Pitching Our of a Funk

I was in a funk most of Sunday afternoon.

Before you jump to any conclusions, I was not depressed about our new bed. My back was almost free of pain after just one night. 

The other day my friend and former research partner Leo, who celebrated his 92nd birthday last week, sent me a note from Tucson asking how I was doing, as he said my “blogs tend to portray your life in nostalgic and depressing fashion.” To which I replied, “I will admit to nostalgia, Leo, but not to depression, though In checking the dictionary definition of nostalgia it might infer some sadness ("a sentimental yearning for the happiness of a former place or time"). 

“Could be also that I am depressed about GOP efforts on the state and national levels to return our society to one that is less caring and compassionate and more unequal and intolerant. I've avoided writing about politics for the most part over the last few months because of the never-ending march backward. Not being a paid commentator I can choose to take a vacation from the encroaching reality.”

I should have said I was “distressed,” not depressed, as I am about the Trayvon Martin-George Zimmerman verdict, another example of an unjust but probably judiciously correct outcome given the known facts in the case, the need to prove guilt beyond a shadow of doubt, and Florida’s insane “stand your ground” law. 

No, I was in a funk for a very superficial reason. It was because I stunk up the softball field Sunday morning (and couldn’t even blame my back for a lousy pitching job). In just three-plus innings, before I wisely took myself out of the game with the bases loaded, I walked more batters than I have in all the games I pitched this season combined. I put my teammates into a three-run hole they could not overcome. I was angry at myself because I did not measure the distance between home plate and the rubber before the game started. It was at least two feet too long, so pitches that normally would have crossed the plate as strikes came in too low, hence the many walks. It wasn’t until the third inning that I mentioned it to the umpire and the home team pitcher. We corrected the distance, though by then I had already damaged our chances. 

I stayed in that funk until the evening when Gilda and I enjoyed a showing of the film 42, about Jackie Robinson’s 1947 debut as a Brooklyn Dodger, as the first Afro-American to play in the major leagues. The movie was emotional and inspiring, but what truly elevated me from my funk was the appearance of one of Jackie’s teammates, a pitcher who perhaps more than anyone else would have reason to have remained in a funk since 3:58 pm October 3, 1951, when the pitch Ralph Branca threw to NY Giants outfielder Bobby Thomson in the bottom of the ninth landed in the left field stands for a game-winning, National League pennant-winning home run. 

Now 87 and still sharp of mind, able to recall minute details of his and other ballplayer careers, Branca appeared at Pelham, NY’s Picture House with his son-in-law Bobby Valentine, the ex-NY Mets,  Texas Rangers and Boston Red Sox manager, and Marty Appel, the former NY Yankees public relations director during the George Steinbrenner-Billy Martin-Reggie Jackson era. They engaged in a 45-minute conversation about the film, for which Branca served as a technical advisor, and baseball in general.  

Over the years I’d read how Branca recovered from the trauma of serving up the fastball that Thomson launched into baseball immortality for himself, infamy for Branca. Indeed, until Thomson’s death several years ago the two would appear together at conventions and other gatherings. If Branca was able to get over it, then so could I. After all, I didn’t have the whole borough of Brooklyn lamenting my existence.  

Aside from observing that your emotional life can go on, here are some comments Branca made about 42 and baseball:

The “shower scene” where Branca asks Robinson to join him in the shower with the rest of the team, where it’s played for laughs to suggest homosexual overtones, did not happen that way, he said. He merely told Robinson go with him to  the showers, that a team showers together. 

Branca was pitching against St. Louis when Enos Slaughter spiked Robinson in the calf at first base. Branca wanted to hit Slaughter with a pitch the next time he was up but Robinson told him not to. Slaughter led off the top of the eighth inning. Branca was pitching a perfect game at the time, 27 up, 27 down. Slaughter singled, the Cardinals’ only hit of the game. Branca was upset he didn’t throw at Slaughter.

Asked who was the best player of his era, Branca didn’t hesitate—Joe DiMaggio. As to who was the best center fielder among Mickey Mantle of the Yankees, Willie Mays of the Giants and Duke Snider of the Dodgers, Branca remained loyal to his teammate, reasoning Snider had the best arm of the trio and had to defend a more difficult turf as the Ebbets Field fence was more irregular with hard to play angles.  

He wasn’t in 42, but there was another Afro-American who played for the Dodgers in 1947. Dan Bankhead, a pitcher, joined the team in late August, Branca recalled.

