

The Captain & Me: Out April 20!

It's hard to believe that The Captain & Me: On and Off the Field with Thurman Munson will be released a week from today. The passage of time has been so strangely blurred over the course of the last year, it seems like just yesterday that Ron Blomberg and I had our first phone conversation about collaborating on this project... but it also seems like about ten years ago.

In any case, I am incredibly excited to have the book finally coming out (via Triumph Books, who have done a marvelous job with everything from the cover art to promotion), and incredibly pleased with some of the reviews we've gotten for it so far — most notably in the pages of no less than the Wall Street Journal, where Ben Yagoda wrote that he "gobbled The Captain & Me up like a packet of Famous Amos chocolate-chip cookies." (Extra points for the period-appropriate pop cultural reference, Ben!)

So far, at least, the response makes me feel like Ron and I accomplished what we set out to do with this book — give people a better sense of who Thurman Munson was as a teammate and a pal, as well as shed additional light on what it was like to play for the New York Yankees during those promising-but-frustrating seasons in the first half of the 1970s. If you dig the Yankees, New York City, 1970s baseball, moustaches, delicatessens, mobsters, locker room japery, and heartwarming tales of friendship, I think you'll find much to enjoy herein. And for those of you who have asked if I was aware that The Captain & Me shares a title with a Doobie Brothers album, I was indeed; in fact, the Doobies were one of Thurman's favorite bands, which is something we get into in the book.

In a normal world, Ron and I would be up in NYC next week to do in-person signing events. While we still hope to be able to do some later this spring and summer, the sad fact is that it would be difficult/irresponsible to put on such events while the pandemic is still raging. So in the meantime, we've got a virtual Zoom event happening on April 21 with Bookends in New Jersey; Ron and I will be talking about the book, and all "attendees" will receive a copy of it with Ron's signature. Ron's a great talker, and it should be a lot of fun.

If you would like a copy of the book with my signature on it, the best way to do that at this point would be to buy a copy from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Booksamillion, Bookshop, or your local bookseller, and then send it to me with a SASE so I can sign it and get it back to you. Message me via the email link on this blog, and I'll let you know where to send it.

As always, I'd like to thank everyone who has supported and encouraged my writing over the years — especially all of you who bought Big Hair & Plastic Grass when it first came out, thus propelling me on this amazing journey. I hope our paths will cross again, sooner than later.

 

The Hammer and the Jewish Elvis

 

Hank Aaron hitting home run number 715 is my first vivid baseball memory. Before that, baseball was always something that my dad had going on the TV while I was busy playing GI Joe or reading Mad Magazine or building models or drawing comics. Sports in general wasn't my thing in those early elementary school days.

 

But when the 1974 baseball season was about to begin, with Hank all but certain to break the Babe's home run record in the first week or two of April, my second grade teacher Mrs. Crippen brought the topic up for class discussion, and impressed upon us the sense that history was about to be made. I knew what a legend Babe Ruth was — after all, there was a gigantic, gilt framed photo of him hanging on the wall of Bimbo's, our favorite Ann Arbor pizza parlor — and even though I didn't understand much about baseball yet, I didn't mind when my dad made us watch Monday Night Baseball on April 5 instead of The Rookies, which was what I usually watched on Monday evenings. And I remember getting chills when Hank actually hit the record-breaker out of the park, which thankfully happened before my 9 pm bedtime.

 

A few weeks later, my dad had to go to Atlanta for a social work convention that my grandfather was also attending, and he took my sister and me with him so we could hang out with our grandparents. My two most vivid memories of that trip are of getting absolutely tanked on Mountain Dew while watching It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World on the TV in my grandparents' hotel room, and of my grandfather driving us by Fulton County Stadium so I could see where Hank had hit his record-breaking homer. Unfortunately, the Braves were on a road trip at the time; so instead of spending the evening at the ballpark, we had dinner at an Italian restaurant in Underground Atlanta, a now-long-vanished tourist attraction that managed to be both strange and strangely underwhelming.

 

 

It feels very weird to me that Hank's gone now, even though he had a long, full, heroic and rewarding life. His figure has always towered over baseball, or at least my perception of it, even though I never saw him play in person. I never met or interviewed him, either; and as I said to a friend the other day, I don't know what I could have possibly said to him had our paths ever crossed. It's like seeing the Grand Canyon in person — whatever comes to your lips will inevitably sound lame and insufficient. 

