Listening to Baseball
With the pennant race in the AL Central Division going hot and heavy with the Twins and the Tigers, I've been doing a lot of listening to baseball on the radio as I drive home from work in the evenings. I don't know why, but baseball on the radio is the second best way of enjoying the game. (At the game with peanuts and cracker jacks is #1.) It was really how I learned to love the game.

I can still hear Vin Scully, Phil Rizutto, Dizzy Dean, Harry Caray, Harry Kalas, Whitey Ashburn keeping me informed about what was happening on the field where I wasn't. With a game that is a lot of waiting between pitches and hits, it takes special people to be able to paint the picture into my mind. I listened to Sandy Koufax and Steve Carlton, Roger Maris and Mickey Mantle make history. I would sit with my transistor under the pillow so I could get the late scores. I even remember hearing Bill Mazeroski's game winning home run during a last hour study hall in the days when the World Series was played in the daytime.

It is especially good now, at the end of the season, when excitement is building and the October chill is in the air and the playoffs near. Baseball. How did we ever let football start so early in the season?