WHAT'S BEST ABOUT BASEBALL

I woke up this morning like most people in America did I'd guess.  I felt heavy.  I'm tired.  You're tired. WE are all tired.  Pandemic?  Yep.  It sucks to put it mildly.  It's taken so much from us.  All of us.

Political stuff... which we don't necessarily touch here at BYB... Yes.  That's a BIG 10-4.  It's like hearing "Mmm Bop" on loop on speakers that go to Spinal Tap's "11", 24/7, 365.  It is exhausting.

Nobody is wrong on their side, everybody is right on your side... Side? That's what tires me the most. There isn't supposed to be a side.  Just one team.  Look at the great success stories in modern history. Talent was key, but team chemistry was PARAMOUNT!  Even on clubs that had personalities that didn't jibe all that well.  Chemistry boils down to respecting your teammate and knowing they'll play their asses off for the team. 

We need to find that again here in the Good ol' U.S. of A.  And what better time then now?  We are all commonly dealing with struggle, loss and heartbreak.  Why not pick a teammate up?  Be a spot starter for a friend nursing a real life injury.  Come up big for a struggling rookie who whiffed at a ball in the dirt trying to make something happen for his or her family.  

The unforgivable evil of this Covid-19 slog is that it has separated us.  People (even those you disagree with politically) NEED other people.  We are not, that is each of us, an island.  Social Media has merit, but the bad massively outweighs the good in my opinion.  It has killed the "PUB CULTURE" (why an Irishman like myself believes the Irish could save the world).  That is face to face interaction.  Real conversations where we can see and feel the connection we share.  An iPhone screen or laptop doesn't bring you in for the "real thing".  It just doesn't.  But thanks to coronavirus we are more dependent on that which causes us the most unwanted stress, anger and exhaustion.

I was scrolling through Instagram... a shocker given the time we live in, right?  I found a video of Derek Jeter's final All-Star Game in Minnesota.  It was just what I needed after the news cycle the past year.  It was America at it's best.  Nobody seemed to be tweeting as they panned around Target Field.  No one was arguing in the stands.  People from all over the country...New Yorkers, Minnesotans, Chicagoans , Floridians...hell, even those wicked pissah Bostonians stood and cheered for an American Baseball Player.  

Jeet wasn't a Yankee that night.  He was the little boy on the tee ball diamond and we were all his folks.  Chatting it up with other parents. Enjoying the game and each other's company.  

"Who'd you vote for?"  wasn't asked.  "Should we tax Jim more?  He has made a killing in the market!" not on anyone's mind or lips.  We were together and watched baseball.  It is truly surreal how it can calm the country, and allow a map to how we SHOULD be acting.  Sure Boston fans will never like the Bronx faithful.  LA and Frisco's battle started when they were still Giants on the Polo Grounds and guys named Jackie and Pee Wee were still dodging trains in Brooklyn.  The North side and South side may share a great love for "Da Bears", but the line is drawn when it comes to Sox and Baby Bears surrounded by Ivy covered brick.  

BUT... we still love those other teams in some strange way.  We do.  I can't stand the LA Angels of Anaheim, near Disneyland, close to the 5 Freeway, by the mall with Tony Roma's, close to the Olive Garden where No Doubt got their start...but I still love to watch them play.

Baseball heals us.  It really does.  I watched "City Slickers' recently. A totally underrated movie in my opinion, and there is a scene where Daniel Stern's character, a broken man down on his luck...sorta like most in 2020 says that baseball has always been there to help him talk with a father he didn't have a great connection with.  Many of us have that sort of relationship with others in America right now... but baseball always acts like the old friend we all have in common.  The guy that comes to town and gets us all together.  It's then we are reminded that differences don't add up to much...but commonality very much does.

I miss you guys.  Sure I don't know any of you really.  Not in the sense that we are close friends or family.  But at a ballgame we really are.  How many hugs and high 5's have you thrown around to the folks in the row behind you at moments like when Paul O'Neill and Donnie Baseball caused Gary Throne to exclaim, "HOLD ON TO THE ROOF!" in 1995...a series the Yanks lost...but I remember the good stuff because of baseball.  

Baseball isn't a game to us.  It's a family member. It's hope. It's a great album we can play until the needle breaks. It's home.

We need it back.

Credit: Elite Sports NY

Much love to you and yours in 2021 (my lucky number and the number of the Warrior.)

--Mikey 

Yes, it's a little on the nose and a lot cliche'... but sometimes you need to remember that we are.

--Mike O'Hara
BYB Contributor
Twitter: @mikeyoh21

ANOTHER REASON TO LOVE ANTHONY FAUCI

Source: AP

Here at BYB we are always exploring nuggets, fan favorites, little things, that might get overlooked, if you are not perceptive.  And this Wednesday, we have one of those nuggets to explore and quite frankly have a some fun with in a way only we can.

Earlier this week, one of American's most trusted individuals, Dr. Anthony Fauci, said it is plausible that we have baseball this season. “People who know more about baseball structure than I do have said it, but I think it’s reasonable. You could either have a situation where you get the group of players and you put them in a few cities, you make sure they’re not infected, you test them so that they don’t infect each other, and you have baseball — as much as it’s tough to say — in a spectator-less environment. You have people playing in an environment in which people can watch it on television," said Fauci, reported in the New York Post.  Sure that is a terrific reason to love the good doctor.  But I have another.

Source: The New York Post

Dr. Anthony Fauci, a leader for the President's coronavirus task force and director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, is a Yankee fan!  Yes, the Brooklyn native is a lifelong Yankee fan, despite being raised in Dodger territory.

