CPT Spirits in the Sky - Roy Halladay - Some people are just too good to be here.

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America Lost a National Treasure on September 22, 2015, two years ago, and I Lost a Hero and Friend - Yogi Berra

Yogi Berra, Yankee legend and American icon, died at age 90 two years ago on September 22, 2015, exactly 69 years to the day he played his first game in the major leagues for the Yankees in 1946.  Over the course of the next 19 years, he would become the best catcher in the history of baseball as he led the Yankees to an astonishing 10 World Series championships in 19 years, and fourteen appearances in the World Series during those years.

Berra had a career batting average of.285, while hitting 358 home runs and 1,430 runs batted in. He is one of only five players to win the American League Most Valuable Player Award three times. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest catchers in baseball history, and was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1972.

In 1949, early in Berra’s Yankee career, his manager assessed him this way in an interview in The Sporting News: “Mr. Berra,” Casey Stengel said, “is a very strange fellow of very remarkable abilities.”

Many people know Yogi more for his off-the-field quotes than his baseball stats but his stats only enhance the legend.  His career spanned the careers of Joe DiMaggio, Mickey Mantle, Roger Maris, Whitey Ford, a host of Hall of Famers, and in spite of the hitting reputations of his famous teammates, Yogi drove in more runs during those years than his marquee teammates.

Yogi and Mickey Mantle

Born to Italian immigrants in St. Louis, Yogi dropped out of school after 8th grade to devote his life to baseball.  He served in the Navy in World War II before making his major league debut in 1946.

Yogi and Don Larsen - only perfect game in World Series history

I was born the year he turned pro and during my formative years the kid from St. Louis, about 90 miles down the road from where I lived in Iowa, was a major league super star at catcher, three times MVP, fifteen straight years on the all stars, played in fourteen World series and won ten World championships.

Yogi contesting Jackie Robinson score in World Series

Since I was catcher while winning state championships in Little League and Babe Ruth, the same position as Yogi, he was the role model and reason I was a lifelong Yankees fan, a rare thing in the Midwest.

When I graduated from high school in 1964 I left immediately to visit the Yale campus.  The sports editor who covered my high school career, Al Hoskins of the Ottumwa Courier, joined us in NYC and arranged to get media passes in NYC resulting in dugout and on-field access at the Yankees and Mets stadiums where I got to meet Yogi and the other stars.

Little did I know that twenty years later I would be working for the governor of New Jersey and got to know Yogi and his old teammate Phil Rizzuto up close and personal.  Yogi loved New Jersey and never hesitated to offer his assistance for anything the governor wanted.  He went so far as to host parties at his home in Montclair, NJ where other Hall of Fame players would tell endless stories of the Yogi legend.

No one ever played the game of baseball harder and his career was full of memorable accomplishments.  Yogi the linguist is a legend in his own right and Yogi the person who cared for everyone, especially kids, will never be forgotten.

Yogi has now joined his brothers in the Hall of Fame, among the spirits in the sky, and our world will sorely miss what he gave, and never forget his incredible legacy.

                 

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History will be made tonight in World Series Game 7 finale - America's Game is Back with the Cubs and Indians at the Plate - Tens of Millions will Tune In

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The last Cubs victory in the World Series was 1908, 108 years ago, the longest championship drought in all sports.  For the Cleveland Indians it has been 68 years, since 1948, making the combined total of years without winning the series an astounding 176 years.

The ratings will be through the roof as these two classic franchises take the field, in the  finals of a hard fought series.

Both coaches, Joe Maddon of the Cubs and Terry Francona of the Indians, are class acts.  As Steve Wulf of ESPN sports wrote;

"It's probably time to eject "skipper" from the baseball lexicon. The word is just too inadequate. The modern manager is so much more than the captain of a ship. He is a counselor, a teacher, a leader, a thinker, a storyteller, a cheerleader and a bearer of news, both good and bad.

If there's one thing this epic World Series has demonstrated, it's that the Cubs and Indians are here because of their managers. It's not just a coincidence that two storied Midwestern franchises with Cs on their uniforms are facing each other in the seventh game, hoping to finally write a happy ending. It's also a dazzling demonstration of how the manager has evolved in modern baseball.