A native of Mount Vernon, NY, Branca asked a tough trivia question: Which two unrelated major leaguers grew up in the same house at different times? Answer: Branca and Ken Singleton whose family bought their Mount Vernon home from Branca’s family. Singleton played for the Mets, the Montreal Expos and the Baltimore Orioles. He is now a sportscaster for the Yankees. 

Returning to the film, Branca said “Dem Bums” was not written on the side of the Dodgers team bus.

  

The team’s away uniform should have been grey with Brooklyn written across the chest, not Dodgers. Several pitchers on opposing teams in the movie had their throwing arms mixed up (righties were shown as lefties and vice versa).

When the Dodgers clinched the 1947 pennant in Pittsburgh, general manager Branch Rickey was not at the game. Rather, he was shown listening to a radio broadcast at Ebbets Field. Branca explained that Rickey, a devout Methodist, was fulfilling a promise to his mother not to play or watch a baseball game on a Sunday.

Union Blues, Email Blues, Baseball Blues

Union Trouble: A federal judge has ruled a large retail company violated federal labor laws and had intimidated workers seeking to become the first unionized store in the chain. He set aside the vote taken last June to deny unionization and ordered a second election be held.

Sacre bleu! Had Wal-Mart once again infuriated the populace, supplying more ammunition to those who would keep it out of the Big Apple while they happily shop in discount store heaven at Tar-jay? But wait. Zut alors! It was not Wal-Mart that incurred the wrath of Steven Davis, an administrative law judge with the National labor Relations Board. It was Target!

As I’ve said on numerous occasions, Wal-Mart and Target act essentially alike in most operational matters, such as hourly pay scales, benefits including health insurance, and a fervent anti-union bias. Wal-Mart bears the brunt of most objections because it is much larger than Target and, to be honest, the elites who govern municipalities and those who comment on it prefer the décor and merchandise inside a Target store to that of Wal-Mart. It’s only recently that union leaders, who allowed Target to gain a foothold in New York City without serious objection, have finally turned their sights onto the bullseye-logoed chain. 

"When Target tries to open stores in this city, we'll bring this decision to the City Council," said Pat Purcell, assistant to the president of Local 1500 of the United Food and Commercial Workers Union. "This is important information we need to disseminate. This is not the image people had of Target a year ago." 

Email Screeds: My retired friend Gary sent me a video of divers swimming around a coral reef. Beautiful video, but as you may know, coral reefs are dying because of too much pollution and intrusion by humans. So what's the solution—let them die off or place restrictions (yes, by government action) on their use so that they may be enjoyed forever and contribute to ocean life (and that of mankind, as well, through the food chain)? 

It's a tough choice. Do we care just about our pleasures and the here and now, or do we care about future generations? 

Being retired and recuperating from knee surgery, Gary has too much time on his hands, I believe. He’s always sending me right-wing screeds, most of which he doesn’t bother to vet through Snopes.com or some other source. In the last few days no fewer than 10 emails. 

One of the latest I received had two parts, the first citing an article reportedly from Investors Business Daily that compared medical statistics compiled by the United Nations for the United States, Canada and England. By wide margins the U.S. came out ahead in the following categories: percentage of men and women who survived a cancer five years after diagnosis; percentage of patients diagnosed with diabetes who received treatment within six months; percentage of seniors needing hip replacement who received it within six months; percentage referred to a medical specialist who sees them within one month; number of MRI scanners per million people;  percentage of seniors (65+), with low income, who say they are in "excellent health”.

All this by way of getting to the email’s central first point—England and Canada have national health insurance; the U.S. doesn’t, thus underscoring why we have better health care and should resist Obamacare.

Assuming the data was correct, I pointed out to Gary another United Nations study, this one of life spans among 194 countries. In that study, the United States came in 38th, with an average life span of 78.2 years for everyone, 75.6 for men and 80.8 for women. The United Kingdom (England is not broken out separately) ranked 20th, with an overall average of 79.4 years, 77.2 for men, 81.6 for women. Canada was number 12, with an overall figure of 80.7 years, 78.3 for men, 82.9 for women.

So I guess if you want to live longer the U.S. isn't such a good place to reside, compared to 37 other countries including England and Canada.

By the way, a Central Intelligence Agency study ranked Canada in 13th place, the United Kingdom 28th and the United States 50th!