 

My one great Hank Aaron story is actually a Neil Diamond story, and it didn't actually happen to me. In fact, it may not even be true, but it's too good not to share. It was told to me in the early 90s by a guy named David, who was a regular customer at See Hear, the record store I worked at in Chicago from 1989 to 1993...

 

 

In 1989, David was living in Atlanta, and a friend of his who was working as Neil Diamond's costume (or hair or makeup) person invited him to come and hang out backstage when Neil came to town and played the Omni. David was a friendly and easy-going guy, the kind of person you felt like you'd known forever the first time you met him, and Neil apparently took an immediate liking to him when they were introduced. After giving David a personal tour of his wardrobe and pointing out some of his favorite stage outfits, Neil invited David to join him, his band and crew for dinner, which was being catered by a local restaurant of note.

 

David happily accepted the invitation, and enjoyed the dinner immensely — at least up until the point when Neil turned to David and asked him, "David, how come there aren't more black people at my concerts?" 

 

David just about choked on his food. For one thing, what a question! For another, David was just some white, Jewish dude from Georgia. "Why the hell is Neil even asking me this?" he thought to himself.

 

He chewed on the question — and its proper response — for a minute before answering. "No offense, Neil," he said, "but I just don't think black people like your music very much."

 

Neil, to his credit, did not act at all offended; he merely seemed mystified. "But why not?" he asked David, completely straight-faced. "I'm a SOUL singer!"

 

Flash forward to that night's show: David takes his seat, which — thanks to the hookup from his friend — is located right in the first couple of rows. He turns back to take in the rest of the arena, as one does in such situations, and immediately notices (much to his great surprise) that Hank Aaron and his wife are sitting directly behind him. David tries to play it cool; as naturally garrulous as he is, even he can't think of a way to break the ice and strike up a conversation with the legendary Home Run King. Still, he can't help himself from looking back from time to time throughout the evening to see what Hank is up to — and sure enough, Hank is genuinely digging the show, knows the words to all the songs, etc.

 

After the show, David goes backstage to say goodbye to his friend, and winds up passing Neil in the hallway.

 

"Hey Neil!" he shouts after him. "Hank Aaron was in the audience tonight!"

 

Neil stops in his tracks, punches the air and yells "YES!!!"

 

***

 

Oh, and speaking of baseball and Jewish guys from Georgia, my book with Ron Blomberg — The Captain & Me: On and Off the Field with Thurman Munson — will be released via Triumph Books on April 20, and is currently available for pre-order at Amazon.

RIP, Knucksie

One of my favorite things about spending summers with my grandparents in Alabama during the mid-to-late 1970s was watching the Atlanta Braves on WTCG/WTBS - the Braves were terrible back then, but it was still a treat to be able to see televised baseball broadcasts every night at a time when MLB's TV presence was limited in most markets to Game of the Week and Monday Night Baseball.

And the thing I loved most about watching the Braves were the games where Phil Niekro took the mound and baffled opposing hitters with his knuckleball. And honestly, I loved the games where he got lit up, too; I still smile looking at his 1979 stats, which include NL-leading totals in wins (21), losses (20), games started (44), complete games (23), innings pitched (342), hits (311), home runs (41), walks (113) and hit batters (11), along with very respectable ERA and strikeout numbers (3.39 and 208, respectively). And don't forget the number 40, which was how old he was that season.

Arguably the greatest knuckleballer of all time, "Knucksie" epitomized so much of what I loved about baseball in the 1970s - specifically the unpredictability of the game, and the unusual characters who played it. Here was a silver-haired guy who looked like he should have been working at some used car dealership in the Midwest, yet was calmly putting up some of the best numbers of his career at an age when most MLB hurlers would have long been put out to pasture.

I only got to see him pitch in person once, on my birthday in 1981 at Wrigley Field. It was a poor outing for him - he gave up 5 runs to the Cubs and was gone by the fifth inning - but it was still a thrill for me to watch him do his thing. I never met him, but by all accounts he was a friendly and charming chap who loved to shoot the bull with fans.

Rest in Peace, Knucksie; we will not see your likes again, but those of us who saw how your pitches danced will never forget it.

Give The Gift Of Stompbox!