Joe Maddon and Terry Francona are both Italian-American, both close to their families, both from small, working-class, Pennsylvania towns. They're not exactly alike -- the ready-for-his-close-up Joe likes fine wine; the self-effacing Tito fondly recalls Boone's Farm -- but they share a sensibility for their players, a willingness to think outside the box and a gift for expressing their thoughts honestly and humorously."

The teams are young, hungry, and gritty with new stars being born in every game.  In spite of the amazing drought in championships, these are two of the best teams in baseball and deserve to be there.  Both are underdogs when it comes to the series but one will reign supreme and cast off the decades old jinx.

The Cubs battled back from a 3-1 deficit and must win two straight in Cleveland to be world champions.  One will win tonight but in truth both are winners as they have brought America's favorite past time back with class and power while for one night will knock politics from the minds of the public hungry for a feel good story.

The following is a great account of game six by Yahoo Sports writer Jeff Passon.

Cubs rout Indians to force Game 7 of World Series

Jeff Passan,Yahoo Sports 8 hours ago 

CLEVELAND – Game 7 of the World Series is coming Wednesday. This seemed almost preordained, even after the Cleveland Indians found themselves in control of the Chicago Cubs. Both of these franchises have spent far too long craving a championship for it to come down to anything less than a do-or-die, empty-the-bullpens, batten-down-the-hatches dance to 27 outs. This is a baseball dream, and it’s coming live at 8 p.m.

Game 6 of the World Series came and went Tuesday. It was a blowout. The Cubs thumped the Indians, 9-3, and made the three-games-to-one advantage Cleveland held seem like a millennium ago. By the third inning, flights were being booked into Cleveland and ticket prices were spiking and the inevitability of 176 years of championship-free baseball boiling down to one game was titillating the collective mind of a country suddenly enthralled with postseason baseball.

Mostly, admittedly, because of the Cubs. Lest this further the Indians’ Other Team™ complex, the Cubs are the story captivating the country, 108 years of heartbreak hanging over their heads, their binary destinies either a delicious, satisfying end to it all or the most painful tease yet. The Indians aren’t some mediocre story, of course, not with their 68 years and the prospect of blowing the same lead their across-the-street neighbors, the Cavs, came back from to steal a championship from the Warriors over the summer.

This is baseball, of course, and there is no singular, transcendent figure like LeBron James patrolling the diamond for the either team. Corey Kluber has been the closest thing, and he’ll start for the third time this series, giving Cleveland its best hope after Trevor Bauer lost Game 5 and Josh Tomlin imploded in Game 6, the latter in a first-inning flurry and third-inning meltdown.

The Cubs’ first run-scoring burst wasn’t entirely Tomlin’s fault. After Kris Bryant walloped a 433-foot home run with two outs, Anthony Rizzo and Ben Zobrist roped back-to-back singles. Addison Russell followed with a fly ball to right-center field that should’ve been an out until a miscommunication between center fielder Tyler Naquin and right fielder Lonnie Chisenhall caused the ball to drop between them. Rizzo and Zobrist scored, staking Cubs starter Jake Arrieta a three-run lead.

Even though he needed no more, the Cubs provided it in the third. A walk and two singles loaded the bases and prompted Indians manager Terry Francona to pull Tomlin. Russell deposited the third pitch from reliever Dan Otero 434 feet over the left-center field wall, becoming the youngest player to hit a grand slam in a World Series since Mickey Mantle and tying a World Series record with six RBIs. It was the third inning, the Cubs led 7-0 and Game 7 was practically inevitable.

Cleveland did muster a pair of runs and was threatening in the seventh, with two on and two out. Cubs manager Joe Maddon summoned closer Aroldis Chapman, who squeezed out of the jam by a hundredth of a second. Francisco Lindor hit a chopper to Rizzo, whose flip to Chapman came just in time to get Lindor – a call that was reversed after first-base umpire Sam Holbrook called him safe.

