Opportunity finally knocks.
I‘ve been waiting for the opportunity to write — or transcribe — this story since July 2017, when Rick Wolff told it during his father’s memorial tribute at Madison Square Garden.
Bob Wolff — cherished sportscaster, essayist, broadcasting teacher and gentleman preacher of right over wrong — had died at 96.
Rick — an author, publishing executive and former minor league infielder out of Harvard — had scores of stories to choose from. But he went with this one:
“It was, I’d say, 1971, a very hot summer’s day. I was playing in the Atlantic Collegiate Baseball League for the Brooklyn-Queens Dodgers. We played most of our games at St. John’s, but a few were at Creedmoor in Queens.”
Creedmoor, once indelicately known as an insane asylum, is now identified as a psychiatric facility.
“I parked, then walked over to the field for stretching, infield and batting practice, the usual.
“It was so hot. The only shade was in the dugout. And in the dugout I met a player who’d just joined our team, a catcher named Tom. We shook hands and sat down. Tom looked around. This wasn’t the greatest field in the world and it was baked. And it was surrounded by, well, by Creedmoor.
“Tom looked straight out and said to me, ‘I don’t mind telling you, this place gives me the creeps.’
“All of a sudden, way off to the left, I see my father. Now he was never known for his sartorial splendor. And on this day he had on a pair of very baggy black trousers and a very faded Hawaiian print shirt that he probably had since college.
“On his feet he wore a pair of high, black Converse sneakers. And on his head he wore an old, off-white African pith helmet. What a sight.
“As my dad walked toward our dugout, Tom said to me, ‘Oh, my God, look at this guy! And he’s headed right at us!’
“So my father comes over and sits next to us in the dugout. He’s sitting there and we’re chatting about the hot weather and impersonal things, as strangers would, when I said to my father, ‘Dad, I want you to meet Tom, our new catcher.’
“Tom was very polite. ‘Very nice to meet you, sir.’ But it was clear he was confused.
“My dad, said, ‘Well, I’ll let you fellas go about your business,’ and he left the dugout.
“Tom waited a few moments for my dad to walk from hearing range then turned to me and says, ‘I’m so sorry. I had no idea your father is a patient here!’
“ ‘Perhaps he should be,’ I said, ‘but that’s just the way he dresses.’ ”
Deaths highlight Shofner’s Hall of Fame omission
Bobby Mitchell, the first black NFL player for Washington, where he starred as a receiver after playing running back — a “half back” as known when he began — with Cleveland in the late 1950s, died last Sunday at 84.
Mitchell’s death was preceded by two weeks by that of Del Shofner, the Giants’ star wide receiver — “split end” as they were then known — at 85.
Our old pal, Philadelphia-based Ray Didinger, an NFL historian, sportswriter and archivist notes:
“In the years 1958 through 1962, the NFL’s leaders in touchdown receptions were the Eagles’ Tommy McDonald (55), Shofner (39), the Colts’ Lenny Moore (32), the Colts’ Raymond Berry (28) and Mitchell (27).
“The only one of the five who is not in the Hall of Fame is Shofner. A case should be made for him as a senior candidate in the near future.”
As long as we’ve set the Way-Back Machine, Boy Sherman, one more from the Richie Ashburn File:
When he was a rookie manager in 1985, John Felske’s Phillies finished 75-87. In a radio interview on Opening Day the next season, Ashburn asked what the Phils could expect to be different from Felske in the upcoming season.
Felske said he no longer was going to be soft on umpires; he was going to get out there and back his players to the hilt.
Ashburn thought about that for a moment, then asked “Well, then, Skip, who will replace you after you’re tossed?”
As for Boy Sherman, of Mr. Peabody and Bullwinkle cartoon fame, Mort Drucker, the incomparable caricaturist who made Mad Magazine a rainy day summer camp must, died Thursday at 91.
Junk email purge
More from waiting for the curve to flatten:
With nothing much else to do, Wednesday — gratefully, no one in my home, family or among close friends has been infected — I decided to purge my computer of several years of come-ons and advertising. All of it, after all, is junk email I never solicited.
Easily done, right? Just look for that tiny “unsubscribe” prompt, press it and voila! — I’m unsubscribed to dozens of ads to which I never subscribed.
Fat chance. Once I hit the “unsubscribe” line, a new screen popped up demanding to know my email address in order to unsubscribe. But if they knew my email to initially invade my email, why don’t they know it to allow me to leave?
Finally, with my email repeatedly typed in, I pressed submit. Then most read, “Allow 10-15 business days to be unsubscribed.” Why? How long did it take for them to subscribe me to what I never wanted or subscribed?
Finally, up on the screen pops, “Sorry to see you go.”
And then I felt rotten about the whole thing, as if I were ungrateful for all their unsolicited attention. Then I felt like a rat.
Virus, Misc. II: Amazon Kindle books made me a fabulous shut-in offer last week. I could “preorder” books.
I could order books before I ordered books? Fascinating. Had the books not yet been written? So I looked deeper.
Prices had already been attached to the preordered books, so the advantage in preordering the books that I could already order escaped me.
Unwilling to risk it, I let it go. Though it might have been worth a few books and bucks to see if I was sent a thank-you for ordering preordered books.