Yeah, it's been a rough year for most of us, with good news often in short supply. Happily, one of the big projects I've been working on came to fruition in 2020: Stompbox: 100 Pedals of the World's Greatest Guitarists, has now been officially released. Co-edited by James Rotondi and myself, and featuring the stunning photographs of Eilon Paz and written contributions from an impressive variety of musicians, music journalists and pedal aficionados, Stompbox is a deep dive into the culture and history of guitar effects pedals, exploring the many reasons and ways that guitarists (and other musicians) use them. 

Stompbox features effects used by some of my personal favorite guitarists of all time, including Jimi Hendrix, Ernie Isley, Davie Allan, Marc Bolan and Mick Ronson — but it covers a wide stylistic spectrum which includes everyone from Tom Morello and Radiohead's Ed O'Brien (who wrote the book's foreword!) to Jack White and Dimebag Darrell. If you love guitar pedals and/or are fascinated by how gear plays into the creative process, this is a book you can get lost in for hours. But hey, don't just trust me on this — check out the sweet write-up the book recently received from WNET's ALL ARTS!

But wait, there's more! In the process of putting Stompbox together, Eilon and I began to come in contact with pedal aficionados whose collections contained some mind-glowingly rare and cool effects; though not specifically used by legendary guitarists, they definitely deserved to be showcased in a book of their own. Thus was born Vintage & Rarities: 333 Cool, Crazy and Hard to Find Guitar Pedals, which is available in a limited first edition run by itself, but can also be purchased in tandem with Stompbox as part of the slipcovered "Stompbox Brick" (so called because it's truly heavy on a variety of levels). If you have a guitar player on your Christmas list — or you're a guitar player who wants to give yourself a nice present (c'mon, you deserve it) — you really can't go wrong with either (or both) of these books!

And while you're at it, scroll down to the bottom of the Stompbox Shop page to enter The Stompbox Motherlode Giveaway, which includes pedals from JHS Pedals, Keeley Electronics, Death By Audio, Earthquaker Devices, Electro-Harmonix, AnalogMan, Walrus Audio, Strymon, Fairfield Circuitry, Wampler, Thorpy FX, Chase Bliss Audio, MXR, and Dunlop, as well as a yearly All-Access guitar lesson subscription from Trufire. The winner will be drawn on December 30, so be sure to enter before then. (And follow the Stompbox Instagram account for more opportunities to enter, as well as to see cool excerpts and outtakes from the books.)

Hope you're all staying safe and taking care of yourselves during these dark times. Hopefully we can all rock together again once summer rolls around!

 

 

 

Farewell, Tom Terrific

I knew this was coming, but I still haven't been able to fully wrap my mind around it.

I don't remember ever learning about the existence of Tom Seaver, just like I don't remember learning about the existence of the Empire State Building; both were just always there, iconic symbols of the greatness of the city I'd been born into but didn't really begin to experience until I was almost 13. By then, of course, Tom was no longer there, having been shipped to the Reds in 1977 as part of the most heartbreaking trade in Mets (and maybe even MLB) history. And by then, seeing a Mets game at Shea Stadium was kind of like watching a Hubert Robert painting of Roman ruins come to life; you knew that greatness had previously occurred on these once-hallowed grounds, but actual traces of it could no longer be found anywhere on the field or in the neglected, urine-soaked structure.

I think I only got to see one Hall of Fame pitcher play in person while he was in his 70s prime: Jim Palmer, who efficiently beat my Tigers 3-1 with a complete game, 8-strikeout performance on April 24, 1977. And I got to see Luis Tiant, who SHOULD be in the Hall, throw a three-hit shutout against the A's that August. Both are among my most treasured 70s baseball experiences, but I really wish I could have somehow witnessed Seaver in action during his 1967-75 prime, that absolutely Olympian nine-year stretch where he won the NL Rookie of the Year award and three Cy Youngs while averaging 16 complete games and 233 strikeouts a season with a 2.46 ERA, and helped pitch the Mets to two pennants and one World Series championship. If I had to pick one pitcher from the era to take the mound for a crucial start, it would be that dude.

Still, I got to watch Seaver many times on TV from 1976 to 1979, when he was still pretty damn great; even when his fastball lost its zip, as it clearly had by 1979, he was such a tough and smart pitcher that you would have been foolish to bet against him.

