What year did you start to follow major league baseball?

[saturdaysarebetter]

What year did you start to follow major league baseball?

For me, it was 1969.

[troystory]

1976, elementary school. My first love. I started watching when the great infield was in the middle of their run.

[the909]

Same exactly, growing up in Kansas City. Good years to be a Royals fan, late 70’s.

[SC Gator]

Early 50s, I’d say 1953 or 54. Simultaneously I started following the Hollywood Stars of the PCL, as MLB in L.A. was still 4-5 years away.

I started buying baseball cards at the corner market in ’54. My first clear memory of a major league game was Game 1 of the Giants-Indians World Series in ’54, the game that involved Willie Mays’s catch of Vic Wertz’s 460-foot fly ball and ended with an extra-inning, pinch-hit, walkoff homer from Dusty Rhodes. I’m an L.A. native, but my mother’s family came to L.A. from Cleveland, so initially I was sort of an Indians fan. My aunt once brought me back an official wool flannel jersey with “Indians” in script across the front. The thing weighed a ton before you started sweating.

Eventually I gravitated to the Cardinals, having made Stan Musial my idol. The first major league game I ever attended was Dodgers-Cardinals at the Coliseum in April 1958. We had baller seats, first row and right over the Cardinals bat rack, and just in front of Gregory Peck. I had my arm in a full cast, having broken my wrist the week before. When Musual came to the bat rack in the first inning I reached out with my glove (Rawlings PMM — “Playmaker” with Musial’s signature) and asked for his autograph. He mumbled something to the effect of, “Not now, but I’ll take care of you later.” When the game ended he came back over, flipped me the infield ball and then signed it.

[saturdaysarebetter]

That is great!  Being Polish, my dad loved Musial.

My first game I attended was at Three Rivers Stadium with my uncle. We went down to the railing before the game and Manny Sanguillen was playing catch with another player.

I yelled out, “Manny, can I have your autograph?” He looked and said, “I’ll be there in a minute.”  Sure enough, he did come over and gave me his autograph.

[SC Gator]

Getting autographs when the Dodgers played at the Coliseum was a breeze.  You just had to wait at the top of the players’ tunnel near Tunnel 13.  No one had yet invented selling autographs.  Most of the players I recognized by look, so I knew I was getting a genuine autograph.  But I know I got a few clunkers along the way, probably from non-players affiliated with one of the clubs.  The one I remember best is Earl E. Schub, who signed at least one baseball for me.

 

[SC Gator]

I didn’t realize “Better” was a Polish name.

 

[SC Gator]

How far away was the nearest major league ballpark when you started following in ’69? And does that explain how it was another seven years before you got to a game?

My excuse was I had to wait for a major league team to arrive in my town. Before the Dodgers moved west, the nearest major league team was in St. Louis.

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