The second part of Gary’s email focused on allegations President Obama’s cabinet lacks members with prior business experience (only 8%), as compared to previous administrations going back to that of Teddy Roosevelt. It’s another falsehood spread by right wingers, I told him, but even if we assume the numbers are correct, here are some interesting points to be extracted from the bogus data: 

Harding, Coolidge and Hoover each were said to have had more than 40% of their respective cabinets stocked with business experienced secretaries. Yet they failed to monitor excesses of industry and business and led us into the Great Depression and couldn't get us out of it; Reagan’s cabinet was said to have 56% with business experience, yet he raised taxes 11 times; George W. Bush supposedly had 55% with business experience, yet he led us into the worst recession since the Great Depression. 

In other words, having businessmen in your cabinet does not necessarily lead to having a smart cabinet, one that knows what to do with the economy or has compassion for the common man.

Baseball Redux? From my birth in 1949 until I was 16 years old, there was one constant in my sporting life. Except for 1954 and 1959, I could count on the NY Yankees being in the World Series. They won 14 American League championships in the span of 16 years, converting nine of those pennants into World Series victories. 

From 1995 through 2011, the Bronx Bombers displayed an equally prodigious appetite for post-season play. They participated in 16 out of 17 playoffs. They represented the American League in seven World Series, winning five. 

But this 2012 season has all the earmarks of 1965 when the Yankees collapsed after losing a seven-game World Series to the St. Louis Cardinals. Interestingly, St. Louis won the baseball title last year, again in seven games, this time over the Texas Rangers, the new powerhouse of the American League.

In 1964, the Yankees had a 99-63 record. In 1965, the Yanks tumbled to a 77-85 record as their stars, including Mickey Mantle, Joe Pepitone, Tom Tresh, Bobby Richardson and Tony Kubek, Clete Boyer, Elston Howard, Whitey Ford, Jim Bouton, Mel Stottlemyre, and Al Downing, all seemed to get old at the same time. 

After 42 games this year, one-quarter of the schedule, the Yankees record is 21-21. Age apparently has overtaken this year’s roster. I’m not going to pile on and relate the causes of their ineptitude. You can read about it on any sports page or listen to it on any sports radio or TV show. I’m just going to note I’m old enough to have enjoyed two exceptional periods of baseball productivity. When the first ended in 1964, Yankees fans suffered through a drought of 11 years of early season-ending good-byes. 

No Yankees baseball in October was especially hard given the pathetic play of the NY Football Giants during that era. I fear the Yankees have entered another baseball desert wasteland. I hope I’m proved wrong. I’ll check back with you in October (if not sooner), but at least the Giants appear to be on solid ground.

Economic Lessons From An Early Age

Choo Choo Coleman is back in town.

I wasn’t a NY Mets fan growing up, nor at present, but I saw Choo Choo play for the Mets in the old Polo Grounds, the team’s first home before Shea Stadium and now Citi Field rose in Flushing Meadows. It was at the Polo Grounds I witnessed first-hand the mastery of Sandy Koufax of the Los Angeles Dodgers. At the Polo Grounds, pitchers would warm up before the game near their respective dugouts. As Koufax warmed up, my brother and I made our way to the front row. I still can visualize the 12-to-6 curveballs Koufax spun during his warm-ups, hear the thumps of his fastballs as they hit the catcher’s mitt.

Choo Choo (nobody called him Coleman) came back to New York for the first time since 1966 to be a featured guest at baseball memorabilia shows and a baseball writers’ dinner (http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/24/sports/baseball/mets-choo-choo-coleman-50-years-later.html?_r=1&src=me&ref=sports).

One of the foundations of any sports show is the showcasing and trading of baseball cards. Like most youngsters I had a massive baseball card collection, cleaned out one day by my mother. I didn’t have a hard to secure Rogers Hornsby card, but I had my fair share of Mickey Mantles, Yogi Berras, Roberte Clementes and Stan Musials.

Baseball cards were not just for collecting. They were also for playing with, often in ways that were sort of like gambling. Just like pitching pennies, where the winner is the one who flicked a penny closest to the wall, kids would cast cards toward a wall. A variation on this game was tossing a card towards a wall already targeted by your opponent; if your card landed on top of your opponent’s, you claimed his card. If it didn’t, he took yours.

Another game entailed holding a card to a wall and letting it tumble down. Your opponent won your card if his fell on top of yours. He lost his if it didn’t.

