Tuesday, March 25, 2008

The Claw

When I was a kid I knew that my dad still had his first baseman's mitt from high school. We brought it back out in the mid 80's. It was a 1941 Rudy York model. It had three separate "finger" looking sections to it. It was about two thirds the size of today's standard fielder's glove, but was the biggest thing ever seen back then. My dad let me use it and I brought it out to the bleachers to show my friends. They nicknamed it "the claw." I had it out there for a few games and it paid off big. I caught a line drive homer off Dave Winfield. If you know how Winfield hit his homers (screaming line drives), and that there was only the palm to catch the ball in, then you can figure out that my hand hurt for not just a few hours.

2 comments:

  1. You snagged a liner off of Dave Winfield? With a glove made in the 40's? Yowza, you were a man trapped in a kid's body! I bet your paw aches to this day.

    Thanks for your comments re: Davey Lopes. Naturally (I guess)I really despised the Giants growing up, yet for years we had season tickets to the single A Fresno Giants right down the street. I rooted for them in Fresno and prayed for their failure in SF! We had some great players come through, Bob Brenly, Mike Aldrete, Chili Davis, Robbie Thompson, Will Clark, Chris Brown, Dan Gladden, Rob Deer, etc. The Cal league was pretty awesome!

    There were a couple of Giants I didn't mind. Namely Darrell Evans and Matt Williams. Willie McCovie was a freak, who couldn't like him?

    The A's have always been my American League team.

    BTW, I can't believe you tipped back a few with George Brett!

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  2. Sorry, just realized it's McCovey, not McCovie. What a tard I am...

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