But perhaps my fondest Seaver memory is of watching him pitch in an all-star softball game that was televised as part of (I think) ABC's Wide World of Sports during the spring training of 1977. Unlike his regular season starts, when he was "all business" on the mound, he was in total prankster mode that day—tossing a golf ball to one unsuspecting hitter, and lobbing an actual grapefruit to Thurman Munson, who duly (and grumpily) juiced that baby with a vicious swing...

My other favorite Seaver moment? This 1976 Sears ad for "The Travelknit Fourpiece," an Astroturf-colored set comprising a blazer, a leisure suit jacket, and two pair of trousers. In it, you can glimpse the many moods of Tom Seaver; the guy second from the right is clearly the grapefruit-throwing Seaver from the softball game, while the one at far-right appears to have wandered in from the set of The Rockford Files, where (in my dreams, at least) he's playing one of Jim's old army buddies who has sought him out for help with a business situation that is NOT WHAT IT SEEMS...

I don't know what else to say right now, other than I know how badly this must hurt for my Mets fan friends, especially the ones slightly older than me who grew up with Tom Terrific, and who got to see (or hear) their hero take the mound every fourth game. As rough as his trade to the Reds was for you folks, the news of his passing might be even rougher. Peace to you all, and to Tom Seaver, too.

Hev Fun: Checkin' In at the Downtowner Inn

Let me begin this piece by saying that my wife and I and those nearest and dearest to us are all currently Covid-free, for which I'm immensely grateful. (We'd also like to keep it that way, which is why we're both working from home right now, and venturing out only for walks and limited errands.) Let me also say that we are both lucky enough to be gainfully employed right now, and to live in a lovely rental house with a bird-and-tree-filled back yard, and we're quite cognizant that we have it pretty good compared to a lot of folks in this country and world right now.

So when I say that this is the first summer in our ten years together where we haven't taken a trip somewhere — even just for a long weekend getaway — I'm not asking you to feel sorry for us, but rather to understand why my brain suddenly seems to be more obsessed with traveling than ever. Now that our country's woefully inept and stubbornly idiotic response to this pandemic has turned cross-country travel into a decidedly dicey prospect for the foreseeable future (and has understandably rendered Americans persona non grata in quite a few countries), my mind is all a-churned with dreams and notions of where I'd like to go next, as well as memories of past trips both pleasantly mundane and profoundly life-altering. Thinking is the best way to travel, as the Moody Blues once sang, and I've certainly been thinking a lot lately... about traveling.

Memories of some of those "pleasantly mundane" journeys were kicked loose recently by the discovery of the above matchbook. For several years now, Katie has included a bag of vintage matchbooks among my Christmas stocking-stuffers; I always love sorting through them, picking out my favorites, and generally losing myself in the mental images of long-vanished bars, steakhouses and hotels that these tiny prizes conjure up. 

This one from the Downtowner Motor Inn of Vicksburg, Mississippi initially eluded my notice, probably because its monochromatic presentation caused it to get lost in the shuffle amid the gaudier, foil-printed promotional items in my most recent bag o' 'books. But a few weeks ago, when I absent-mindedly grabbed it from the "okay to use" pile, I was immediately struck by combination of the adorable kitten (as I am a sucker for such things) and the flirtatious wink that accompanied the slogan "Hev Fun". And then there was the image and message on the inside:

"Commercial men and other pets welcome"? Was this an artifact from some sort of brothel that catered to traveling salesmen?

Well, not quite... but as this fantastic 2016 post from the Cardboard America blog reveals, there was definitely some adult-oriented action going down at Downtowner Inns in the 1960s and 70s. Founded in 1958 in Memphis, Tennessee, the Downtowner Corporation built motels in cities across the United States, usually within close proximity of major downtown hotels, arenas and convention centers. (The company's Rowntowner chain, introduced in 1967, concentrated on suburban locations.) While these were affordably-priced motels designed to target budget-minded tourists, businessmen and conventioneers, they definitely had more flair than you would have typically found in the Holiday Inns and TraveLodges of the day. Many of their buildings sported colorful, pop-art-inspired Mid-Century exteriors and signage, like these Downtowners from Kansas City and Albuquerque:

(The Downtowner Inn pictured at the top of this post is the one in Vicksburg, MS where my matchbook came from. Though that postcard doesn't catch the property from its most flattering angle — probably because management wanted to show off its expansive parking facilities — you can see that plenty of bright colors were used on its exterior, as well.)