A fourth game was dropping cards from your hand to match the front or back of your opponent’s cards. One trick we used—if you wanted the card to land on its picture side, you’d hold the card with the back facing out. Fifth game variation: dropping cards from a wall, your opponent trying to match the fronts and backs.

Baseball cards were not just gambling devices. Using clothes pins, kids affixed cards to bicycle wheel spokes to make clicking noises while speeding through neighborhoods. Of course, I didn't do this because I never learned to ride a two-wheeler as a child.

Cards were also used to set up a defensive field in a game of marble baseball. If a batted marble rolled to a pre-determined spot on the field without first touching a card, you reached base safely. But if a marble skimmed over a card, you were out.

Perhaps the greatest contribution baseball cards made to the youth of America was their part in our education into the ways of capitalism.

Baseball cards were our currency of exchange We learned about supply and demand. We learned not all cards had equal value. We learned how to trade for the cards we wanted. We learned how to be good losers. We learned how to size up the competition, how to stay away from sharpies, how to exploit suckers. We learned fortunes could be won or lost in an hour. We learned sometimes it's the smart thing to walk away during a hot streak, that success can be fleeting if based on the flip of a card.

We learned, ultimately, that not everyone shared our values, that what we thought was gold our mothers thought was trash.

We learned to forgive, at least on the outside, but never to forget the simple joys of baseball cards.

And lest anyone think I'd forgotten, mom also threw out my comic book collection.

Are You Ready For Some Football

Now that ESPN’s Monday Night Football broadcast has been circumcised of any openly bigoted celebrities (thank you, Hank Williams Jr., for making it kosher to view America’s favorite sport without feeling too guilty about tuning in to redneck country), let’s turn our attention to a post-mortem on the untimely demise of our, or at least my, favorite team, the NY Yankees. I’ll try not to repeat what others have said or written.

* Right off the bat (don’t you just love that pun), I’ll violate my last sentence—the Yanks didn’t lose to the Detroit Tigers 3-2 last night because of their pitching. They lost because of the Tigers pitching. They lost because they didn’t hit, not just in the last game but throughout most of the first round playoff series. With few exceptions they did not hit with men in scoring position, and since the name of the game in baseball is to score more than your opponent in each game, not collectively throughout a series, they lost. Blame, and yes, in this case there is blame, Alex Rodriguez, Mark Teixeira, Nick Swisher, and even Derek Jeter. Robinson Cano, as well, came up short, like Jeter's fly ball to the wall in the eighth inning last night, when it really mattered, when runners were on base, except that one time in Game One when he hit a grand slam. Yes, Cano hit a solo home run yesterday, but he made out earlier in the game with two runners on.
* Some players are great during the regular season but wilt during the post-season. That’s been the pattern for years—at bat, not in the field—for A-Rod, Teixeira and Swisher. There’s no predicting how a player will perform in the playoffs, so let’s not bury these guys. Mope and hiss, but keep in mind, the difficult part of any season is making the playoffs. Only four teams make it from each league; these players have helped the Yanks continue their exemplary record of qualifying for 16 out of the last 17 years. Remarkable.
* A-Rod’s prowess at bat is diminishing. Watching A-Rod over the remaining seven years of his contract will be a flashback to watching Mickey Mantle in the twilight of his Hall of Fame career, only fewer people idolize A-Rod so his failures will be less tolerated.
* Jorge Posada showed he still can be a big-game player. He led all starters with a.429 playoff batting average. It will be sad to see him on another team next year. I was rooting for him to cap his Yankee career by smacking a tying home run in the eighth inning last night.
* Ron Darling and John Smoltz, TNT color commentators last night, made a point of saying the electronic image of a pitch was not accurate. So why bother showing it? It grossly frustrates fans when pitches clearly outside the strike zone on the graphic are called strikes against your team and balls when your pitcher throws them, or when your pitcher throws the ball inside the box and it's called a ball.
* The disappointment of unfulfilled expectations will linger for months, soothed by just one thought—The Yankees made it to the playoffs, the Boston Red Sox did not. Now, onto watching the NY Giants. My expectations going into this football season were low, so my pleasure at how well they play (they’re already 3-1) will be boundless. Unless they make it to the playoffs, at which time I’ll be crushed if they fail to win the Super Bowl.