The next inning was little trouble for Chapman, and Maddon pulled him after a walk in the ninth at 20 pitches, a number that shouldn’t significantly affect his ability to pitch multiple innings in Game 7. It was a call made easier by Anthony Rizzo’s two-run home run in the top of the ninth that gave Chicago a seven-run lead. Pedro Strop gave up a run and Travis Wood recorded the final out for the Cubs. With starters Jon Lester and John Lackey both available to pitch in Game 7, Chicago’s bullpen is fortified for its run at history.

The Cubs are trying to do something only the 1925 Pirates, 1958 Yankees, 1968 Tigers, 1979 Pirates and 1985 Royals have done: come back from a 3-1 deficit in the World Series. Here’s an even more heartening note for Chicago: Only the 1967 Red Sox and 1972 Reds game back to force a Game 7 after being down 3-1 and lost the finale. These Cubs have adopted something of a Rocky theme, with the original film and its sequels playing on clubhouse TVs before Game 5, a tense 3-2 affair, nothing like the blowout of Game 6. It still imbued in Chicago a greater sense of hope than the gloom that hung over the city after Cleveland took Games 3 and 4 at Wrigley Field. Game 5 brought back the signs that said It’s Gonna Happen and left at least some semblance of optimism going into Tuesday.

It was warranted, and now, with standing-room-only tickets starting at $2,000 and actual seats running closer to $2,500, with the highest TV ratings in decades expected, with Major League Baseball riding this close-to-a-dream series to its close-to-a-dream conclusion. Now all it needs is a compelling Game 7 that will remind one city why the wait is worth it and the other about how getting so close can feel worse than not being there at all.

America Lost a National Treasure a year ago and I Lost a Hero and Friend - Yogi Berra

Yogi Berra, Yankee legend and American icon, died at age 90 a year ago on September 22, exactly 69 years to the day he played his first game in the major leagues for the Yankees in 1946.  Over the course of the next 19 years, he would become the best catcher in the history of baseball as he led the Yankees to an astonishing 10 World Series championships in 19 years, and fourteen appearances in the World Series during those years.

In 1949, early in Berra’s Yankee career, his manager assessed him this way in an interview in The Sporting News: “Mr. Berra,” Casey Stengel said, “is a very strange fellow of very remarkable abilities.”

Many people know Yogi more for his off-the-field quotes than his baseball stats but his stats only enhance the legend.  His career spanned the careers of Joe DiMaggio, Mickey Mantle, Roger Maris, Whitey Ford, a host of Hall of Famers, and in spite of the hitting reputations of his famous teammates, Yogi drove in more runs during those years than his marquee teammates.

Yogi and Mickey Mantle

Born to Italian immigrants in St. Louis, Yogi dropped out of school after 8th grade to devote his life to baseball.  He served in the Navy in World War II before making his major league debut in 1946.

Yogi and Don Larsen - only perfect game in World Series history

I was born the year he turned pro and during my formative years the kid from St. Louis, about 90 miles down the road from where I lived in Iowa, was a major league super star at catcher, three times MVP, fifteen straight years on the all stars, played in fourteen World series and won ten World championships.

Yogi contesting Jackie Robinson score in World Series

Since I was catcher while winning state championships in Little League and Babe Ruth, the same position as Yogi, he was the role model and reason I was a lifelong Yankees fan, a rare thing in the Midwest.

When I graduated from high school in 1964 I left immediately to visit the Yale campus.  The sports editor who covered my high school career, Al Hoskins of the Ottumwa Courier, joined us in NYC and arranged to get media passes in NYC resulting in dugout and on-field access at the Yankees and Mets stadiums where I got to meet Yogi and the other stars.

Little did I know that twenty years later I would be working for the governor of New Jersey and got to know Yogi and his old teammate Phil Rizzuto up close and personal.  Yogi loved New Jersey and never hesitated to offer his assistance for anything the governor wanted.  He went so far as to host parties at his home in Montclair, NJ where other Hall of Fame players would tell endless stories of the Yogi legend.

No one ever played the game of baseball harder and his career was full of memorable accomplishments.  Yogi the linguist is a legend in his own right and Yogi the person who cared for everyone, especially kids, will never be forgotten.

Yogi has now joined his fellow Hall of Famers among the spirits in the sky and our world will sorely miss what he gave, and never forget his incredible legacy.

                 

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