Several Downtowner Inns also contained cocktail lounges and restaurants where things got a little more raucous and rowdy than at your local Howard Johnson's. Singles gatherings seemed to be a pretty commonplace occurrence, and some, like Tony's Restaurant at the Downtowner in Springfield, Illinois (pictured above), featured go-go girls; "modern dancers" Terri and Donna at the intriguingly-named Velvet Swing in the Atlanta Downtowner (advertised below) may have also been among their number. It's unclear from further research I've done whether or not the Vicksburg Downtowner offered similarly risqué entertainment options, but I'm guessing that the winking matchbook was an allusion to the affirmative.

I never stayed at a Downtowner as a kid (at least, I'm pretty sure I'd remember if I had), but going down the Downtowner rabbit hole brings back fond memories of the handful of cross-country road trips my sister and I (and sometimes our mom) took with our maternal grandparents during the 1970s, most of them across the South; we even stayed overnight in Vicksburg once, on our way to New Orleans from Tuscaloosa, Alabama. Nothing terribly exciting or truly momentous happened on any of these trips (unless you count the time I left some newly-purchased 45s in a bag in the back window of Grandpa Fred's Buick LeSabre, with warp-tastic results), but the mental images I have from them still fill me with a sense of joy and well-being.

I remember feeling safe, comfortable and content in the air-conditioned splendor of that massive four-door sedan, watching the world go by as we played various word-association and -guessing games, or listened to my grandfather talk about the historical importance of places we were passing; though whenever he stopped the history lessons and started uttering the name of of every restaurant that came into view with long, drawn-out syllables ("Pooooonderooooosaaaa... Aaaaaarthuurrrr Treeeaaachers... Shooooney's Biiiig Booooy...") it was a sure sign that he was getting hungry.

I remember things like the brief ripple of excitement I felt whenever we pulled into the parking lot of the motel where we were going to spend the night, wondering what our room would look like, and anticipating the blissful evening of TV-watching and pop-drinking that would shortly ensue. Or feeling honored whenever my grandfather asked me to make a run to the ice machine, a device so wondrous that I immediately scoped out its location at every place we checked into. (Of course, the pop machine was almost always in close proximity to it, making such reconnaissance that much more important.)

And while I was a notoriously picky eater in those days, I always enjoyed going out for dinner with my grandparents at whatever restaurant or lounge was attached to the hotel. Though not fancy by any means, these establishments usually tried to at least give off a whiff of class and maybe even a little touch of the exotic to lift the spirits of the weary traveler. They were mellow (though maybe things got swinging there later on in the evening), dimly lit, with piped-in muzak and plenty of dark wooden paneling. I'd order my hamburger or fried shrimp, sink back into the tufted leather banquette, sip my ginger ale (with a maraschino cherry if the place was really classy), and imagine that I was a man of the world stopping briefly for refueling on the way to my next international adventure...

I miss those kinds of joints, all of which seem to have vanished from the face of the earth, replaced long ago by sports bars with blaring flat screens and chain restaurants of dubious quality and even worse service. I miss my grandparents. I miss my family. I miss my friends. I miss road trips. I miss traveling across the U.S. without worrying about running into bare-fanged MAGA bullshit at every turn. And I miss living in a nation where I don't wake up wondering what kind of grievous, infected, suppurating wound we're going to inflict upon ourselves today...

But I can still travel with my mind, and mean to do so until it's cool for the rest of me to hit the road again. So tonight, as I'm falling asleep, maybe I'll ask Grandpa Fred to steer the LeSabre towards the nearest Downtowner Inn. After all, you've gotta "Hev Fun" while you still can.

 

 

 

 

Good News!

I am extremely proud and excited to announce that Ron "Designated Hebrew" Blomberg (#12 in this pic) and I have signed a deal with Triumph Books for a memoir of his Odd Couple-esque friendship with the man behind the plate — the late, great Yankees captain Thurman Munson.

Titled The Captain and Me, the book will reveal a lot about Thurman that isn't widely known (not to mention plenty of amusing/interesting tidbits from the glorious days of 70s baseball) and is currently slated for a 2021 release.

A huge thank you and/or a tip o' the Monsanto Toupee to everyone who has bought and supported my previous baseball books — you made this possible!