Pinstripes Forever

Perhaps it was the graininess of the black and white photo in Friday’s NY Times (sorry, it wasn’t posted on the Web site so I can’t provide a link). Or maybe it was his straight-on-to-the-camera pose. Or the close-cropped hair that seemed to show a receding hairline more pronounced than Joe Torre’s. But in that newspaper photo with his former skipper at a benefit dinner Thursday night in support of Torre’s charitable work, Derek Jeter looked old. And very corporate.

He was wearing a pinstriped suit. Jeter may have been sending a subtle message to Yankeedom in his first experience as a free agent that pinstripes year-round are his most comfortable attire.

Torre wore pinstriped suits on and off the field, as well, but it’s now three years since he gave them up on the field. Of course, managers are more expendable than the faces of franchises. The Yankees have had four iconic managers—Miller Huggins, Joe McCarthy, Casey Stengel and Torre. Huggins died in office in 1929. The other three, despite each winning multiple American League pennants and World Series, wore out their welcome in the Bronx, at least in the minds of team executives.

During the same time, the Yanks have had six players whose identities were forever linked to their franchise—Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Joe DiMaggio, Mickey Mantle, Don Mattingly and Derek Jeter (you can argue about some others, such as Yogi Berra, Thurman Munson, and Mariano Rivera, but none of them would be the cover boy for an era of Yankee baseball). All but the Babe came up through the Yankee system and played all their games for New York.

It seems everyone has an opinion on Jeter’s future value to the Yankees, in terms of how many years his next contract should cover, how much he should be paid and what position he should play.

I’m already on record as biased toward Jeter, so here’s my suggestion: He should get a three year contract. One year option clause. $18 million a year (he made $22.6 million in 2010) with annual incentives if he bats better than .300, scores more than 100 runs, knocks in at least 70 runs and makes fewer than a dozen errors. He should play shortstop. Pencil him in to play the field 130 games. He should not move to third base as Alex Rodriguez plays superbly there and A-Rod’s range is also diminishing, so putting him at shortstop would not solve any defensive gaps in the infield. Possibly in year two or three of the contract, Jeter might share designated hitter chores with Jorge Posada, but only if the Yanks have a competent shortstop who can hit at least .260.

This arrangement might not make anyone happy, but it’s in the best interests of all who want to see Derek Jeter in pinstripes for all his playing days.

Birthday Bash

The NY Yankees handed out some birthday presents today.

In bashing the Texas Rangers 7-2 to avoid an embarrassing elimination game at Yankee Stadium, the Bronx Bombers honored two of their greats.

October 20 would have been the 100th birthday of Bob Sheppard, the longtime public address announcer at the Stadium whose stentorian voice can still be heard introducing Derek Jeter every time he comes to the plate during home games. Sheppard died July 11.

October 20 would have been the 79th birthday of Mickey Mantle. The Mick died August 13, 1995. Mantle’s legacy always shines bright with Yankee fans and is enjoying a current spotlight because of a new biography by Jane Leavy, The Last Boy: Mickey Mantle and the End of America's Childhood.

October 20 also is the birthday of Daniel Alexander Forseter. The 32-year-old ultimate frisbee player (his team came in 5th in the world last summer and will be competing for the North American championship next week) is a big Yankee fan (as is his wife, Allison). He has remained a loyal pinstripe fan even after living for the last 13 years in the heart of Red Sox nation. Perhaps it’s because he was born in 1978, a magical year for the Yanks who came back from 14 games behind the Red Sox to force a one game playoff which they won, in Boston, on Bucky Dent’s dramatic three run homer. They then defeated the Los Angeles Dodgers for the second straight year in the World Series in six games. Dan was born three days later.

The Major, The Navy, and a Simple Word

The celebration of the late George M. Steinbrenner III continues, with some of his admirers advocating his immediate election to the Baseball Hall of Fame rather than making the legendary, controversial owner of the NY Yankees wait several years as other mortals must.

The last two weeks have been particularly sad for Yankee fans. Aside from Boss George, we lost Bob Sheppard, the longtime “voice of the Yankees.”

Equally poignant was the death of Ralph Houk, the Major, a true World War II decorated hero, who managed the pinstriped boys in The Bronx for 11 years, winning three straight pennants (1961-63) and two consecutive World Series (1961-62). Houk’s first three years as Yankee skipper spanned the last glory years of Mickey Mantle, Whitey Ford, Yogi Berra, and Roger Maris. He returned for a second stint as manager during the nadir of the franchise, taking over in 1966 and staying until the end of 1973, Steinbrenner’s first year as owner. It’s no coincidence Houk left the Yankee dugout when he did. His managerial philosophy could not have been more diametrically different than Steinbrenner’s.