"I think people who don’t come from the New York area – at least are not old like I am and come from the New York area – don’t realize back then that half the people in Brooklyn were Yankee fans. There was a wonderful competitiveness and rivalry between the friends who were Dodgers fans and Yankees fans,” Fauci said. “We had a whole culture. It was Duke Snider vs. Mickey Mantle. Yogi Berra vs. Roy Campanella. Pee Wee Reese vs. Phil Rizzuto. We used to follow their batting averages that I could tell you, on any given day in elementary school, exactly what the point up or down in Yogi Berra’s average was, or Mickey Mantle or anybody.”

Wow! Just wow!  He's a Yankee fan despite being from Bensonhurst.  How exciting is that?  During an interview with Jack Curry on #YESWereHere, Fauci talks about his fandom and his love of the game. He says that there is something special when you walk into a stadium and look out at that manicured field for the first time and how much he enjoys just having a dog and a beer at the ballpark.

Source: YES Network

Last week, we learned that Dr. Fauci graduated from Regis High School, a Jesuit school in the Upper East Side of Manhattan.  My guess is young Fauci caught a number of games at the House that Ruth Built as a kid.  I feel like he may have even sat next to my dad, who would have been 78 this May, just a year younger than Fauci who is 79.  My dad knew what Mantle's average was at every given moment too.  Real fans know those things.

His leadership has been clearly visible as he stands toe-to-toe with the President, telling the truth and sharing data-driven evidence with Americans.

Source: Yuri Gripas/Abaca Press/TNS

"Straight, down-the-middle in style, the authenticity in the gravel of his voice, the Brooklyn twang, his white coat, the cadence of his speech. And, then, that authenticity only deepens as it takes its substance from the one of the most challenging forms of honesty: telling truth to power, in the presence of that power, without, at least overtly, insulting that power. Wow, we say, that guy must only have one, pure motivation: he sees his role as serving us, serving others, serving his country," reported Forbes Magazine about Fauci's education at Regis and the College of the Holy Cross in MA.

No surprise that Dr. Fauci, leader, and one of the top doctors, is a Yankee fan; just another reason to love him.  And if baseball makes its comeback this season, it will be clearly under the scrutiny and guidance from the good doctor.

--Suzie Pinstripe
BYB Managing Editor
Twitter: @suzieprof

A SAMPLE OF BILLY SAMPLE

Growing up, there was a dude I always admired...and he played for the Texas Rangers most of his career.

When he came to the Yankees for the 1985 season, I was psyched.  His name was Billy Sample.

Over this past weekend, Billy and I spoke on Facebook.  Little did he realize that we spoke once before. Back in the summer of 2003 when my 11 year old son was just a baby.  I'm not sure if I ever told the Bleeding Yankee Blue audience about this, but when all of my kids were born, I made it a mission of mine to send out my baseball cards to baseball players and ask them for their autograph for my son.  I've stayed true to that, collecting many autographs over the years for my 4 boys.  And when they are old enough to have a true interest in the baseball players of years past, I will hand them their book of autographed baseball cards that I put together for each of them and hopefully they'll cherish them as much as I enjoyed making them.

You see, I love baseball, and as a kid, I sent cards out as well. I just figured years later, I would do something that I truly enjoyed for them.  An extension of myself or something... I don't know.

In that mix of players in 2003 was Billy Sample. I sent my letter to Billy, and instead of sending me back a price form to charge me for his autograph like so many try to do, he wrote me a letter, and then another, and another and we corresponded quite a bit in 2003.  Here's a sample, and I'm giving you this nugget and only this nugget because obviously, the conversations are private.

Billy Sample is a stand-up guy, a smart baseball mind, and at the time he was working for MLB Radio.  I was fascinated with his baseball knowledge, his stories and his eagerness to help me put together a card collection for my kid.  In short, he was kind and a helluva guy.

Now, 11 years later we meet again. This time, we spoke about Don Zimmer.  I asked for permission to print this correspondence between Mr. Sample and I because I really wanted to share it with you.  It comes from the heart and it's about Don Zimmer. You'll love it. Rest in Peace, Don Zimmer:

"I played eight years and a month in the majors, and I'm proud of that month! I had eight managers during that tenure.  My favorite one passed away, Don Zimmer.  I thought he told it to you as straight as it could be told, and it wasn't always what I wanted to hear.  A trade late in spring training for Lee Mazzilli in 1982 had me wondering where Lee was going to play.  

I walked into the clubhouse the next morning, and the clubhouse attendant said that Zim wanted to see me. I thought, "Noooooo!"  I was mad going in in those meetings and not all that happy coming out of them, but I could appreciate Zim trying to use the analogy of him backing up Pee Wee Reese when he thought he would get a shot at shortstop in the fifties with the Dodgers. 

As you know, he was quite a character.  One day after a night game in Texas and an off day before going to Toronto, we left early in the morning on the off day. Usually the team would leave later in the evening, as there is no need to be in the home team's city by eleven am.   However, there is a need if you want to get to the horse track and bet on all thirteen races!  And you should have seen this old school Dodger trying to implement the new wave short term performance philosophy directed by the front office!  

He once said to me, 'How many hits will you get in your next thirty at bats, six, seven, eight?'  I reached for the pocket schedule he had on his desk. 'Are we facing both Morris and Petry in the next series?'  The number given had to be re-adjusted. 

If you were around him for any period of time, you have a story. I have more, maybe for another time.

Condolences to his lovely and congenial widow, Soot. The game and the people involved were better because of his sixty-six year association."

Blow your mind? Maybe. For me personally, hearing about the greats through personal stories always makes me all fuzzy inside.  Zimmer inspired many and like Billy said, Zim said it to you straight.  Gotta love that.

Thanks for the sample, Mr. Sample... maybe there will be more. I hope so.

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