By JOHN JAMES MARSHALL/Designated Writers

There’s a really good chance you’ve never heard of Cliff Mapes, which is fine, but you are about to.

Before you do, this is why baseball is so great. Sure, there are the magical statistics that no other sport has, but baseball also has Cliff Mapes.

Cliff hasn’t been been alive since 1996 and his noteworthiness in baseball is accidental and certainly anecdotal. And it’s not like I’m some great Cliff Mapes historian — I didn’t even hear about him until two weeks ago.

But the next time you want to amaze a baseball trivia nut, ask them who is the only person to wear both Babe Ruth’s number (3) AND Mickey Mantle’s number (7) for the New York Yankees.

That’s right … the Cliffmeister.

He was called up to the Yankees in the 1948 season as a backup outfielder — there was a guy named DiMaggio on that team — and Mapes wore the number 3. As hard as it may be to believe, the Yankees hasn’t gotten around to retiring numbers at that time. (They’s only retired about 137 since.)

With the Babe about to die of throat cancer later that year, the team decided to retire Ruth’s number, so Cliff said that’s fine and took No. 13 for the rest of the year.

Maybe he was superstitious, but when he got to spring training for the ’49 season, he traded the unlucky number in for another. This time, it was #7.

Cliffie had a pretty good year in 1950 — 12 dingers, 61 RBI — but then Mantle showed up in 1951 and that was it for Mapes. Mantle had originally been No. 6 but when he returned from the minors, Bobby Brown was wearing No. 6, so Mantle took #7.

Meanwhile, Mapes was traded to the St. Louis Browns, the worst team in baseball (they’d finish 46 games behind the Yankees in the standings.) Cliff had a cup of coffee with the Detroit Tigers in 1952 and then he was out of baseball.

He was a two-time World Series champion and got to play with DiMaggio and Mantle, so that should have been plenty to tell the grandkids about during his golden years.

First ran in Sunday April 18, 2021 editions of Gannett newspapers

Dear Ask the Paperboy,

When is this Super Pink Moon I keep hearing about and what is the deal? Bet it’s some government deal. The moon’s not pink; it’s yellow. Even I know that!

Jim “Moon” Beam in Bunkie

Dear Jim,

Actually the moon is without color but … we’ll get to that. Believe it or not, the Super Pink Moon is actually a real thing. It will reach peak illumination on Monday, April 26, at 12:33 a.m. Central Daylight time, which is approximately four hours after Paperboy will be in bed. According to people paid to consider these types of events, it will still be looking bright and large around 5:30 a.m. on the 27^th. But if you don’t want to get up that early, you’ll still see a bright moon if you can make it until midnight. In spaceman’s terms, it’s called a supermoon because it’s a full moon that happens to be the closest it gets to the Earth during its orbit. In 2021, we’ll have celebrated the Grand Slam of Supermoons: there was one in March, there’s one next week, and there will be one, unless something drastic happens, like Jupiter resigning from the Solar System, in May and June. The full moon in April will appear about 7% larger and 15% brighter than your normal full moon.

Dear Ask the Paperboy,

Hold onto your moon rocks. You can’t fool me. I am of Social Security age and have never seen a “pink moon” and am not blind. Are you funning?

Ronnie in Nashville

Dear Ronnie,

No one, unless they were on LSD or had just studied all night for a calculus exam, has ever seen a pink moon. Historians tell us these supermoons were named, likely by Native Americans, for seasons. April’s is a Pink Moon because of phlox, a pink flower that typically blooms in April in North America. Or because of the pink Supper Bubble or Big League Chew, a gum Little Leaguers are partial to this time of year. The Super Flower Moon (true story) will come on May 26 and is so named because so many flowers will be in bloom in North America then. We’re not scheduled to have a Supermoon in August, but if we did, it would be called (and you already knew this) the “It’s Not So Much The Heat, It’s The Humidity, Although It IS The Heat, Who Are We Kidding?” Moon.

Dear Ask the Paperboy,

You seem to know a lot about space. How come?

Moonlight Graham

Dear MG,

It’s once in a blue moon that a Pink Moon, or any other moon event, sneaks up on Paperboy. What Paperboy knows about cricket or nanosystems or panty hose, you could put in a teacup and have room left over for a couple of Oreos and a Snickers bar. Maybe even half an Almond Joy to boot. But Paperboy knows about space, mainly because he’s got plenty unfilled between his ears.

Paperboy was putting together plastic lunar modules and Saturn Vs in the mid-60s, same time Neil Armstrong was learning to tie a moon boot. While Paperboy could not do the multiplication tables, he knew where Mission Control was. And Cape Canaveral. And knew almost as much about Sputnik and the Gemini Program as he did about Tammy Wynette, which was a lot. When you grow up 43 miles from an interstate and you’re not driving a tractor, you read a good bit.

Dear Ask the Paperboy,

Worst Dad Joke about space you’ve ever heard? I already regret asking.

Joey in Jonesboro

Dear Joey,

So …

What did the alien say to the garden?

“Take me to your weeder!”

(Paperboy already regrets answering.)

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