“I don’t think you can humiliate a player and expect him to perform,” Houk was quoted as saying.

The bottom line is this: when Houk was given great players, the team won. When his roster had aging or mediocre talent, like Horace Clarke, the team failed. The same can be said for Steinbrenner’s bullying manners. When he paid for the right players, they won. When he bought the wrong players, they failed to win.


Ask Not...: It’s a very simple word. Only three letters. A-S-K. But this word is among the most mispronounced in the English language. Listen, not even too carefully, and too often you will hear someone say “aks” instead of “ask.” Education or socio-economic environment or race doesn’t typecast offenders. One of my former staffers made this egregious mistake, and believe me, when a reporter/editor says in an interview, “May I aks you a question?” it doesn’t reflect favorably on the publication or the writer.


The Navy in Afghanistan: It’s upsetting to learn two U.S. sailors ventured into harm’s way in Afghanistan, with one killed and the other taken prisoner by Taliban forces. First question that came to mind—why is the Navy represented in a landlocked country? Second question—why would these sailors voluntarily travel into a danger zone?

The NY Times tried to answer the first question with the following sentence in a Sunday article: “Although soldiers make up the lion’s share of American forces in Afghanistan, which is landlocked, most bases have a mix of service members, including from the Navy.”

My hypothesis for the second question is these sailors were part of a Special Operations unit. Otherwise, I can’t figure out why any sailors are there.

The frantic efforts to find and retrieve the captured serviceman will give Americans a greater appreciation for what Israelis are going through the last four-plus years, since Gilad Shalit was kidnapped by Hamas and taken to the Gaza Strip.

Yankee Corner

East 55th Street and Lexington Avenue became my unofficial Yankees Corner. It was there, down the block from my office on Park Avenue, I said hello to Johnny Damon (twice) and Shelley Duncan. I could have greeted George Steinbrenner but reacted too sluggishly when our paths crossed about 10 years ago as he was crossing north and I walked south along Lex. He was wearing his signature white turtleneck sweater under a blue blazer, but what surprised me at the time of our fleeting encounter was his height. I had always envisioned Steinbrenner as a giant of a man, equal in size to his ego. He was a larger than life character, but he stood just six feet tall. My height.

George, King George, The Boss, will be missed, but, in truth, he hasn’t been around for at least three years. I’m not talking about his body. I’m referring to his presence. His ability to control a dynamic. It’s a testament to him that the Yankees won their 27th and most recent (it would be wrong to call it their “last”) championship adhering to the principles he espoused.

I started going to Yankee games back in the 1950s. One of my father’s sales representatives, Mr. Schaineman, with offices in the Empire State Building, would give my brother and me tickets to games. We’d take the subway up from Brooklyn to The Bronx. Back then, after the final out, you could walk across the outfield grass as you exited the Stadium through the gates behind the center field monuments of Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig and Miller Huggins. One year we went to the Mayor’s Trophy Game, an exhibition game between the Yanks and the Dodgers (I can’t remember if Da Bums had already moved to Los Angeles). Gil Hodges hit a ball that landed behind the monuments, 468 feet from home. Hodges lumbered around the bases, but he was a slow runner and was nailed at the plate as he attempted an inside the park home run.

I attended perhaps one or two games during my teenage years through my late 20s, until I returned to New York to work for Lebhar-Friedman in 1977, the year of the first championship won by the Yanks under Steinbrenner. Like Steinbrenner, Roger Friedman, the L-F president, had attended Williams College. Roger was an avid Yankees fan; until the devastating economic downturn of the last few years the company purchased season tickets to four box seats some 12 rows behind the Yankee dugout. They were great seats. I was lucky enough to secure those tickets to one and sometimes two games a season for almost 30 years. I was supposed to take clients, but in truth I mostly took family and friends. I took Dan and Ellie to their first baseball games.

I never ventured out to Monument Park in the old stadium, and have yet to enter the new Yankee Stadium. I’m sure that when that time eventually comes, a sixth monument honoring George M. Steinbrenner III will join in grace those of Huggins, Ruth, Gehrig, Mickey Mantle and Joe DiMaggio.