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July 18, 2018
What an All-Star Game! (In 1971…)
Is it over yet?
Gosh the American League’s 10-inning win over the National League in the 2018 All-Star Game ended late.
A Cincinnati Red made an error and on the next pitch a Seattle Mariner hit a 3-run homer—and that hardly ended it. The two teams combined for a record 10 home runs. That plus nine walks and 24 strikeouts makes last night’s game a blueprint for what baseball has become in 2018.
Oh, the AL won, 8 points to 6 points, as my awesome Little League moms used to say.
You want a classic big-league All-Star Game? Take us back to when it was for reals, to when the families of Pete Rose and Ray Fosse eat out the night before the game and then the next night Rose runs through Fosse’s shoulder at the plate. Or to when Stan Musial homers in extras to win it for the NL, a moment Musial calls his best moment in baseball. Or to 1971, when I was a boy and the All Star Game was the highlight of the summer.
From 1963-1982, the AL was 1-19 in All Star Games. Consider that. But the one “W” in 1971in Detroit was a biggie, most memorable for Reggie Jackson’s homer into one of the Tiger Stadium light standards beyond right field off Doc Ellis in the AL’s 6-4 win that had more in common with the 2018 game than you might expect.
In the 1971 game, there were six home runs, which tied the All Star Game record. All the scoring came off homers, and all the runs were scored by future Hall of Famers. Twenty-six future Hall of Famers were in uniform.
Check out some names in the NL lineup: Johnny Bench, Willie McCovey, Joe Torre, Hank Aaron, Willie Mays, Willie Stargell, Steve Carlton, Fergie Jenkins, Tom Seaver, Manny Sanguillen, Rose, Lou Brock, Bobby Bonds, Ron Santo. Managed by Sparky Anderson.
And the AL: Boog Powell, Rod Carew, Brooks Robinson, Luis Aparicio, Tony Oliva, Frank Robinson, Carl Yastrzemski, Vida Blue, Mike Cuellar, Mickey Lolich, Sad Sam McDowell, Andy Messersmith, Jim Palmer, Wilbur Wood, Norm Cash, Harmon Killebrew, Frank Howard, Jackson, Al Kaline, and Bobby Murcer. Managed by my guy Earl Weaver.
Goodness. Wish it were coming on again tonight and I was watching it for the first time.
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July 17, 2018
Stan The Music Man
Everyone knew him Stanley Lewis as Stan The Record Man, but I like Stan The Music Man better. Vinyl could hardly contain him.
I had the pleasure of finally meeting him about 20 years ago when I went to his nice brick suburban home for a visit to write a story for The Times. It was mid-afternoon. He met me at the door with that thick white hair folded back, smelling fresh and in a bathrobe. A nice, nice bathrobe.
If I were to greet anyone in a bathrobe anywhere and at any time of day, but especially in Shreveport in mid-afternoon, I’d get beaten up, on the spot. Same thing if I tried to wear one of those French berets like some people do.
But I’m not Stan The Music Man. He can pull this sort of thing off because … he’s him. If he ever sweated, he sweated “cool. I always thought of him — I believe this is correct — as Steve McQueen if Steve McQueen had owned a record store and mail-order record service when rock ‘n’ roll began, like Mr. Stan did.
Some guys got it, some guys ain’t.
Down the hall at his home that day were pictures of him with various Elvis Presleys and Jerry Lee Lewises. Lots and lots of pictures, and a story with each one. It took us 40 minutes to get from the front door to a couch.
Awesome is what it was.
But my favorite picture of him is the one posted, in black and white, right after the end of World War II, not yet 25, young and hungry, full of optimism and good lucks and charm. It’s a confident and hopeful look, and he carried that well and spread it around and made people smile and, man, we can always use more of that.
Mr. Stan passed away July 14 at 91, which is a long time to be on the charts. His funeral Thursday ended the way you might expect, with a song soulful and black and full of joy. If you’ve never heard Andrea Crouch’s “Soon And Very Soon,” do yourself a favor and listen to it now. And thank the good Lord, but thank Stan The Music Man too.
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